Much ado, but not about nothing; “Do you serve sausage links at this chain?” Pick-a-nickname basket; Nation-building, one letter at a time; Director’s cut and pastry

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER (876 + 54) SERVED

Welcome to our October 13th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria!

In this edition of Puzzleria!, we celebrate the opening of the NBA season by shooting a ⇓⇓ pair of hoop-dee-doo Appetizers out to you. 

Also on our menus are:

⇓ One restaurant-chain Slice

⇓ One 20-part Riffing-Off-Shortz Slice, and

⇓ One “pair-of-pastries” puzzle for Dessert.

No need to drain the swamp. (’Tis a Trumpian task.) 

Instead, just step behind the rainbow arc, let your best shots rain down, and drain those threes!

It may just be enjoyable.

Appetizer Menu

Rewriting The Headline Appetizer:

Much ado, but not about nothing

The 2017-18 National Basketball Association season begins this week. 

Almost six years ago a young NBA player came out of nowhere and amazingly led his team to victory in a string of consecutive games. 

The national media, fandom and entire sports world celebrated this scintillating meteoric sensation. Among the headlines were “Thrillin’!” and “Against All Odds!” 

Another headline might have read:

“_ _ _ is really _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _!”

in which the first word is the surname of the sensational player and the final word is a common compound word, but used in an informal sense.

Reverse the order of the letters in the surname and replace the final word with an antonym to form the following factual statement:

“_ _ _ is really _ _ _ _ _ _ _.”

What are this headline and statement? Who is the player?

Hint: Spoonerize the player’s name and you’ll name a legendary town of the Old West and a drink that might be served at a saloon in that town.

National Basketball Appetizer:

Pick-a-nickname basket

Name the full name (city and nickname) of one of the thirty National Basketball Association teams. (For example, the full name of an NFL team might be the Green Bay Packers; of an NHL team, the Pittsburgh Penguins; and of a MLB team, the Boston Red Sox.)

Delete the first four letters of the city. Saying the result aloud sounds like the nicknames of two NBA teams – just the nicknames, not the cities.

What two NBA teams are these?

Hint: These two teams have played more than 100 games in head-to-head competition. Thus far, each has won exactly half of them. 

MENU

Antonymous Slice:

“Do you serve sausage links at this chain?”

Name a restaurant chain based in the United States but with outlets worldwide. Divide it between two of its interior letters. 

The second part sounds like a noun, the adjective form of which is an antonym of the first part of the chain.

What is the restautant chain? What are the antonyms?

Riffing Off Shortz And Stuart Slices:

Nation-building, one letter at a time 

Will Shortz’s October 1st NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, created by Chris Stuart, reads: 

Take the name of a country. Insert an E somewhere inside it. You’ll get a phrase that answers the question: What did Henry Ford do?

Puzzleria’s! Riffing Off Shortz and Stuart Slice reads:

In each of the 20 puzzles below, insert the letter indicated (in parentheses) somewhere inside the name of a country it to form what is clued:

(The position of the letter in each clue’s answer is indicated by the number in parentheses at the end of the clue. Some countries may be used more than once.)

Example: 
(O) Infatuation with an A. A. Milne character (2 or 3) 

Answer: Roo mania (Romania) 

1. (T) What Henry Ford’s Model T did? (2)

2. (Y) Bad eggs (5)

3. (S) A submarine-wear acronym (1)

4. (N) Jailer (4)

5. (R) A pair of containers (3)

6. (R)  “Take ahold of this!” (2)

7. (R) Painful wrist twist (3)

8. (L) What Ricky Ricardo wants Lucy to do when she messes up (3)

9. (L) Q: “What’s __ ____?” A: “Sodium cocoate, sodium palmate, sodium tallowate, sodium palm kennelate...” (6)

10. (D) Reno or Las Vegas? (1)

11. (E) Baltimore? (3)

12. (I) Hawaii? (3)

13. (I) Opening to a memo meant for a movie character portrayed by Teri Garr (3)

14. (A) Beheld Paradise (2)

15. (S) “The new egg-shaped speaker! (manufactured by a Milwaukee-based corporation)” (3 or 4)

16. (O) Render “Orinoco Flow” singer unconscious in the squared circle (2)

17. (M) Attached “Sistine Madonna” by Raphael to a wall in the Louvre (5)

18. (R) Large supermarket chain in Trinidad and Tobago (2)

19. (S) An hombre “who was a singer, dancer, actor, and musician in Mexico,” according to Wikipedia (6)

20. (L) Surname of Happy, Biff and Willy (1)

Dessert Menu

Cinnamontography Dessert:

Director’s cut and pastry

Name a reasonably well-known actress. 

Move the last letter of her first name to the beginning, forming a pastry. 

Form a different pastry by replacing the fourth letter of her last name with the fourth letter of her first name and adding a letter to the end.

Who is this actress? 

What are the two pastries?

Every Friday 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 Friday.

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.