Literary "crittercism"; Re-seeding the final four; Frames of preference

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER e^{5 +} 5²  SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! We have long been rid of winter. We shall very shortly be rid of spring. It must be time for a “long” riddle and a “Shortz” riddle:

1. How is a season that many of us long for like a snake that many of us loathe?

2. What is the difference between the inspiration for the Frisbee and a possible inspiration for the bling given to the triumphant puzzle solvers of Will Shortz’s National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday puzzle?

 

Speaking of Dr. Shortz’s NPR puzzle, this was his offering this week:

Think of an adjective that describes many shampoos. Add the brand name of a shampoo in its basic form. The result, reading the letters in order from left to right, will name a famous musician. Who is it?

You can find the answer here or here.

 
We posted a “knock-off” puzzle (also known as a “piggyback” puzzle) to this NPR puzzle in the comments section of last week’s Puzzleria! We reprint it here, and will reveal the answer in a day or two in our comments section unless someone beats us to it:

Think of an adjective that describes some shampoos. Add the brand name of a shampoo. The result, reading the letters in order from left to right, is the last name of a not-at-all-very-famous musician and the name of a not-at-all-very-famous band in which he played bass.

What are the adjective and the shampoo? Who are the bassist and the band?

Hint: The adjective is also a cash crop. Removing one letter from the shampoo brand results in a deplorable word, a form of which appeared in the title of a Vladimir Nabokov novel.

Speaking of world-class “shampioonship” puzzle makers, we are treated this week to another bonus morsel baked up by our Master Gourmet French Puzzle Chef “Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme,” also known as “skydiveboy,” and also known as Mark Scott of Seattle, Washington.

Bonus Every Pair Of Pictures Tells A Story Slice:

Frames of Preference

 

Which of these photos do you like best and why might they remind you of a popular entertainer of the past?

Who is it?

Hint: It is not anyone in the photos, nor is it anyone connected to a Wild West show.

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur. Another excellent serving of gourmet questionMarksmanship. And now, for a few servings of popular puzzling entertainment of the present, we present this week’s…

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Unidentified Flying Creatures Slice:

Literary “crittercism”

Take the name of a well-known fictional character, in three syllables.

 The first syllable is a flying critter. The third syllable is a homophone of a flying critter. The second syllable, if you insert one of the letters of the word “second” within it, is the plural form of a flying critter.

Who is this fictional character? What are these critters?

Reversal Of Forenut Slice:

Re-seeding the final four

Reversing the order of the final four letters of certain words results in a different word. Two examples of five-letter words with this quality are “plate” and “sloop” (which become “petal” and “spool”).

Can you think of a six-letter word with this quality? We can think of one.

Can you think of words of more than six letters that have this quality? We can think of one. It has twelve letters.

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Tuesdays 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.

Circuitously-to-television movie; Tea & Nidol; Best Beltway seller

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 13² SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! ‘Tis the Twelfth, not of Nevember but of June.

This past week’s National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle by Will Shortz went something like this:

“Name a famous person in Washington, D.C. – 7 letters in the first name, 5 letters in the last. Drop the last sound in the last name. The result – phonetically – will be the first and last name of a famous living entertainer. Who is it?”

In our opinion, depending on how Will defines “sound” and “famous,” there will be either one or two legitimate answer(s).

The famous Washingtonian in Will’s likely intended answer is a member of the president’s Cabinet. The famous Washingtonian in a possible alternative answer is a member of the Senate.

Here is a “piggyback” puzzle to Will Shortz's Sunday offering. Alternative answers are encouraged:

National Radio Public Slice:

Best Beltway Seller

Name a famous person in Washington, D.C. – 8 letters in the first name, 5 letters in the last. Remove the name of a fashion/lifestyle magazine that appears in the person’s first name and place a “t” in the center of what remains, forming a new first name.

Change a vowel in the person’s last name to a consonant and rearrange the result to form a new last name. These new names belong to an American best-selling author.

Who are these two people?

