Sunday Cryptoquote Spoiler – 01/28/18

“It was a little all-too-devouring, just gobble, gobble, gobble.  No social content.”   —   Ralph Nader on PAC-MAN

(This is our first Ralph Nader quote!  It made for an unusual solve.  I think it’s the first time they added a qualifier to the author’s name, which made solving it a little slow.  It’s an amusing quote.  Of course I played some PAC-MAN in my day.  But, I never really got caught up in much of the video game craze.  I remember liking Asteroids though.  And, also that one where the gorillas would toss exploding bananas at each other.  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Image courtesy of Google

Sunday Jumble Spoiler – 01/28/18

Visual Description:  Deep water doings.

TRAYRE  =  ARTERY,  MULTEB  =  TUMBLE,  HANEVE  =  HEAVEN,  SEPUUR  =  PURSUE,  MDYIAS  =  DISMAY,  RICAGL  =  GARLIC   —   Giving us:  AEUEEENURSDSGAL

Clue/Question:  When the crustaceans started playing sports on the ocean floor, they had – – –

Pre-Answer:  Four Words  (7-letters)  (5-letters)  THE  (3-letters)

Answer:  LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

(This one was a toughie all-around!  None of the clue words are new, but all of the jumbles appear to be so.  And, some of them were pretty challenging.  The only ones I saw immediately were “tumble”, “heaven”, and “garlic”.  I love garlic!  Once again I played around with the possibility of “rarety” before coming up with “artery”.  And again, I tried to to make “puruse” before I saw “pursue”.  The jumble for “dismay” gave me a little pause too, but not like the others.  The answer letter layout was diabolical!  A truly masterful jumble.  Great job, Hoyt!  With the benefit of the free THE in the answer line I was able to fairly quickly surmise UNDER THE SEA.  But, it took me quite a while to make anything out of EEUSGAL.  Today’s answer really wasn’t any kind of idiom.  It was just a pun on sports leagues, so I think that’s one of the reasons it took me so long.  The cartoon is classic Knurek!  Great sea critters, and even a submarine passing by in the background.  For some reason, the little face next to the Pacific Division sign reminded me of the animated character Fred, from Channel 1, on the old “Captain Kangaroo” show.  I loved that show as a kid!  Looking Fred up, he really looks nothing like that, but I did find some nice memorial cartoons that some cartoonists did upon Bob Keeshan’s passing.  Instead of pics and drawings of sea creatures I’m giving you the Bob Keeshan cartoons, because the show meant so much to me.  David and Jeff did an outstanding job today though!  Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR

Cartoon images courtesy of Google