PUZZLE #553: Anagram Magic Square 9

PUZZLE #553

ANAGRAM MAGIC SQUARE 9

The 5-letter word in each box is an anagram to the answer to each of the clues below.... almost. You see, in this puzzle, all of the answers are six letters long, so add an extra letter to each 5-letter word to get each answer. Put the number of each corresponding clue into the small box below the initial word and write down the anagram on the dash directly below that. The numbers in each row and column will add up to 65.

Once you're done with the puzzle, the added letter of each answer, in numerical clue order, will spell out a clue; the FINAL ANSWER is the answer to that clue.

1) Successfully disarm a bomb

2) Fancy fish eggs

3) Type of flower that the vanilla bean is derived from

4) Be Kind _____ (2008 movie where Jack Black works at a video rental store)

5) Kiss album with "Tears Are Falling" (or a refugee's sanctuary)

6) Surname of futuristic Hanna-Barbera characters George, Jane, Judy, & Elroy

7) Pre-fetus stage

8) Submit a video to America's Funniest Home Videos' website, perhaps

9) 5 × 18

10) French curly-haired dog such as Georgette from Oliver & Company

11) Voice box in the throat

12) Crunchy peanut butter alternative

13) Little tune such as "Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is There"

14) Lara Croft's manservant Winston from Tomb Raider II, for one

15) Fish-tailed fellow

16) Any number that divides into a larger number evenly

17) Positive particle in an atom

18) _____ metals (periodic group which includes lithium and potassium)

19) Mourn

20) Marsupial that “plays dead”

21) Anyone with an IQ of 200 or more

22) Messenger of the Greek gods (and of expensive luxury handbags?)

23) Don't take any _____ nickels

24) "Have You Ever?" singer who played Moesha on Moesha

25) Like an open bank account that allows transactions

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: Fronts Off 8

Roughly two weeks have gone by since "Fronts Off 8" was posted on this blog, and nineteen people have solved it since then:

• Cindy Heisler
• Marie desJardins
• Cathy Bowen
• Grant Fikes
• Pavel Curtis
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Okieboy2008
• Michael Lebowitz
• Chris Kochmanski
• KeoFam
• Derek Allen
• Tamara Brenner
• Patrick Jordan
• Mom
• Wendy Walker
• Sam Levitin
• Lynn Sweeney
• Steve Gunter

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #552: Diagramless Crossword 8

PUZZLE #552

DIAGRAMLESS CROSSWORD 8

This puzzle (suggested by Patron Grant Fikes) 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!

Diagramless crosswords are solved by using the clues and their numbers to fill in the answers as well as the black squares. When completely filled in, the black squares in the grid will have diagonal symmetry, meaning that they'll look the same when rotated upside-down. As a help, the first number has already been placed in the grid.

Once everything's filled in, two of the across answers will spell out a clue that will lead you to the FINAL ANSWER: A person's name.

ACROSS

1) Warty amphibian such as Slippy from Star Fox: Assault

5) With "The", Hope van Dyne's superhero identity in Marvel movies

9) Currency for Greece

10) Actress Kendrick from the Pitch Perfect trilogy

11) Striped feline in the Chinese zodiac

12) Traffic signals

14) Lead singer of the Holograms in a very 1980s cartoon

17) PART ONE OF THE FINAL ANSWER'S CLUE

19) Bearded bovine on Wyoming's state flag

20) "Finally, it's over!": 2 wds.

21) "Short Skirt/Long Jacket" band (or a birthday dessert)

22) Les États-_____ (French for "The United States")

23) Renewable energy source for rooftop panels

24) Win Ben _____'s Money (Comedy Central game show)

26) Flour factory

27) Handle hardship

28) Single-celled organism often seen in The Far Side comics

31) More cunning

33) PART TWO OF THE FINAL ANSWER'S CLUE

37) Learn the _____ and outs of something

38) Utterly lacking in logic

39) They can't handle telling the truth

40) Famed '50s Cleveland Browns quarterback Graham

41) "Behold!", in ancient Rome

42) Vowelless version of "Hey! Over here!"

