WSJ (Contest) Grid: 15 minutes; Meta: 5 more 
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Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “Alternate Programming” — Conrad’s writeup
This week we’re looking for what we hope you don’t find this puzzle. There were four TV show theme entries:
- GREENACRES: Sitcom set on a Hooterville farm
- HOARDERS: A&E reality series featuring cluttered homes
- BEARCATS: 1971 action series whose lead characters drove a Stutz auto
- ACEOFCAKES: Food Network show based in a Baltimore bakery
WSJ Contest – 06.06.2025
Mike also added a clue in the final horizontal entry, as he often does: NAMES, clued as Even characters in TV shows have them. Mike is famously literal in his clues, so I started counting the even characters of the four theme entries. I found the rabbit: the even-numbered letters of the themers formed a word that matched another word in the grid:
- BUTTS [Derrières]: REARS -> G(R)E(E)N(A)C(R)E(S)
- LODES [Mine finds]: ORES -> H(O)A(R)D(E)R(S)
- AGES [Historic times]: ERAS -> B(E)A(R)C(A)T(S)
- HENS [Coop creatures]: COCKS -> A(C)E(O)F(C)A(K)E(S)
The first letters of the mapped entries spell our contest solution BLAH. Another elegant puzzle by Mike: BLAH followed both the theme entry order, as well as the mapped entry order. Nice touch! Solvers: please share your thoughts.
Typo: EARS s/b ERAS.
Fixed, thanks!
Puzzle: WSJ (Contest); Rating: 4.5 stars
Excellent puzzle, fun to work. Took me awhile to move off names and begin looking athe even letters. Based on the title, I was expecting to see alternate answers. Well done Mike!
My success rate with Mike Shenk’s metas is probably around 25 or 30%. But this one was one of the easier ones, for several reasons:
1) The TV show titles were the obvious place to start; I often find that the hardest thing about Shenk’s metas. Some of the shows were (justifiably) obscure. (Anyone else remember watching BEARCATS!? My little brother loved that show for its entire three-month run.)
2) The title “Alternate Programming” led me to look at every other character in the theme answers. (I missed the wordplay in 61A’s “even characters” and originally looked at the first, third, fifth, etc. letters, which gave me garbage: GREEN ACRES yielded GENCRS, etc.)
3) Faithfully reading Conrad’s reviews of the WSJ contest puzzles has tipped me off to strategies I never would have thought of on my own, like mapping the even-lettered words onto other entries.
4) BUTTS and REARS. One doesn’t often see [Derrières] as a crossword clue, and when GREEN ACRES gave me REARS, I remembered putting BUTTS in the grid.
Between this puzzle and the June MMMM, I have broken out of my meta-failing slump.
Yeah I took hint from the title too. I wonder if a human can solve this meta without noticing the title or the final across entry.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 4 stars
Fun solve!
Fwiw, BLAH also maps back in the grid as an alternate to YAWN (bored reaction)
Does the WSJ publish the correct number of meta submissions someplace?
Mike Miller from WSJ lists the statistics on xword-muggles.com on Monday or Tuesday once the mug winner is verified.
Nothing BLAH about it. I scratched my head when I filled in NAMES for 61A, knowing that the clue would play a part in the meta. Names was such a BLAH answer. Haha. It had to mean something. Normally it takes me a while to finish, but I was done quickly this time. Loved seeing Antonin Artaud mentioned.