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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:
Title: “Monster Match”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is a sound heard in horror movies.
Answer: MOAN
Correct entries: 497 overall, of which 461 were solo solves
Four theme entries last week, all vaguely frightening:
17-A: [Video game created by Shigeru Miyamoto] = DONKEY KONG
28-A: [Food only sold in September and October] = COUNT CHOCULA. Genius-level seasonal marketing, this.
45-A: [Genetically modified organisms, casually] = FRANKENFOODS
60-A: [Wedding planner’s nightmare] = BRIDEZILLA. Popularized by the long-running show, about to enter its third decade.
So these are all sort-of-but-not-really frightening. Why is that? Because each derives from a truly scary creature:
DONKEY KONG — KING KONG
COUNT CHOCULA — COUNT DRACULA
FRANKENFOODS — FRANKENSTEIN
BRIDEZILLA — GODZILLA
Now what? Part of each scary creature was removed to create the less-scary versions, so let’s replace those:
(KING) KONG
COUNT (DRA)CULA
FRANKEN(STEIN)
(GOD)ZILLA
And now our final step: replace the first letter of these replaced parts to form a grid entry:
KING — MING at 41-A, yielding the M
DRA — ORA at 20-A, yielding the O
STEIN — ATE IN at 66-A: yielding the A
GOD — NOD at 42-A, yielding the N
Those spell out contest answer MOAN, a scary sound found by 497 solvers.
Matt M. says:
A good one, Matt! And thank you sincerely for all the fun over so many years. A weekly highlight for a big chunk of my adult life!
And for mine as well! We enter the bell lap of MGWCC today. Thanks to everyone who’s been on any part of the first three laps with me!
GUEST CONSTRUCTOR COLLAB:
This week’s puzzle is a collaboration with the great Jeff Chen. Jeff wears many hats in the crossword universe: he is first and foremost a top-level constructor who won my old Crossword of the Month award twice in the three years it ran, and was nominated many other times.
He’s also an author, who took over the outstanding site xwordinfo.com from Jim Horne after Jim stepped down from his lead role there a few years ago. Jeff blogs the New York Times crossword there every day, with insights that only a top-tier constructor can give. Imagine Wes Anderson writing weekly movie reviews…that’s pretty close.
He’s also a mentor, having collaborated with an incredible number of constructors, both experienced and just-getting-started. As you can see here, he’s by far the person who’s co-written the most NYT crosswords with another constructor.
In non-crossword life, Jeff lives in Seattle with kiddos Tess and Jake and wife Jill, with whom he has also collaborated on a number of NYT puzzles. And finally. he’s also an accomplished author of young adult novels such as this.
Glad to add my name to the list of Jeff’s coauthors! Here’s what we came up with…
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is what you might find the META ANSWER to be.
NOTE: Contest deadline for this puzzle is Wednesday, October 26th at noon ET. Since I’m announcing this deadline very late, please e-mail me (crosswordcontest@gmail.com) if you rushed an incorrect solution because you thought the deadline was Tuesday at noon.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.