43) A fortnight has fourteen of these

DOWN

1) Supermodel Crissy who married John Legend in 2013

2) You _____ to Be in Pictures (Looney Tunes short combining animation and live action)

3) "Chain of Fools" singer Franklin

4) English county on the English Channel (anagram of SORTED)

5) "Clean" word following "brain" or "mouth"

6) Pay to play poker

7) Grew uncontrollably (especially in winter?)

8) 2006 anime film featuring devices that let people enter dreams (or a spice made of red peppers)

11) Retired MMA fighter Ortiz

13) Not a winner

14) Richie Cunningham's kid sister in Happy Days

15) Red dye (answer hidden in TEOSINTE)

16) NYSE, NASDAQ, etc.

18) Architectural schematics

21) Orange, green, and purple are secondary ones

23) _____ & Schuster (publishing house)

24) Genre that the magazine Amazing Stories specializes in: Hyph.

25) Simplest figure skating jump: 2 wds.

26) Country north of Burkina Faso

29) Made water hot enough to bubble

30) Continent with the answer to 26-Down

31) Doesn't hog all of one's toys, say

32) "_____ not and say we did"

34) Comic strip detective Dick known for his yellow hat and coat

35) Munches on macaroons, maybe

36) Coin opening in an arcade cabinet

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: Squeezed in the Middle 22

It's been almost two weeks since "Squeezed in the Middle 22" was posted on this blog, so now it's time to take a look at everyone who has solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Marie desJardins
• Cindy Heisler
• Cathy Bowen
• Kevin Orfield
• Chris Kochmanski
• Okieboy2008
• Michael Lebowitz
• Sam Levitin
• Tamara Brenner
• Mom
• Wendy Walker
• Derek Allen
• Patrick Jordan
• Lynn Sweeney
• Craig Leach
• Steve Gunter

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #551: Fronts Off 8

PUZZLE #551

FRONTS OFF 8

First, find the answers to each clue so that there are two words in each rectangular box. Then change the first letter of each word to the new same letter for both words of a pair to form two new words, and write the new letter in the square box to the left of the rectangle.

Once you're done, read down the boxes to get the FINAL ANSWER: a seven-letter word

1) Garbage bag brand that's stronger than those other "wimpy, wimpy, wimpy" types

    Lumberjack's version of "Heads up!"

2) Sons of Anarchy actor Jimmy

    Craftiest (HINT: think of a certain cartoon coyote from Warner Bros.)

3) The first letter in "R.E.M."

    False teeth

4) Simon whose song "You're So Vain" is partially about Warren Beatty

    Having no name, such as Korn's eighth album

5) Father of Perdita's fifteen puppies in Disney's 101 Dalmatians

    More unclear, like ancient film reels

6) Use cash or a debit card

    Letter between delta and zeta

7) Meta _____ 3 (VR headset released by Facebook's parent company in 2023)

    Big the Cat's pet amphibian in Sonic Adventure (HINT: It's not "Toady")

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: Deck It Out 10

It's been almost two weeks since "Deck It Out 10" got posted on this blog, and nineteen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Cindy Heisler
• Cathy Bowen
• Marie desJardins
• Pavel Curtis
• Kevin Orfield
• Okieboy2008
• Michael Lebowitz
• Sam Levitin
• Chris Kochmanski
• KeoFam
• Derek Allen
• Lynn Sweeney
• Craig Leach
• Tamara Brenner
• Patrick Jordan
• Alex Milton
• Steve Gunter
• Joe Bernard

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #550: Squeezed in the Middle 22

PUZZLE #550

SQUEEZED IN THE MIDDLE 22

It's my 550th puzzle! My last milestone puzzle involved a return to my very first puzzle type on this site, and this time, it'll be a return to my signature creation, "Squeezed in the Middle". What makes this particular one so special is that it'll be my largest one of this type that I've crafted so far, with ten rows and twenty clues in all! If you need a refresher on how to solve this particular puzzle type, then keep on reading!

For this puzzle, you're going to sandwich together words (entered in the white rectangles) by surrounding it with a letter on each side, one at the beginning and one at the end, making a new word in the process. Once you're done, the extra letters you've added in the "crust" (the brown squares) will spell out a two-word phrase. In the example above, the words URN, RAT, and OVER become BURNT, IRATE, and GOVERN, and the letters in the brown squares, reading down, spell out BIG TEN. However, to make things trickier, the "Wholes" will be in no particular order, so it's up to you to figure out which one of the "Centers" it matches up with!

