Till the Hippopotami, said "Ask no further 'What am I?'"

[woozy]

Hi-ho. Me again.

Okay, my last attempt was just a rough joke. This one, my first real meta, is better I think. Although it still has several hacked entries to force a fit. I didn't really want to make the reveal a full week but ... I didn't seem to have any choice.

The answer to the meta is an animal

https://crosshare.org/crosswords/KtFzYp ... -what-am-i

I have no idea if this is difficult or easy. Constructing still seems to be absolutely impossible as some of my ... weird.... entries show.

[woozy]

I can't edit the grid once I publish, but for various reasons I felt I had to.

As a workaround I have added so Alternative Solutions to some entries and rewritten the clues to the changes. I'm not sure what the outcome will be but imagine the entries have changed.

The main change is 28A clue is no longer "The Barber of Seville"; it is now "It's over! Done! No mas!"

A few down clues have been changed as well.

[woozy]

Hmmm.... I have a corrected version as a PUZ file.... and then I realized I have no idea where or how to post it.

[benchen71]

Solved! Thanks for the entertaining puzzle, @woozy.

[Abide]

Swing and a miss. I'll check back in six days.

edit: got it now

[woozy]

Here is the reference to the title by the way

How long does it take for Crosshare to load a cover pic?

[benchen71]

Hmmm.... I have a corrected version as a PUZ file.... and then I realized I have no idea where or how to post it.

Send it to Joe Ross and he will reply with a link.

[woozy]

Eek... a couple of errors. I fixed one. But the other is severe. Clue 52 D is ... not part of the meta.

[woozy]

Okay, we have 3 on the leaderboard: Congratulations benchen71, Hector, Abide

Some alternative clues and entries (I'm not going to attempt to edit) to solve an issue:

52A) Dynasty that was the longest in Chinese History (11th century B.C - 221 B.C)
52D) Nothing; or a lighter (take your pick)
53D) Editor of "The Annotated Wizard of Oz"
54D) (Please forgive me) "So are you going to try something new at the BBQ" "Nah, I'll jus' stick with the same ------" (Ugh.... please forgive me)

(Still not sure why my cover picture is not showing up on crosshare)

[boharr]

Got it with a nudge. Tricky one, woozy.

[woozy]

Well, I certainly didn't mean for it to be tricky. In fact I was afraid I was making some of the aspect too obvious. Maybe I should go back and camp it up.

Edit: Made an edit to the puzzle. See if you can spot the difference.

[boharr]

Some of it was obvious, yes, and then it got tricky, which is not a bad thing.

[whimsy]

OK -- what's the tagline gonna be?
For now, I'm gonna say -- Off the merry-go-round! (woozied, no more!)

Suggesting a "Solved!" line shows we have confidence in ya, @woozy!

[woozy]

The wheels go round and round and the painted ponies go up and down

boharr and whimsy have gotten of the merry-go-round (or were hurled off)

[woozy]

So.... with the prompt being that answer is an animal and there being six animal entries in the grid. As well the are names of six characters that were these types of animals. They are in order of names SEABISCUIT- HORSE, POGO- OPOSSUM, NEMO- FISH, HOBBES-TIGER, DUMBO-ELEPHANT, and GARFIELD-CAT. The clues of these pairs of clues each begin with the same letter which spell out K-E-R-M-I-T a reference to Kermit the Frog

and the answer was FROG.

I thought some of the clues where oddly enough worded they would draw attention to themselves; especially why a fish would be a "representative" of anything and Nemo having the unnecessary adjective "reclusive", the clue for Opossum and Tiger worded oddly, etc but apparently they weren't as obvious as I thought. I figure when you have pairs of words that must be connected that after you can't see the connection in the words where else is there to look but in the clues. Apparently though this was harder than I thought.

I also had what I have begun thinking of a "Paloma issue". If one hadn't heard of any of these animal name pairs there'd be no reason to think a name refers to an animals, especially as the entire point was to give alternative non-character definitions for the names. Apparently Pogo is not as well known as it was in the past (I refuse to live in a world where Pogo is forgotten). And it was pointed out that Figaro is a Disney cat.

My biggest mistake though, I think, was in constructing the grid and painting myself into corners where words just don't fit I found that I could finish the grid IF "BIPPO" turns out to be a legitimate word. So I google and find there is a "Bippo's Place for Smiles" which will do, but the problem was Bippo the Hippo is an animal character not on the grid. I guess my thinking was that he wasn't a "serious" animal character to be "real".... sigh.

Anyway... thanks everyone for playing. Grid construction is hard and exhausting but incredibly fun.

The title is a reference to the classic children's book Johnny Crow's Garden full of beautiful illustrations and atrociously contrived rhymes:

And the stork
Gave a philosophical talk.
'Til the hippopotami
said "Ask no further what am I"
And the elephant
said something quire irrelevant
In Johnny Crow's Garden

The hint it gives is just that there are characters that are specific things. I considered an alternative title "Hi-ho, me here" but I figured that'd give away the answer without needing to work on the meta. BUt I think I'm discovering what seems obvious to the constructor who has manipulated concepts and dedicated hours to the puzzle, will no actually be obvious.

[madhatter5]

So.... with the prompt being that answer is an animal and there being six animal entries in the grid. As well the are names of six characters that were these types of animals. They are in order of names SEABISCUIT- HORSE, POGO- OPOSSUM, NEMO- FISH, HOBBES-TIGER, DUMBO-ELEPHANT, and GARFIELD-CAT. The clues of these pairs of clues each begin with the same letter which spell out K-E-R-M-I-T a reference to Kermit the Frog

and the answer was FROG.

I thought some of the clues where oddly enough worded they would draw attention to themselves; especially why a fish would be a "representative" of anything and Nemo having the unnecessary adjective "reclusive", the clue for Opossum and Tiger worded oddly, etc but apparently they weren't as obvious as I thought. I figure when you have pairs of words that must be connected that after you can't see the connection in the words where else is there to look but in the clues. Apparently though this was harder than I thought.

I also had what I have begun thinking of a "Paloma issue". If one hadn't heard of any of these animal name pairs there'd be no reason to think a name refers to an animals, especially as the entire point was to give alternative non-character definitions for the names. Apparently Pogo is not as well known as it was in the past (I refuse to live in a world where Pogo is forgotten). And it was pointed out that Figaro is a Disney cat.

My biggest mistake though, I think, was in constructing the grid and painting myself into corners where words just don't fit I found that I could finish the grid IF "BIPPO" turns out to be a legitimate word. So I google and find there is a "Bippo's Place for Smiles" which will do, but the problem was Bippo the Hippo is an animal character not on the grid. I guess my thinking was that he wasn't a "serious" animal character to be "real".... sigh.

Anyway... thanks everyone for playing. Grid construction is hard and exhausting but incredibly fun.

The title is a reference to the classic children's book Johnny Crow's Garden full of beautiful illustrations and atrociously contrived rhymes:

And the stork
Gave a philosophical talk.
'Til the hippopotami
said "Ask no further what am I"
And the elephant
said something quire irrelevant
In Johnny Crow's Garden

The hint it gives is just that there are characters that are specific things. I considered an alternative title "Hi-ho, me here" but I figured that'd give away the answer without needing to work on the meta. BUt I think I'm discovering what seems obvious to the constructor who has manipulated concepts and dedicated hours to the puzzle, will no actually be obvious.

You learned this faster than I did