PUZZLE #488: Gryptics 8

PUZZLE #488

GRYPTICS 8

This puzzle contains a word or phrase suggested by Patron M. Sean Molley. Support me on Patreon at $15 or more per month to suggest one word or phrase for me to put into a puzzle every month!

Before I get to the puzzle proper, I just wanted a quick moment to note that this is my 1,000th post on this site! And not only that, my 500th puzzle is coming soon, too so be sure to look out for that as well! But before that happens, here are the directions to my 488th puzzle:

Insert a single letter in each space of each grid so that each grid's five rows and five columns spells a word from left to right or top to bottom (including the letters outside the grid).

Once you're done, take a word from the first grid and a word from the second grid and pair them up to get the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a cartoon character who would be perfect for Earth Day

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Slide Show: Double Feature 6

Roughly two weeks have gone by since "Slide Show: Double Feature 6" was posted on this blog, and eighteen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Michael Lebowitz
• Chris Kochmanski
• Sam Levitin
• Josie Giles
• Mom
• KeoFam
• Lynn Sweeney
• Tower
• Wendy Walker
• Patrick Jordan
• Tamara Brenner
• Steve Gunter
• Stasi Gustafson

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #487: Masquerade Party 3

PUZZLE #487

MASQUERADE PARTY 3

Below are rows of blanks that each need to be filled in with a 6- or 7-letter word; these words are clued in no particular order. However, one letter in each word is "in disguise" as another word. The locations of the disguised letters are indicated by symbols and the disguises themselves are clued next to those symbols below. Replace each symbol/disguised letter with its corresponding word to form a longer word.

Once everything has been correctly filled out, the letters that have been replaced by symbols will spell out the FINAL ANSWER: a movie that has been nominated for the Best Costume Design Oscar

WORDS

• Brand of adorably small mandarin oranges

• Credit for a crossword constructor or newswriter

• Game Boy _____ SP (Nintendo handheld released in 2003)

• Going "Nyah-nyah-nyah!" to

• Grapefruit-flavored soda with the same owners as Dr. Pepper

• Made larger or smaller in Photoshop, say

• "_____ of Truth" (hit Depeche Mode single)

• Start a new paragraph

• Stiff and sensitive hair jutting out of Top Cat's face

DISGUISES

♫) Play a ukulele idly

♁) Girl from Glasgow

⋭) Recess game with kids who are "not it"

ↇ) Part of MPG or WPM

◩) Be dependent (on)

▚) Electronic keyboard heard in Harold Faltermeyer's "Axel F", for short

🃡) Shazam! star Zachary

₪) _____ Aviv, Israel

➽) Taxonomic rank between "class" and "family"

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Insiders 3

It's been almost two weeks since "Insiders 3" was posted on this blog, and a whopping nineteen people have solved it since then, as you can see in the following list:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Mike Armstrong
• Sam Levitin
• Chris Kochmanski
• Josie Giles
• Tower
• Wendy Walker
• Michael Lebowitz
• Patrick Jordan
• Mom
• Tamara Brenner
• Lynn Sweeney
• KeoFam
• Bart Gold
• Steve Gunter

Now head below the break for the answers as well as a solver's comment!

PUZZLE #486: Slide Show: Double Feature 6

PUZZLE #486

SLIDE SHOW: DOUBLE FEATURE 6

In each of the two puzzles below, slide the 18 letters surrounding each grid into the empty squares so that four words are made reading across and five words are formed reading down. Letters above and below the grids slide vertically to any position without changing columns, and letters to the left and right slide horizontally without changing rows. All of the exterior letters are used only once, and as a help, each grid has two letters already placed inside.

Once both grids have been filled in, pick out one word from each and combine them to get the FINAL ANSWER: the two-word name of a #1 song from the 1960s

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Section Six 10

It's been almost two weeks since my tenth "Section Six" puzzle was posted on this blog, and seventeen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Michael Lebowitz
• Josie Giles
• Mike Armstrong
• Chris Kochmanski
• Tamara Brenner
• Mom
• Sam Levitin
• Wendy Walker
• KeoFam
• Tower
• Lynn Sweeney
• Steve Gunter

Now head below the break for the answers as well as a solver's comment!

PUZZLE #485: Insiders 3

PUZZLE #485

INSIDERS 3

Happy April 1st, everyone! Sadly, I don't have any sort of prank or wacky word puzzle variant (such as "Anacrossword 3" from five years ago) to offer this year, but the FINAL ANSWER to this puzzle is April Fools'-adjacent! Read on for more details on that!

Each row in this puzzle consists of two answers, clued in the order in which they appear. Going across both of these answers is a third word, known as an "Inner Word". For example, if a row's two answers were JETSAM and PLEA, then the Inner Word for that string of letters would be SAMPLE (like so: JETSAMPLEA). The Inner Words are listed in no particular order, and shading them or crossing them out in each row is highly recommended.

