AV Club Contest – Wednesday, April 19

10:00, including meta (Ben) 

 

TWO AV Club contests in a month?  What luck.  Here’s the writeup on last week’s puzzle now that the deadline has closed.

First, the instructions for this one, per Francis:

Seven characters are in costume. If you sneak backstage, maybe you can get a peek at their real identities.

With a title like “That’s My Cue!”, it’s easy to figure out what’s going on with the theme:

  • 19A: Floor cover built to withstand enormous NBA Hall-of-Famer O’Neal? — SHAQ CARPET
  • 21A: Results of Basinger’s Mensa test, put to music? — KIM IQ SUNG
  • 32A: Index entry in a book of cooking-related psychological disorders (see also: “grilling, obsessed with”)? — BAR-B-Q BENTON
  • 44A/48A: Hair salon job that entails eyebrow removal at most? — BURQA/SHAVE
  • 62A: Enormous press conferences? — GIANT Q AND AS
  • 72A: Reason you didn’t get any presents last Christmas? — SANTA QUIT
  • 76A: “I heard your ‘@!#*?!’ loud and clear; will remain at the arcade for now”? — ROGER QBERT

All of these, of course, have a Q in place of another letter to translate a noun phrase into something a little wackier.  To solve the meta, all that was required was to put the correct letter back in that Q’s place:

  • SHAG CARPET
  • KIM IL-SUNG
  • BARBI BENTON
  • BERMA SHAVE
  • GIANT PANDAS
  • SANTA SUIT
  • ROGER EBERT

Giving us GLIMPSE, the final answer (and what definitely feels in alignment with the “peek” we’re supposed to get for solving this fully.


I thought this had some really well-done fill and was a nice entry-level meta that (hopefully) everyone could enjoy.  Nicely done, Francis!

4.5/5 stars

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