NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 24, 2016): Drugstore Singer

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 24, 2016): Drugstore Singer:

Q: Name a famous singer — first and last names. The last four letters of the first name spelled backward plus the first four letters of the last name spelled forward ... read together, in order, name a section of products in a drugstore. What is it?

At a minimum we need a name like BURL IVES, with four letters in each name.

Edit: Burl Ives was in the musical "Paint Your Wagon" and sang "They Call the Wind Maria". The song was the inspiration for Mariah Carey's name.

A: MARIAH CAREY --> HAIR CARE

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 17, 2016): Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 17, 2016): Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle:

Q: Take the name of a famous musical. Write it in upper- and lowercase letters, as you usually would. Now turn one of the characters upside-down and move it to another place in the title. The result will be the last name of a well-known stage performer. What is the musical, and who is the performer?

Chicago? Nope. Cats? Nope. Hmm... I'm not getting it!

Edit: My hint had question marks, an ellipsis and an exclamation point to point you to thinking about the punctuation.

A: Oliver! --> (Laurence) Oliv¡er

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 10, 2016): And Threes a Crowd...

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 10, 2016): And Threes a Crowd...:

Q: Name something in eight letters that's usually bought in pairs. Change the second letter to the letter two spaces later in the alphabet, and you'll get a new word that names something else that's usually bought in pairs. Both words are plurals. What are they?

Put the two words together and that's also something that you can buy. Who knew?

Edit: You can buy Speakers for your Sneakers or even Sneakers made into Speakers

A: SNEAKERS/SPEAKERS (Will also accepted Slippers/Snippers)

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 3, 2016): A=1, B=2, C=3, ...

NPR Sunday Puzzle (April 3, 2016): A=1, B=2, C=3, ...:

Q: Take the word EASY: Its first three letters — E, A and S — are the fifth, first, and nineteenth letters, respectively, in the alphabet. If you add 5 + 1 + 19, you get 25, which is the value of the alphabetical position of Y, the last letter of EASY.

Can you think of a common five-letter word that works in the opposite way — in which the value of the alphabetical positions of its last four letters add up to the value of the alphabetical position of its first letter?

I'm crossing this off my list of tough puzzles; this is way too EASY!

Edit: My hint was to crosswalks which are called "zebra crossings" in the U.K.

A: ZEBRA is one possible answer. TABLE, WHACK and MACED also fit the criteria.