In her June 8 at 10:17 PM comment last week, Puzzleria! poster ViolinTeddy invoked the name of Sir Lawrence Olivier, who eventually became Lord Olivier. It reminded me of a doggerelical quatrain I wrote years ago:

Degrees of Olivity

Lord Lawrence, whom oodles of lady leads kissed,

Was more of an Olive than Oliver Twist,

Who in turn was more Olive than Popeye’s best goyle…

Though of all had her hair the Oliviest coyle!

ViolinTeddy’s comment also prompted me to compose an equally god-awful version one of those “St. Peter at the Pearly Gates” jokes:

It is July 11, 1989. Lord Lawrence Olivier approaches St. Peter at the Pearly Gates of Heaven. A few others are milling about including a scruffy bearded fellow in sandals and a robe with a big honkin’ halo hovering above his head.

St. Peter invites Olivier to take a seat in the Pearly Gate lobby and proceeds to thumb through some scrolls that presumably document accounts of the lives of the heaven-or-hell-bound. Olivier takes a seat and thumbs through a recent Variety magazine. The bearded dude sits down next to Olivier and thumbs through an old dog-eared Time magazine with the words “Is God Dead?” on the cover.  

After a few minutes St. Peter peers over his spectacles in the direction of Olivier and the bearded dude, and says, “Lord, I’m not sure where this guy should go, up or down. What do you think?”

“Well,” Olivier replies, “judging from his choice of reading material, I’m inclined to say he would have to go down.”

“I beg your pardon,” St. Peter says, “I was talking to Jesus.”  

Enough with the funny business. Enough with the doggerel. Enough with the pearls of pretentious pseudo-wisdom. It is time to enjoy some pearls of puzzledom:

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And Per Se And Slice

Circuitously-to-television movie

Take a movie with an ampersand (&) in its title and change the & to an “and.” From this result delete two strings of three consecutive letters each to reveal the name of a character on a past television situation comedy. What is this movie and who is this sitcom character?

Hint: The six deleted letters can be rearranged to form the first six letters of a large U.S. city. The remaining letters of the city spell out the first two letters of two other characters in the sitcom.

Devil’s Workshop Slice

Tea &Nidol

Add to the end of the first name of a former teen idol a physical feature that likely added to the idol’s popularity. Remove the initial letter from the result to form a term for people this idol worked with and dated.

Who is the idol? What is the physical feature? Who are the people the teen idol worked with and dated?

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Tuesdays 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.

Hot Wheels in the Summertime; Biopicable; Equestrian Thespian

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 13² SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! Welcome to June. Not officially summer yet, but we are in a summertime state of mind.

We heat things up this week with a scrumptious bonus puzzle slice cooked up by our friend Mark Scott of Seattle.

Mr. Scott – also known as “skydiveboy” on the blogosphere, and as Master Gourmet French Puzzle Chef “Monsieur Garcon du Parachutisme” here at Puzzleria! – is a true master of the mysterious.

And The Horse You Rode In On Slice:

Equestrian Thespian

If you say this famous actor’s name aloud, phonetically you will describe what a famous general’s horse did.

 

Who are the actor and the general?

Thank you, Mark. And we also thank last week’s Puzzlerian! posters who jumped aboard our “puzzle sequence bandwagon” and contributed their own sequential (and quite consequential) piggyback puzzles.

This week’s puzzles will skew less numberward, more wordward. Enjoy the wordfest.

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Double Double Toy And Trouble Slice:

Hot Wheels in the Summertime

Two pronouns are all but synonymous. One is singular and the other is plural. Put them in that order. Now put in front of each the same letter. The result is a summertime toy enjoyed by “kids of all ages.”

 What is this toy?

Lettuce Entertain You Slice:

Biopicable

Delete three letters from a word appearing in the title of a somewhat recent award-winning made-for-television biographical movie about a legendary entertainer. The deleted letters can be rearranged to form the three-letter first name of the president of the cable television network film division that produced the movie.

Duplicate the final four letters of what remains and place them at the beginning of what remains, forming a word that might well be heard during a headlining act at an entertainment mecca at which the subject of the movie was also a legendary headlining act.

What is the movie, who is its subject, who is the president, and what is the new word that is formed?

Hint: A word in the title of a compilation album released a year after the entertainer’s death, describes the type of act where the word you formed might be heard.

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Tuesdays 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.