Once you've filled out everything, the letters in the brown squares, reading down, will spell out this week's FINAL ANSWER: something useful for crafting word puzzles

CENTERS

1) Weird, like the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

2) Strategic board game based on Portuguese tiles that has a "Crystal Mosaic" expansion

3) Actress Long, Peeples, or Vardalos

4) Misplaces one's car keys, say

5) "We want _____!" (chant from baseball fans sick of batters whiffing pitched balls): 2 wds.

6) Letters before the Enterprise's name in Star Trek

7) 4:3 or 16:9, for one

8) Water pitcher seen in many still life paintings

9) Stand-up comedienne Margaret who competed on Celebrity Jeopardy in 2025

10) Frau's husband

WHOLES

• Avengers: Endgame co-director Anthony or Joe (or Rene who acts in said film)

• Blood of the Greek gods

• Flavor of the bright red LifeSavers candy

• Highest (and largest) island in French Polynesia

• Huge computer built in the 1940s

• Lapis _____ (deep blue metamorphic rock, or a Steven Universe character)

• Least distant

• Not on speaking terms, like some exes

• Public speech

• The MLB's exclusive baseball cap manufacturer (or a time period to "usher in"): 2 wds.

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: The Spiral Squared 8

It's been about two weeks since "The Spiral Squared 8" was posted on this blog, and nineteen people have solved it since then:

• Marie desJardins
• Grant Fikes
• Cathy Bowen
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Okieboy2008
• Michael Lebowitz
• Sam Levitin
• Chris Kochmanski
• Derek Allen
• Wendy Walker
• Tamara Brenner
• Craig Leach
• Patrick Jordan
• Mom
• Steve Gunter
• Lynn Sweeney
• Pavel Curtis

Now head below the break for the answers!

PUZZLE #549: Deck It Out 10

PUZZLE #549

DECK IT OUT 10

Fill in the answers to the clues below, then transfer the letters marked with playing card symbols to their proper places in the grid below. The number (or letter) of each clue will tell you what column to place those letters in. Once it's completely filled in, the grid will spell out a sentence that will provide a hint to the FINAL ANSWER.

This week's FINAL ANSWER is a proper noun

A) Spelunking site mentioned in the lyrics to "Clementine"

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♥       ♣   ♦   ♠

2) Sealing ring that’s metaphorically blown when one gets really angry

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♦   ♥       ♠   ♣

3) Pro baseball team humorously nicknamed the "Motor City Kitties"

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

        ♠   ♣   ♦       ♥

4) Resident of Mumbai

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

        ♦       ♥   ♣   ♠

5) A bit burned

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♣       ♥   ♠       ♦

6) Anakin Skywalker’s apprentice in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (anagram of OAK ASH)

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♦   ♣       ♥       ♠      

7) Little Jack Horner sat in one

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

        ♣   ♠   ♥       ♦

8) Manufacturer of the Tacoma and Tundra trucks

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♠       ♦       ♣   ♥

9) "Weird", "beard", and "cleared", for three

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

        ♠       ♥   ♣   ♦

10) Top 5 Matchbox Twenty hit that’s also a synonym for "ill"

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♠       ♦   ♥       ♣

J) Pixar movie featuring two blue-skinned elf brothers

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♦           ♣   ♠   ♥

Q) Fern leaves

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♥   ♦       ♣       ♠

K) Scribble aimlessly

   ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

    ♣   ♥       ♦   ♠

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: Section Six 11

Two weeks have passed by since "Section Six 11" was posted on this blog, and nineteen people have solved it since then:

• Grant Fikes
• Marie desJardins
• Cathy Bowen
• Cindy Heisler
• Joe Bernard
• Kevin Orfield
• Okieboy2008
• Sam Levitin
• Michael Lebowitz
• KeoFam
• Wendy Walker
• Steve Gunter
• Mom
• Tamara Brenner
• Derek Allen
• Lynn Sweeney
• Stasi Gustafson
• Pavel Curtis
• Craig Leach

Now head below the break for the answers!