"Showtime" November 25, 2022

[Dplass]

Well of course, it seems so obvious now. But I didn’t know what to do with the years, so I added the four digits of each year. Got 26, 19, 22, 21, and 17. The letters in those numbered squares S, I, E, P, C anagram into my answer: EPICS.

I like it!

[Tom Wilson]

Well of course, it seems so obvious now. But I didn’t know what to do with the years, so I added the four digits of each year. Got 26, 19, 22, 21, and 17. The letters in those numbered squares S, I, E, P, C anagram into my answer: EPICS.

That was my answer, too. It didn't seem right, but it was all I could find.

My answer, too. Seems like a stretch in hindsight, but - as a "Lawrence of Arabia" fan - it made perfect sense at the time.

[LadyBird]

Well of course, it seems so obvious now. But I didn’t know what to do with the years, so I added the four digits of each year. Got 26, 19, 22, 21, and 17. The letters in those numbered squares S, I, E, P, C anagram into my answer: EPICS.

Fortunately, when I got these five letters, I anagrammed them to SPICE. That didn't fit the prompt, so I kept looking. My husband, looking at it later, saw EPICS. If I had seen that first, I might have stopped looking.

[sjm]

Well of course, it seems so obvious now. But I didn’t know what to do with the years, so I added the four digits of each year. Got 26, 19, 22, 21, and 17. The letters in those numbered squares S, I, E, P, C anagram into my answer: EPICS.

I also went down this same rabbit hole! The only reason I didn’t submit this answer was because I couldn’t find a justification for arranging the letters in that order… so I sought some outside help and got nudged back to the right track.

[pjc]

I was on team SCORE, but I like EPICS as an alternate.

This was a quick one for me this week. I floundered for a few minutes until the 'oh - the dates can't be there just to help us with grid answers' moment kicked in and then it was a fast swim.

On another note, I've really been enjoying the Boswords tournament this season and am looking forward to the Championship puzzle tonight. The puzzles have had that feeling of "I'm never going to be able to complete this grid" for a while and then, magically, ten minutes later, I'm done! Very, very satisfying.

[Susan Goldberg]

When I was trying to solo solve, I was stuck in a shallow but persistent rabbit hole regarding alternate clue answers. 54A "Test by a Neurologist" fits EEG, but I smiled with joy when I realized that is also a "Spinal Tap". How could that not be the right path? Thankfully my son saved the weekend by focusing instead on the year clue, otherwise I would never have been able to let this go.

Ha! I wish I’d had your son’s counsel. I took that thread all the way through the weekend - so there was spinal tap and EEG; there was the hunger and miss sitting down to eat; then I even went to “chef,” for Child’s play (as in Julia Child); and spent 100 hours on polyester and the hustler only to get nowhere. I think I should get the rabbit’s award at least for my efforts.

[jrdad]

My solution was EPICS as well. But the anagram seemed clunky and it wasn't complicated enough to fit all the 'wows' from solvers, so I took the tender of shame back to the boat.

[MatthewL]

Was on team EPICS as well, but didn't submit because I thought that just couldn't be right. Should've known it would be something to do with counting letters in the themers -- Mike seems to like this mechanism (i.e., the Math puzzle back in August, the Countdown puzzle back in July, etc.). Will keep this in mind for next time.

[whimsy]

I trod many of the same unrewarding paths.

What kept me away from using the entire YEAR a la @Collegetowngirl was the word "...usually" in the clue!

And @Susan Goldberg, our minds were working alike! How could Miss sitting down.... MUFFET not be a camouflaged tie-in?! (I stretched the POLYESTER to be garish dresses in a "Shop collection", and the HUSTLER to be "Profitable extraction.")

My own extremely shallow hole, looking at Oscar winners like @clonefitz did, was seeing that two words in the grid, CHAIR and SOTS gave me Chariots (of Fire) -- with a single "S" left over. Surely that would be one that with several companions would form a 5 letter answer! Didn't go anywhere but was briefly a lot of fun!

[EmilyW]

When I first tried this approach, I had a little counting issue in CHILDSPLAY and thought P was the 8th letter which gave me CAPP, which happens to be an answer in the grid. I really thought I was on to something there but of course that was not the case for the rest of the themers. Luckily it didn't take me too long to figure out my error.

[HunterX]

Wow. What a construction! Wish I'd tried the years. I kept thinking, "Does he expect us to look up the actual time of day the movies premiered? Seems like a Mission Impossible to me." But travel-brain-fog kept me from going to the year.

And after not sleeping much on the 8 hour flight from Johannesburg to Doha, it just wasn't in cards for me. Didn't sleep much on the 15 hour flight either, so I was pretty much Dazed and Confused. Tried working on the puzzle, and reading, but I could barely manage watching a couple movies. Only the wine drinking seemed to be easy.

Funny how "signposts" are obvious once you've reached the destination. I guess the trick is learning how to spot and read them when they're hiding in the bushes along the road.

[kurtalert]

Damn. I knew the year had something to do with it, given the TIME part of the title and the fact that each theme clue specifically mentioned the film's year, but I was trying to use the numbers directly with the entire grid, as opposed to just the theme clues... oh well. Another "3+ step" meta, I never seem to be able to solve these.

[mikeB]

I'm seeing trends regarding the puzzles that I can't solve. I will have to try to keep these lessons in mind next time I'm stumped. I knew the year was significant, but I was chasing the rabbit hole of looking up Oscar winners from those years and hoping to see a pattern.