The Adventures of Fozzie & Herriot; Seek whence to solve; Numbers Shall Snowbafoneftyfonefty; Primerose path milestones

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 13² SERVED

Welcome to Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! ’Tis the tenth of May… That is, ’tis the tenth “prime date” in the month of May, May 29. Sunday will be the eleventh of May. Monday will be June 1^st, but Tuesday will be the first (prime date) of June.

As printemps wanes and prime summertime looms, let us prime your intuitive and puzzle-solving pumps with this appetizer:

Pseudopuzzling Sequence Slice

Numbers shall snowbafoneftyfonefty

What comes next in this sequence?

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FFOURE

SNONENE

SEFFOUREEN

EONEGHT

NONENE

TEN

EFONEFTYEFFOUREEN

TWEFONEFTYFONEVEE…
(Note: We have written this twelfth element of this PSS in red because it is incorrect. It should instead be written as:
TWEFONEFTYFFOUREE
We apologize.)

Too easy? (Well, apparently not too easy for LegoLambda!) Give this one a go:

Prime And Proper Slice:

Primerose path milestones

What is the next number in the following sequence?

2, 3, 7, 23, 37, 79, 83, __

This week’s menu features two delicious slices, one “wordy,” the other “numbery.” We are curious to see if anyone can solve the “Next Integer Please Slice: Seek whence to solve.” Its crust is chewy, if not downright tough.

  

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Creatures Featured Slice:

The Adventures of Fozzie & Herriot

A fictional character is known more by a nickname than by her/his given first name. The nickname is one of God’s creatures great or small.

The first syllable of the character’s given first name sounds like a synonym of the creature. The last syllable of the title of a novel in which the character appears sounds like another of God’s creatures great or small, in the plural.

The fictional character’s nickname is a synonym for a part of a cartoon character’s name. The other part of the cartoon character’s name is the plural form of a creature of God, not great but  small. 

A part of the cartoon character’s catchphrase sounds something like a part of the name of the fictional character’s creator. 

Who are these characters, creatures and creator? 

Hint: The fictional character’s surname is also a unit of measure.
(Note: See David’s May 29 at 9:06 PM comment below for a “piggyback puzzle” that squeezes out even more glue cementing together the elements of this Creatures Featured Slice. Thank you, David.)

Next Integer Please Slice:

Seek whence to solve

Name the next number in this sequence: 5, 4, 8, 1, 9, 7, 6, 2, __, ...

(Puzzlerian! puzzle solvers who can extend the sequence further are deserving of extra credit.)

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Tuesdays 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.

Wayne's world of poker and piety; Wimbledindy 500; Golpher Prairie

PUZZLERIA! SLICES: OVER 13² SERVED

Welcome to the 55^th edition of Joseph Young’s Puzzleria! It is May 22, the dawn of Memorial Day Weekend. Let us remember whom we ought to be remembering…

As well as why we ought to be remembering them. Beginning about a year ago, a trove of “history-as-it-happened” clips has been made available on YouTube, many of them documenting the modern-era war that perhaps best epitomizes all wars.

Episodes of “The March of Time,” a newsreel series produced by London-based Pathé News (British Pathé), were shown in movie theaters during the World War II era. Newsreels were short films encapsulating the world news of the previous week. They were shown before the feature film or between double features.

Just type “British Pathe” into your YouTube search engine. If you wish to pay tribute to members of the “Class of  ’15,” also type in “The Master of the King’s Musick.”

Easy As Pie Pseudopuzzle Slice:

GolpherPrairie

“Caddyshack” has been hailed my many as one of the best comedy/sports movies ever made. However, presented below is a snippet of a scene (obtained exclusively by Puzzleria!) that was wisely outtaken.

There are three anagrams, implanted like Bermuda grass on the tenth fairway, in the text of this outtake’s transcript. Two of them consist of three consecutive words. The third consists of two consecutive words. Each of the three anagrams can be rearranged into into three-word phrases that have been staples of a nearly nightly habit for many, one that has been much in the news during the past few days, May 20-22.

Pseudopuzzle hint: An actor in “Caddyshack” has a solid connection with the “nearly nightly event” and its host.

What are the three anagrams implanted in the script below? What do they become after rearranging their letters? Who is the actor with the solid tie to the event and its host?

