“What kind of animal is Oscar?” Grafting branches of science; Bafflers for Learned Solvers; “Oh I wish I were an Oscar lyre winner...” “This film lacks action... Edit! ” Act of Congress, “actor of congrats”

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Schpuzzle Of The Week:
“What kind of animal is Oscar?”

Change a letter in the title of a Best Picture Oscar winner to a “u”. Three letters of this result, in order but not consecutively, spell an animal. Remove them.
The letters letters that remain, in order, spell a very familiar variant spelling of a similar animal. What are these animals and movie?

Appetizer Menu

Academy Conundrums Appetizer:
“Oh I wish I were an Oscar lyre winner...”

🥁1. Take the last name of an Oscar winning film director from the early years of Hollywood. Drop the first letter and reverse the remaining letters to name a modern device for watching movies and television.
🥁2. Name a recently famous actor, first and last names. Drop a vowel from the first name to get an acronym for a digital file format. Drop a vowel from the last name to get an acronym for a popular New York tourist destination.
🥁3. Name a well-known actor, first and last names, best known for their role in a well-known television series. Interchange the second letters of the names. (For example, “Ted Danson” would become “Tad Denson”.) 
Remove the first three letters of the result, add a vowel, and rearrange. The result will be the title and last name of a character from that same series.

Swedish Dish  Appetizer:
Act of Congress, “actor of congrats”

Take the name of an act proposed in Congress, in two words of six letters each. These words, an adjective and noun, are those that a U.S. president has used to describe himself.
Switch the beginning two consonants of the first word with the beginning consonant of the second word, forming two new words – proper nouns of five and seven letters.
The five-letter noun is the last name of an Oscar-winning actor. 
The seven-letter noun is the last name of any of three people: a 17th-century Dutch theologian or either of two 20th-century Swedish journalists.
Who are this Oscar-winning actor, theologian and journalists?
What is the proposed congressional act?

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Lights, Camera... Slice:
“This film lacks action... Edit!”

Take the first word of a two-word Oscar-nominated film title from the past. If you delete its first letter the result is a verb. 
Delete the last letter of this verb and last letter of the second word in the title. Rearrange the letters that remain to spell a synonym of the verb. 
What film is this?

Riffing Off Shortz Slices:
Bafflers for Learned Solvers

Will Shortz’s February 2nd NPR Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle, provided by crossword editor Peter Gordon, reads:
The actress Michael Learned, who played the mother on The Waltons, has an unusual property in her name. The last three letters of her first name are the same as the first three letters of her last name reversed. The name of what current celebrity has the same property? Here’s a hint: The first and last names each have 6 letters.
Puzzleria!s Riffing Off Shortz Slices read:
ENTREE #1
A Beatle once penned a song all by himself. A second Beatle didn’t think it was good enough for the Beatles to record, so the first Beatle gave it to his girlfriend’s brother, a member of a duo that had just landed a recording contract. The duo recorded the song and it became a chart-topper in both the United Kingdom and the United States, knocking the Beatles off the top of the charts. 
Remove a conjunction from the name of this duo. The result is the name of a puzzle maker.
Who is this puzzle maker. What is the name of the duo?
ENTREE #2
The actress Michael Learned has an unusual property in her name. The last three letters of her first name are the same as the first three letters of her last name reversed. The name of what 300-pound “gambling czar” nicknamed “Bones” who was associated with the likes of Bugsy Siegel Jack Ruby, Nick the Greek and “Baby Face” Nelson has the same property?
Who is this czar? 
Here’s a hint: The first and last names have 5 letters and 6 letters.
ENTREE #3
The last three letters of the first name of a past miller from Minneapolis are the same as the first three letters of his last name reversed. He was a tad too young to serve as a doughboy in WWI but he was president of his milling company when a doughboy was introduced as its mascot. This miller lost the tips of three fingers, the result of his hands getting caught in the rollers of flour grinding machines.
Who is this miller?
Here’s a hint: The first and last names have 6 letters and 9 letters.
ENTREE #4
The last three letters of the first name of a child television actor are the same as the first three letters of her last name reversed. 
She and her identical twin sister work on the same productions, taking turns on the set. If you spell the first name of this actor’s twin backward, the result is a synonym of “goal.” 
Who is this actor? 
Here’s a hint: The first and last names of her have 4 and 5 letters.
ENTREE #5
The first three letters of the first name of a president’s brother are the first three letters, but reversed, of the last name of that president’s vice president.
Who are this brother and vice president? 
Here’s a hint: The vice-president and the president’s wife share a distinction that is unique in U.S. history.
ENTREE #6
The last three letters of a Brooklyn-based Chilean artist’s first name are the same as the first three letters of the artist’s last name reversed. Who is this artist? 
Here’s a hint: The artist’s media include lights, mirrors and glowing glass.
ENTREE #7
Take the name of a woman before she married a billionaire industrialist from California in the early 1930s. The last three letters of her first name are the same as the first three letters of her pre-marriage last name reversed. The woman was an art aficionado and philanthropist, and instilled an appreciation and love of art in her husband who subsequently accumulated a substantial private art collection., which is house in a Pasadena museum that bears his name.
Who is this woman? 
Here’s a hint: Her first name is an anagram of two of the five words in the sentence, “I’ll give you a clue.”
ENTREE #8
The last three letters of the first name of a retired undefeated female pugilist are the same as the three letters of her last name reversed. 
Who is this pugilist? 
Here’s a hint: Her first name has 5 letters.

Dessert Menu

Bio-Branching Dessert:
Grafting branches of science

Name a redundant two-word phrase – consisting of an adjective and plural noun – associated with biological science. Remove the first two and last two letters from the first word and replace a “que” with a “c” in the second word to spell a different branch of science, in two words.  What are these four words?


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.

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