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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “Not for Nothing”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer, which is 7 letters long, is what I hope you’ll find this meta to be.
Answer: TOO GOOD
Correct entries: 302, of which 220 were solo solves

Closer to a Week 3, so we’ll dial it back a bit this week to balance the meta scales.

Insight #1: not much in the way of overt theme, with just a pair of 9s as the longest entries in the grid. But then we hit ZERO at the omega-across, clued suggestively as [Numeral that resembles a letter]. Along with the “Nothing” in the title, worth looking into.

Insight #2: The clues are full of zeroes, and always in pairs! And no other clues but these seven have numerals! Quite sus! (Kids say “sus” now for “suspicious,” which I like and have adopted myself). These seven clues are:

1-A: [2300 automaker] = FIAT
16-A: [City whose skyscrapers include 1800 North Bayshore and Panorama Tower] = MIAMI
17-A: [Classic Atari 2600 game] = ASTEROIDS
52-A: [Greece’s enemy, in “300”] = PERSIA
30-D: [It’s “1300” in military time] = ONE PM
52-D: [Collect 200 dollars, perhaps] = PASS GO
57-D: [“The 700 ___” (show once hosted by Pat Robertson)] = CLUB

My original clue for MIAMI was [City whose skyscrapers include 1800 Club and Panorama Tower] but then I saw that “1800 Club” dupes this clue’s CLUB confusingly, so I had to punt by just identifying the skyscraper with its address.

Insight #3: Now what? The first letters of these (FMAPOPC) don’t look like or anagram to much, but that ZERO clue in the grid suggests that replacing these 14 zeroes with O’s might be an idea, but then what to do with the rest of the numbers left over? Insight #3.5: notice that the largest of these numbers is 26, which hints we might be mapping them onto the alphabet. And indeed, if we do all that we get the following words:

2300 = WOO
1800 = ROO
2600 = ZOO
300 = COO
1300 = MOO
200 = BOO
700 = GOO

Must be the right track, since all seven of them make legit entries. Insight #4: Each of these seven words can satisfy one of the puzzle’s clues. Like so:

61-D: [Film director John] = DAHL (“Red Rock West,” “Rounders”) could also be WOO (for director John Woo, whose films include “Face/Off” and “Mission Impossible 2”).

29-D: [“Cousin” of a croc, hippo, or rhino, in a sense] = GATOR, in the sense that they’re all truncated names for animals. Could also be ROO.

41-A: [Where you might find a koala or wombat] = Australia’s OUTBACK, but could also be a ZOO

6-D: [Sound made by some birds] = TRILL, but could also be COO

13-D: [Sound from a farm animal] = OINK, but could also be MOO

26-A: [Shout from a fan in a stadium] = OLE, but could also be BOO

59-D: [Slimy stuff] = OOZE, but could also be GOO

Insight #5: Highlight those seven entries’ first letters in the grid and they spell, in the usual order, contest answer TOO GOOD, found by 302 solvers.

Mikey G got it quickly:

I was able to “zip” through this one!

Redhead64 exults:

Woo-hoo!

Which was my original idea for the meta answer but I thought it’d be too guessable.

Similarly, Jskalitz:

23-8!

And finally, Wayne summarizes his journey:

My solve experience: “Doom & gloom…Noon soon looms. Woof.” “Ooh fool; *look* Magoo!” “Cool hook!” (Swoon.)

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer, which is 11 letters long, is what some meals finish with.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.