Good afternoon, crossword fans — welcome to Week 132 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:
Solvers confronted six misspelled actresses in last week’s theme entries. Upon closer inspection they realized that each actress’s name was missing one letter, like so:
16-a ANNABELLA sCIORRA
23-a MARGOt KIDDER
30-a HELEN MIRrEN
40-a DIANNe WIEST
48-a ROSEANNe BARR
56-a MICHELLE pFEIFFER
Those six missing letters, in lowercase and emboldened above, spell out the missing thespian: Meryl STREEP, who was last week’s contest answer.
Ben Bass writes:
Clearly you weren’t going for Bernadette PETERS.
No, but it was a clever try submitted by three entrants.
It’s true that PETERS’ surname anagrams to STREEP, but I decided I couldn’t accept it as an alt-answer in the end: Meryl is far better known than Bernadette, and her name is spelled out by the missing letters in order, without anagramming. These two factors make STREEP too superior an answer over PETERS to accept the latter as correct.
Joe Fendel quips:
Nice to begin the holiday season so Meryl-y!
Regarding the puckish {Cole ___ shoes} and {___ Haan shoes} clues in the past two puzzles, Neville Fogarty writes:
I’ve been wearing Cole Haan shoes BOTH times I’ve entered the respective entry these two weeks.
This week’s winner, whose name was chosen at random from the 339 correct entries received, is Katy D. of Fall River Mills, Calif.
TWO NEW WAYS TO SOLVE MGWCC:
Beginning today you can solve MGWCC in Across Lite right here at the site, with nothing to download. Here’s this week’s puzzle:
You can also muster a group and solve it over at Team Crossword, who will be running MGWCC each Friday beginning today:
As I write this, the top time at TCW is 3:52 for this puzzle, achieved by a team of five players. Note: this rule will likely change in January, but for now, several contestants can solve MGWCC as a team at TCW and still submit individual answers to the contest.
THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is the name of a well-known five-letter sitcom. E-mail it to me at crosswordcontest@gmail.com by Tuesday at noon ET. Please put the contest answer sitcom 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 above or download the free software here, then join the Google Group (1,384 members now!) here.
Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.