Landing some seafood, Skydiveboy-style; Appliance mixed up a mess o’ Applesauce! “Well I’ve been to the Desert playInn’ games with two names...” Beauty & the Bug? A couplet for couples; Souped-up car, kinda fishy!

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 5πe² SERVED

Schpuzzle of the Week:

“Well I’ve been to the Desert playInn’ games with two names...”

Pool or Billiards? Hoops or Basketball? Clue or Cluedo? Words with Friends or Scrabble? Monopoly or Rich Uncle? Quidditch or Quadball? Table Tennis or Ping-Pong? (...Sorry, Will Shortz!); Soccer or Football? Tenpins or Bowling? Bingo or Housey-Housey
Squash or Zucchini? (Oops, ignore that last one... zucchini is no game, just a gourd!)

The following trio of clues (which is actually a sextet of clues) point to one game that goes by two different names (the clues for the name of the second game appear in purple within parentheses):

~ the first word of a lullaby (or, just the first half of it) 

~ something made from mixed-up mash (or, just mixed-up “mash”) 

~ what Bernice does to her hair... (no BS!) 

What are the two names of this one game?

Appetizer Menu

Skydiversionary Appetizer:

Landing some seafood, Skydiveboy-Style!

Landing some seafood

🐟🦀Think of a seafood in seven letters. 

Remove the initial letter and say the remainder out loud to phonetically name a land food.

What are these foods?

MENU

Ubiquitous Ambiguous Hors d’Oeuvre:

Beauty and the Bug?

Take a U.S. State Postal abbreviation followed by a ubiquitous abbreviation that contains more than just two letters.

The result is a word that is a beauty... or a bug!

 What is this “ambiguous beauty-or-bug” result?

Hint: The second abbreviation is embedded in the middle of a major U.S. city that is home to a vibrant street motor-racing scene.

Blissful Slice:

A couplet for couples

Name a pair of blissful things that peaceful creatures do:

One is like a kiss, the other’s sung by two who woo.

Do as the couplet suggests. 

Name the two blissful things.

Riffing Off Shortz And Streit Entrees:

Appliance mixed up a mess o’ Applesauce!

Will Shortz’s February 15th Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Tom Streit, of Crozet, Virginia, reads:

 A man said to a friend: “I’m thinking of a 9-letter word that contains my name, Ian (“I-A-N”), embedded somewhere inside it. 

If you replace my 3-letter name with your 4-letter name, you’ll get a familiar word in 10 letters.” What are the two words, and what is the name of Ian’s friend?

Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz And Streit Entrees read:

ENTREE #1

Take the last word in the title of an Alfred Hitchcock-directed movie and the only word in a second such Hitchcock movie, both from the 1950s. 

Also take the second word of a 4-word 1970s movie with the director as its leading man. 

Change the last letter of this second word with the only letter in the alphabet that rhymes with it.

Rearrange these combined 17 letters to spell the first name, surname and home state of a puzzle-maker.

What are these three movie title words and the name of the puzzlemaker?

Note: Appetizers #2 through #7 are the handiwork of our friend and riffmaster-general, Nodd.

ENTREE #2

An 8-letter word contains actor-director Ron Howard’s first name somewhere inside it. If you replace his name with the 3-letter first name of another famous actor, you’ll get a different 8-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the other actor?

ENTREE #3 

A 9-letter word contains actress Ari Graynor’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace her name with the 4-letter first name of another famous actress, you’ll get a 10-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the other actress?

ENTREE #4

An 8-letter word contains actress Mena Suvari’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace her name with the 4-letter first name of a famous fictional character, you'll get another 8-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the character?

ENTREE #5

A 7-letter word contains political commentator Ann Coulter’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace her name with the 4-letter first name of another famous commentator, now deceased, you’ll get an 8-letter word. 

What are the two words, and what is the name of the other commentator?

ENTREE #6

A 9-letter word contains actor Tim Allen’s first name somewhere inside it. If you replace his name with the 5-letter first name of another famous actor, you’ll get an 11-letter word. 

What are the two words, and what is the name of the other actor?

ENTREE #7

A 13-letter word contains past singer-songwriter Reg Presley’s first name somewhere inside it. 

If you replace his name with the 3-letter first
name of another famous past singer, youll get a another 13-letter word. 

What are the two words, and who is the second singer?

ENTREE #8

A plural 6-letter word for certain birds contains the first name of a Tarzan-portrayer (not surnamed Weissmuller) somewhere inside it. 

If you replace this first name with the 3-letter first name of an actor who appeared on “Seinfeld” you’ll get a different plural 6-letter word that pertains to people named Hunt, Mirren and Thomas. 

What are the two words, and who are the two actors?

Dessert Menu

Fishtailing Dessert:

Souped-up car, Kinda fishy!

Name two words that mean to speed away from someplace in a souped-up car, motorcycle, van or other vehicle.

Move the first letter into the space between the words to form a word for a kind of fish.

What are these three words?

Every Thursday at Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! we publish a new menu of fresh word puzzles, number puzzles, logic puzzles, puzzles of all varieties and flavors. We cater to cravers of scrumptious puzzles!

Our master chef, Grecian gourmet puzzle-creator Lego Lambda, blends and bakes up mysterious (and sometimes questionable) toppings and spices (such as alphabet soup, Mobius bacon strips, diced snake eyes, cubed radishes, “hominym” grits, anagraham crackers, rhyme thyme and sage sprinklings.)

Please post your comments below. Feel free also to post clever and subtle hints that do not give the puzzle answers away. Please wait until after 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesdays to post your answers and explain your hints about the puzzles. We serve up at least one fresh puzzle every Thursday.

We invite you to make it a habit to “Meet at Joe’s!” If you enjoy our weekly puzzle party, please tell your friends about Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Thank you.