“Tech Revolution” Contest Results
Last week’s bonus metapuzzle asked for solvers to find a bygone TV show which has since been adapted to the big screen. Which one was it?
There were four seemingly bizarre theme answers:
- 17-Across: [Popular cocktail featuring a shot glass inside a Guinness] = IRISH BENDER BOMB
- 30-Across: [“Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” band] = ROSIE HALEN
- 48-Across: [Sewage-disposal unit] = SEPTIC DATA
- 63-Across: [High-altitude air currents] = TOM SERVO STREAMS
Solvers first had to decipher the base phrases to each of these answers:
- IRISH (CAR) BOMB
- (VAN) HALEN
- SEPTIC (TANK)
- (JET) STREAMS
The next step was to determine how the inserted words (BENDER, ROSIE, DATA, and TOM SERVO) were related to one another. This may have required some Googling, but they’re all robots from famous, bygone TV shows (BENDER from “Futurama,” ROSIE from “The Jetsons,” DATA from “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and TOM SERVO from “Mystery Science Theater 3000”). The final step was to understand why these robots replaced the words that they did. What do CAR, VAN, TANK, and JET have in common? They’re all vehicles, of course. And which famous bygone TV show since adapted into a big screen movie prominently featured vehicles which turned into robots? That would be “TRANSFORMERS,” the answer to the meta which 135 solvers correctly submitted.
Before I posted the meta in its final form, the answer which worried me more than any other was “KNIGHT RIDER,” the 1980s-era series featuring David Hasselhoff and a talking robot car named KITT. I tried to prevent that answer from leading solvers astray by specifying that the TV show in question had been adapted to the big screen. Hollywood has since made several “Transformers” big-screen films, from the animated version in 1986 to the various (and, I’m told, terrible) live-action versions from the past decade, while “Knight Rider” has only made it as far as a few made-for-TV movies — although rumor has it that there is an actual film adaptation of “Knight Rider” in the works. Technically the answer doesn’t work because one of the transformations in the puzzle is JET to TOM SERVO, which is not quite the same as a simple car-robot switch. Still, it was a close enough connection that I felt I needed to cover my bases.
Some reader comments:
Peter Gordon submitted the right answer but suggested that another possible answer could have been “CHALLENGE OF THE GOBOTS,” a Hanna-Barbera series developed around the same time period as “Transformers,” with the same vehicles-to-robots motif, and with a 1986 feature film adaptation called “GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords.” Indeed, I would have accepted that, although no one else even mentioned it. One other solver, Chris Baker, submitted “ROBOTECH,” an anime TV show also from the “Transformers” school of robots in disguise. This one was a little iffier since American movie theaters pulled the film version after a very limited release, though it did receive wider play in theaters in other countries. So I accepted that one too, thus my final tally is 136 correct solutions.
Louis Ah writes, “Your puzzle more than META eye!”
(I got several responses like that.)
Amy Hamilton writes, “It kind of makes me laugh how every reference to your site/puzzles gives a warning about language. When I saw that you had sent me an email [upon getting the right answer] I half expected you to say “Correct, good job. Bitch.”
(If I can become the Jesse Pinkman of crosswords, I’ll be set.)
And now for the big moment! The winner of the contest, randomly selected from all 136 correct answers, is Jill Staunton. She’ll receive a Devil Cross t-shirt. Congrats, Jill!
Some More Exciting Puzzle News (with a possible tinge of bad news?)
I have two puzzles coming up in the newspapers soon: the first one will be tomorrow’s Washington Post Puzzler, and the second will be in the New York Times on Wednesday, March 5.
And the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament is fast approaching — March 7-9 in Brooklyn, New York. If you’ve never gone, go. It’s a blast. I am all signed up — however, there is a chance that I won’t be able to make it. Life has come up — it happens. I’d be sad to miss the tourney, but there’s always next year.
Today’s Puzzle
Oh, right. I have a new puzzle today. It’s a 72-word themeless, and I decided to go pretty tough with my cluing. At least I think it’s tough, so I’m dubbing it my first Super-Spicy puzzle of the Devil Cross era. Get on it, everybody.
Enjoy! There will be a new puzzle on March 15.
This one actually felt quite a bit easier than the other themeless puzzles – possibly because some answers and clues had to be pinpoint accurate, and others were just in the ol’ wheelhouse (1-Across). That got me past the more devilish crosses.
Nicely done!
Thanks. I think part of that was because I found I was in a massive hurry to get this posted, so some clues got the short shrift in the difficulty department — my clue for 45-Down is way too straightforward, for instance, and maybe I should have tried to do something tougher for the similar clues at 10- and 11-Down. Sometimes I’m such a sucker for question mark clues that I feel they make them easier to figure out for experienced solvers. But, writing hard but gettable clues will come with time. If the grid’s clean overall, that’s more important to me.
Definitely clean and smooth. I think it’s very tricky to invent extra-difficult clues that aren’t:
a) Insanely obscure trivia
b) Too vague, (an abundance of one-word clues like “Set”), or
c) Valid but just plain unfair, such as obsolete 9th alternate dictionary definitions for common words.
A sprinkling of any of those can crank up the difficulty level, but mixed with wordplay and general originality. Easier said than done. You’ve got some good stuff mixed in here.
Some thrive on the creativity of creating clues, it scares me a bit though :).
Nice and crunchy, just the way I likes it. 1-Across took forever, for some reason; shame on me.
Also, you get the best spam on your site. What’s your secret?
Hope to see you tomorrow!
Obviously, I musta done something to piss off the NBA snap cap industry, starting with deleting their spam.
And it’s official: I’ll be at the ACPT! See you there, bro.
I dare say is not really speculative, at least in common usage, although no one uses it anymore. The ? after the clue no one is unnecessary and misleading. It’s a trap over mein herr, crossed by Sinclair, crossed by Hal, crossed by arc, is fine if you know any of those I suppose. No idea how awful is really informally though I can see the reverse.
Oh, “really” used in an informal way means awful? Shouldn’t have done this puzzle when I did–was not looking for a challenge of any kind.
Incidentally, can you tell me why crosswords all have symmetrical grids? I’ve read that it’s one of the unwritten rules but it seems to me it can be an unnecessary barrier to building crosswords. Why not give constructors all the freedom possible to build the best possible puzzles.
Thanks.
Think of the phrase “That test was awful hard.” It would be grammatically correct with awfully, but I’ve heard people use awful this way.
Margaret Farrar was the first editor of the New York Times crossword and she developed many of the rules of grids that you see today — no two-letter words, no islands of words where some section is completely cut off by black squares, and 180-degree rotational symmetry. Constructors certainly can and do break these rules from time to time, though usually only with a very good reason. I just think it’s more elegant and pleasing to the eye to adhere to a symmetrical grid — it gives the crossword balance.
Thanks for the reply and your puzzles. Never thought of really as a synonym for a awful. Wonder if that’s grammatically correct. I’ll have to check.
Thanks again.
Yeah, looks like awful is allowed as very, used as an extreme.
Thanks again.