Setting:

The third green at the Bushwood Country Club. Ty Webb (Chevy Chase), Al Czervik (Rodney Dangerfield) and Judge Elihu Smails (Ted Knight) are putting out.

(That’s “putting out” as in “putt,” not “putting out” as in “put.” The “putting out” as in “put” scene was deleted to avoid getting an MPAA rating of NC-17. This “putting out as in putt” scene on the green was deleted because it was just so dad-blamed lame.)

Judge Smails, lining up his 15-foot putt: 

“I think this one should break about a foot to the left. If I am wrong you both have permission to break my left foot.” (Smails blurts out a self-satisfied chuckle at his “joke.”)

Czervik, peering a decade into the future: 

“Hey, is that Ted Knight talkin’ or Daniel Day-Lewis? ”

Judge Smails: 

“Huh?”

Webb: 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen dipstick putters before.”

Judge Smails, indignantly: 

“I will have you know, sir, that this putter is manufactured of double annealed stainless steel.”

Czervik: 

“I don’t think Ty was talkin’ about the putting tool, Judge. I think he was talkin’ about the tool who was putting.”

(Assistant greenskeeper Carl Spackler moseys onto the green, water hose in hand and what appears to be a coonskin cap on head.)

Spackler, mumbling: 

“Always distrust a chipmunk. Always distrust a chipmunk. Them is rodents who can’t never be trusted.”

Judge Smails: 

“Hey, what’s the big idea, anyway? I’m trying to putt out here!”

Spackler: 

“Just tryin’ to keep your precious putting surface free from chipmunks, Judge. (then, bowing and doffing his cap in the judge’s direction) Like this critter that crossed my path this morning.”

Judge Smails: 

“You can’t fool me. As a lad I won a first place in a taxidermy competition at Williston Northhamptom School in Easthampton. That pelt, ’tis not a chipmunk. ‘Tis a gopher!”

Spackler, shoving the hose nozzle into the putting cup and filling it to overflowing: 

“A golpher? Judge, I can understand why you might think I’m a little creepy, but I ain’t no Ed Gein. Heck, I’m even tight with the Lama. And I don’t mean the two-ll llama. I hear he’s a beast!”

Granted, that appetizer was tad unappetizing. Why not pop a few Alka-Seltzers as we give you a bit more time to study our main menu items. 

In honor of Memorial Day, there is a super-subtle allusion to “remembering” in one of the puzzle slices on this week’s menu. NPR Puzzlemaster Will Shortz might have an unfair advantage in solving the other puzzle slice. 

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Round And Round And Back And Forth Slice:

Wimbledindindy 500

Name a pair of two-syllable homophones. One whirs. The other, one wears. Both are similar to the Indianapolis 500 in that their definitions involve a sense of going round-and-round, similar to a racecar (That’s a palindrome!) on an oval racetrack.

Take the homophone naming what one wears, reverse the order of its syllables and replace the resulting new fifth letter with a different vowel. The result is a word whose definition involves a sense of going back-and-forth (Like a palindrome does! Or...), like tennis balls do at the Wimbledon championships (or like ping-pong balls are apt to do in the presence of a certain distinguished professor of puzzletry).

What are these three words?

House of Cards Or God Slice:

Wayne’s world of poker and piety

On Saturday evenings, Wayne counts cards while playing five-card draw poker with his three buddies. On Sunday mornings, Wayne counts on his rosary beads in his church pew at St. Mary Queen of Whatever-Suit-Blue-Pips-Would-Be Parish. He feigns piety, but really is in need of an exorcism.


A two-word phrase describes Wayne, about one-fourth of the time, on Saturday evenings. A different two-word phrase describes Wayne, about one-third of the time, on Sunday mornings.

If you perform a “spoonerism” by switching the initial consonant sounds of the two words in the Saturday evening phrase, saying the result aloud produces the two-word Sunday morning phrase And vice versa.

What are these two two-word phrases?

(Hint: The four initial letters of the four words in the two-word phrases are, in alphabetical order, D, D, K and M.) 

Every Friday at Joseph Young’s Puzzle -ria! 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 Tuesdays 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.