Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 133 of my contest. If you’re new to the contest and would like to enter, please see the site FAQ on the left sidebar for instructions.
LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Toughish meta for Week 2 — simple in retrospect, but a little tricky to notice in the first place. Solvers were tasked with finding the name of a well-known five-letter sitcom. The theme entries were:
17-a HOCKEY TEAM
25 & 27-a POLITICAL SPECTRUM
44a JUMBO JET
49a TOUCAN SAM
58a WHITE HOUSE
Which are all things with WINGS, of course, which makes that 1990’s show our contest answer sitcom.
Andrew Rosenberg explains why the meta was a bit tricky:
Man, I was looking for some sort of anagram or letter play for daaaays.
John Farmer chronicles his solve:
I had to get this one backwards, thinking of 5-letter sitcoms then looking for a connection. Maude didn’t seem to work. Hazel seemed unlikely. I was running out of names.
To which Mark Taylor adds:
Alice and Maude missed the flight.
To which Jake Lavenberg adds:
I always fly Coach.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 217 correct entries received, is Phoebe McBee of New York City, N.Y. Phoebe has selected as her prize an autographed copy of Sip & Solve Hard Crosswords.
BETTER TITLE FOR MGWCC #131:
Todd Dashoff one-ups my title for the silent-letter actresses theme in MGWCC #131. I used “Crossword Scene: Take One,” but Todd suggests:
“Quiet on the Set!”
MGWCC NYT Q&A:
Jim Horne interviewed me at the New York Times’ Wordplay blog last week:
http://wordplay.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/slacker/
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is the name of a 10-letter Cajun restaurant located somewhere in the Midwest. You can form its name by joining two entries in this grid. E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer restaurant in the subject line of your e-mail.
To print the puzzle out, click on the image below and hit “print” on your browser. To solve using Across Lite either solve on the applet below or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (1,400 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.