"Then and Now" - December 6, 2019

[oldjudge]

Late inspiration. I’m on a shore. Hopefully, not the Jersey Shore, although I do see someone who looks a like like Snooki. Great weekend otherwise with my Badgers finding out that they are playing on New Year’s Day in the Rose Bowl, which is literally down the hill from my house.

[BethA]

Wrong guess submitted...dang!

[Jeff S]

I'm still stuck on the ship, with no obvious way off. Oh, well.

EDIT: I just saw the solution on Crossword Fiend, and I can safely say that I have never heard of this particular duo and could never have solved the meta no matter how much time I spent on it.

[FKelly]

It really amazes me that some have solved it in 25, 26, 32 minutes. So quick, it can't that complex. Or is it that I've seen the answer and just don't recognize it as the answer its so obscure? Looks like I stepped in the Scooby Doo this time.

[MajordomoTom]

I think you either got this one or struggled. Or both.

[Hidden in 3D]

After reading everyone's posts, I am so glad I spent most of my weekend enjoying a visit from our daughter, son-in-law and sweet little granddaughter! For once, I am content to be lost at sea!

[MajordomoTom]

The "obvious" part:

The four "themed" answers are:

BatedBreath
WashDishes
FrankBruni
PlaysGoalie

embedded in those are two words, one the past/then tense of the verb, the other a present tense/now of the verb.

ATE/ EAT
WAS/ IS
RAN/ RUN
LAY/ LIE (I would argue that this one isn't really past tense, but let's move on)

There are five "(d)" clues in the puzzle. Four of them "correspond" to these. I.e., move(d) quickly would be RAN/RUN. Live(d) would be WAS/IS.

The fifth (d) clue - Emerge(d) victorious ... doesn't have one of those word pairs in the puzzle. If it did, that would be WON/WIN.

Now is the leap of faith - that this word pair - WON/WIN is the past tense/present tense of a fifth clue ... that's not in the puzzle ... that would be the cartoon duo required.

The only one I've found that matches this would be WONDER TWINS. Which is what I have submitted. And, prior to today, had never heard of.

We'll see if that's the answer.

[BethA]

Double dang! I was googling for the right thing, but could never find it!

[MajordomoTom]

From the WON/WIN and the duo, I guessed the TWINS part and that helped my G search.

[tim1217]

Meh

[FrankH]

I am surmising that the 80% crew are relative newcomers. If you are looking for the fifth answer in the grid, then you won't find it as it is not there, because it is the meta answer that you are supposed to provide. There have been a few metas in the past (but not recently) where the instruction to find the answer would include wording like: something to complete the theme of the puzzle. This one is in the same vein.

[MajordomoTom]

per the WSJ website, that's the answer. "which leads to WONDER TWINS".

[Al Sisti]

The more I thought about my answer all weekend, the more confident I was that mine was correct, even though I don't think I knew them. But I'll take it.

[Tony S]

This has to be the worst meta ever. I got to WON/WIN and that's as far as I could go. I'm supposed to infer Wonder Twins, an obscure cartoon if there ever was one, from that? Margaret Cho and Marie Kondo move over --- you have been evicted!

[Jeremy Smith]

At least the answer was not described as a “famous” cartoon duo.

[hcbirker]

I was lucky enough to google the answer correctly (Wonder Twins). I was slowed by the answer to 39 across as to look at "emerge" or "emerge victorious" as the clue to the meta. Is it emerge or victorious? Once I googled "cartoon with wonder" in the title I got it.

[Eric Porter]

Wonder Twins was the only possibility I could find. Fortunately they were on Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Animated_duos
If I were devious, I would would have edited them out of the article. (I'm not.)

I kept looking for win/won in the grid, before realizing I wasn't going to find those words in the grid.

[BrianMac]

This was like an early Christmas present from Matt Gaffney to us Gen Xers. If you were born before or after that, you were probably scratching your head. But if you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons in the late 70's and early 80's, you are very familiar with the Wonder Twins. You may not remember their names were Zan and Jayna, but you probably remember their pet monkey, Gleek!

I got a big kick out of this one. Thanks for the nostalgia, Matt!

[Tom Shea]

This has to be the worst meta ever. I got to WON/WIN and that's as far as I could go. I'm supposed to infer Wonder Twins, an obscure cartoon if there ever was one, from that? Margaret Cho and Marie Kondo move over --- you have been evicted!

You forgot Yma Sumac.

[FrankH]

This has to be the worst meta ever. I got to WON/WIN and that's as far as I could go. I'm supposed to infer Wonder Twins, an obscure cartoon if there ever was one, from that? Margaret Cho and Marie Kondo move over --- you have been evicted!

Using Google or other search engine is fair game for Matt Gaffney. So be prepared to use it for his metas.