Once everything's been filled in, all of the letters not used in the Inner Words, when read left to right and row by row, will spell out a clue to the FINAL ANSWER: the name of a classic April Fools' Day prank

ROWS

1) Image uploaded to Instagram

    Parka-wearing South Park character who has died over 100 times

2) Shine like a nursery rhyme star

    Heavy metal singer Zombie who directed 2007's Halloween remake

3) Approach aggressively

    "With the bow", to a violinist (anagram of ORCA)

4) Innocent until _____ guilty

    Like the top of an éclair

5) Prefix for "brow" or "corn"

    Amass, like video games or postage stamps

6) Resident of a country formerly known as Siam

    Rubber _____ (adhesive known as "cow gum" in Britain)

7) Airship that Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Award is shaped like

    Provide funding for a foundation

8) Any possible perpetrator in Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

    Weightlifting unit

INNER WORDS

• Coin once used to play arcade games at Chuck E. Cheese's

• Former The View panelist and current MSNBC commentator Wallace

• Henry who played The Fonz on Happy Days

• Italy's "City of Canals"

• James Bond film where Christoph Waltz first plays Blofeld

• Loom on the horizon

• Old-timey deliverers of blocks to be used in old-timey fridges

• Someone sharing top billing

Once you think you know what the FINAL ANSWER is, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Moving Staircases 14

It's been about two weeks since "Moving Staircases 14" was posted on this blog, and eighteen people have solved it since then, as you can see in the list below:

• Grant Fikes
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Bart Gold
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Josie Giles
• Chris Kochmanski
• Tamara Brenner
• Wendy Walker
• Tower
• KeoFam
• Sam Levitin
• Patrick Jordan
• Mom
• Lynn Sweeney
• SquishmallowsUnited
• Steve Gunter

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #484: Section Six 10

PUZZLE #484

SECTION SIX 10

This puzzle's grid has six rings and six sections. Each ring contains a series of words placed end to end, reading either clockwise OR counterclockwise; all the words in a given ring will read in the same direction. Ring 1 (the outermost ring) contains six answers that read clockwise; the starting spaces are numbered in the grid. Clues for the answers in the remaining rings are given in order, and each answer’s starting points are marked with a dot [•]. However, which direction they proceed in is for you to figure out. The sections (separated by the heavy lines radiating from the center) will help you figure out the letters in the inner rings: in a given section, each ring segment contains all but one of the letters in the next segment outward. In other words, a section's outermost segment contains six letters; the next segment inward contains five of those six letters in some order; and so on, until only one of the original six letters remains.

Once you're done, unscramble the six spaces with stars in them to get the FINAL ANSWER: a six-letter word.

RING 1
1) Turn the Big Wheel on The Price is Right, say

2) Concrete playground with handrails and halfpipes

3) Decorated with a piping bag

4) The Adventures of Sharkboy and _____ in 3-D (2005 family film)

5) Word after "horseshoe", "domino", or "conspiracy"

6) Animated character often mentioned in crossword clues for "OGRE"

RING 2

• Smelly onion-like clove that Wario loves to eat

• Darth _____ (Sith name of Anakin Skywalker)

• Islamic country with Islamabad as its capital

• Synonym for "Annoys" that has only one vowel

• Pennsylvania town with streetlights shaped like chocolate Kisses

RING 3

• Party where "happy hardcore" techno may be played

• Where visiting NHL teams fight Flames?

• Tiger voiced by George Sanders in 1967’s The Jungle Book: 2 wds.

• Polynesian carving

RING 4

• Fiddles around (with)

• Wife of Hägar the Horrible

• Fish eggs mentioned in a closing catchphrase from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

RING 5

• Uber, to Lyft, e.g.

• Little pickle

RING 6

• Temperature scale with no negative numbers

Once you believe you've figured out the FINAL ANSWER, send it to either redhead64@chartermi.net or itsredhead64@gmail.com (though I'm more likely to check the second one) and I'll put your name on a solvers list once I post the answers in about two weeks. You can also use those email addresses to give me some comments and feedback (or even ask for a hint, though you'll be marked as having used one if you do so) or send me the answer to last week's puzzle, if you haven't already figured it out. If you have a printer and want to solve this puzzle on paper, just head below the break for a link to a .PDF version which you can print out!

ANSWERS: Compound Crosswords 10

It's been nearly two weeks since "Compound Crosswords 10" was posted on this blog, and a whopping nineteen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• M. Sean Molley
• Joe Bernard
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Michael Lebowitz
• Mike Armstrong
• Wendy Walker
• Chris Kochmanski
• Tamara Brenner
• Tower
• Mom
• Sam Levitin
• Patrick Jordan
• Josie Giles
• Steve Gunter
• Lynn Sweeney
• KeoFam

Now head below the break for the answers!