Title: “MGWCC #948 — “Making Connections” by Patrick Berry
Prompt: This puzzle’s meta-answer is an eight-letter word.
Answer: NETROOTS, found by 206 solvers, 125 of whom were solo solves

Certainly a SAD (Simple And Difficult) meta from Patrick last week. Our theme entries were six portmanteau words; simply take the letters their two parts share to spell out the meta answer:

JU(NE)TEENTH (juNE and niNEteenth overlap at the NE)
LIS(T)ICLE (lisT and arTicle overlap at the T)
B(RO)MANTIC (bRO and ROmantic overlap at the RO)
B(O)LLYWOOD (bOmbay and hOllywood overlap at the O)
HO(T)LANTA (hoT and aTlanta overlap at the T)
CAS(S)INGLES (casSette and Singles overlap at the S)

Those letters spell out contest answer NETROOTS, found by 206 solvers. That’s just about right for a Week 5, though a number of solvers mentioned that it’s not quite a universally known group so there was a small amount of head-scratching and Googling later. But I don’t think anecdotally that anyone didn’t wind up submitting it because it was unfamiliar.

Now it’s time for the 180-degree swing from Week 5 to Week 1…

Today’s puzzle is Week 1 of 5 in July. No instructions given here since there are no-instructions options available.