Ah, yes, what to do with the years. I too was also thinking about other films for those years, but then I realized that it is far more probable that the mechanism would implicate the five actual entries – not just the dates appearing in the clues. Reinforcing that thought was noticing that all five years were in the 1900s. That didn’t have the feel of a coincidence. I surmised the constructor was “forced” to use all 1900s, because the current century’s years would have (unwanted) zeroes. But why wouldn’t he like zeroes? Aha. I concluded the digits must be pointing to letters in the entry (which zeroes can't do) and, furthermore, that all four digits are used each time. This rationale also rescued me from a rabbit hole based on 71A -- ONES. Because of its position in the grid, I thought the 1s in the dates might be relevant and started trying to figure out how to fiddle with those. It was only a drive-by, but I could feel the rabbit hole's gravitational pull. Thanks to Mr. Schenk for a very clever and enjoyable meta.

[michaelm]

Originally I thought YEAR would simply add an N (YEARN) as a pair for THEHUNGER and solve would be a matter of finding four other similar adds.
Also played around with all of the answers with ONE (NONE, LONE, ONES), TWO (AGETWO) and EIGHT (EIGHTH).
My wife got to witness solve in realtime early Sunday morning as I asked her to write some specific letters down.
As many have noted about their non-meta-obsessed loved ones, I was way more in awe than she was.
She was, however, way more happy it was over!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is SCORE. Using the digits of the year (as suggested by the clue for YEAR at 13-Down) for each theme movie title, if you take the letters in those four positions, you get a word (like CALL from the letters of CHILDSPLAY in positions 1, 9, 8 and 8). The resulting words (CALL, PREP, TIPS, TREE, TEST) are the first words of five clues, and the first letters of the answers to those clues spell the contest answer.

Breathtakingly brilliant, challenging contest this week. This one stumped some solvers we know (including yours truly) and drew 968 entries--fewer than average but a robust number for a tough puzzle. About 80% correct, also impressive. Incorrect entries included GENRE (30), ACTION (12), SCENE (5), CAMEO (4), and several others.

Congratulations to this week's winner: Katherine Soave of Midland, Mich.!

[MikeMillerwsj]

oh and 20 for EPICS! (see discussion above)

[MikeyG]

Simply brilliant, and the rabbit holes I went down were immense.

Interestingly, all five are considered CULT FILMS, but I couldn't do much with that. Not sure how, but eventually, it all clicked into place. Tried running times, year of release, cross-referencing with Academy Award winners, caught SHEAR for a SHEARER reference to SPINALTAP. It was a mess - and that's a good thing! The fun about meta is trying to untangling loose ends - and figuring out which loose ends should be discarded anyhow!

What a construction! This one definitely SCOREs some points in my book!

[Barney]

OK. So I am competing now for the Rabbit Hole Award. First of all, I looked at the title SHOWTIMES and the answer A MOVIE TERM. So like many of the solvers I continued to dig deeper and eventually found the puzzle answer, but for some reason, it didn’t really seem to fit from my experience. Because, before I actually solved the “real” answer I went down a Rabbit Hole which seemed much more fitting to my experience. Now when I think of movies, I think of ones I see in the actual movie theatre. And because I love my wife, I let her decide which movies we watch. And because my wife is such a wonderful and loving person, she always chooses those ones that were described in a recent WSJ puzzle answer, namely, ROMCOMS. Personally, I enjoy documentaries, sports, games etc. but not ROMCOMS. So, when I first started solving the puzzle, I took the end number from each of the year dates in the clues. Namely 8, 1, 4, 3 and 1. So then when I counted back to the letters in those numerical amounts, I came up with L, P, S, E and T, in that order. So then after rearrangement I came up with and ANSWER: SLEPT!! Which is exactly what I do when watch a ROMCOM movie! So that is the answer I submitted.

Please let this be the Rabbit Hole Award Winner.

This puzzle was classic Shenk with a twist. Quite a twist.

Probably would not have gotten it even if I wasn’t … a bit under the weather.

[Susan Goldberg]

I trod many of the same unrewarding paths.

What kept me away from using the entire YEAR a la @Collegetowngirl was the word "...usually" in the clue!

And @Susan Goldberg, our minds were working alike! How could Miss sitting down.... MUFFET not be a camouflaged tie-in?! (I stretched the POLYESTER to be garish dresses in a "Shop collection", and the HUSTLER to be "Profitable extraction.")

My own extremely shallow hole, looking at Oscar winners like @clonefitz did, was seeing that two words in the grid, CHAIR and SOTS gave me Chariots (of Fire) -- with a single "S" left over. Surely that would be one that with several companions would form a 5 letter answer! Didn't go anywhere but was briefly a lot of fun!

Ah Whimsy. I knew we were kindred spirits. I tried the same two paths with hustler and polyester - but at a certain point it became clear - this just wasn’t going to work! (I had a spinal tap once and it is seared in my memory; I think that’s why I just couldn’t give this up.)

[Janet]

The contest answer is SCORE. Using the digits of the year (as suggested by the clue for YEAR at 13-Down) for each theme movie title, if you take the letters in those four positions, you get a word (like CALL from the letters of CHILDSPLAY in positions 1, 9, 8 and 8). The resulting words (CALL, PREP, TIPS, TREE, TEST) are the first words of five clues, and the first letters of the answers to those clues spell the contest answer.

Breathtakingly brilliant, challenging contest this week. This one stumped some solvers we know (including yours truly) and drew 968 entries--fewer than average but a robust number for a tough puzzle. About 80% correct, also impressive. Incorrect entries included GENRE (30), ACTION (12), SCENE (5), CAMEO (4), and several others.

Congratulations to this week's winner: Katherine Soave of Midland, Mich.!

It would be fun to see a summary of each year of where the winners are from. Something like a map with pins in it. Perhaps with a miniature mug instead of a pin.