Here's a long list of comedians and a list of gods to help you out.Q: Take the first and last names of a famous comedian. The first three letters of the first name and the first letter of the last name, in order, spell the name of a god in mythology. The fourth letter of the first name and the second through fourth letters of the last name, in order, spell the name of another god. Who's the comedian, and what gods are these?
Edit: The antonym of long is...
A: MARTIN SHORT --> MARS, THOR
Here's my standard reminder... don't post the answer or any hints that could lead directly to the answer (e.g. via a chain of thought, or an internet search) before the deadline of Thursday at 3pm ET. If you know the answer, click the link and submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.
ReplyDeleteYou may provide indirect hints to the answer to show you know it, but make sure they don't give the answer away. You can openly discuss your hints and the answer after the Thursday deadline. Thank you.
I will admit, since I do not keep up with comedians, to resorting to lists to find an answer. I succeeded, but I certainly wish that the lists had been not so long. ---Rob
ReplyDeleteActually, Blaine's list of gods isn't long enough.
DeleteI'd like to share this more thorough list of Gods. I am sure it will help.
DeleteAirplanes.
ReplyDeleteThe commedian's credits include a movie appropriate to this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI saw this comedian perform fairly recently, so this didn't require too much mental energy on my part.
ReplyDeleteThis comedian once appeared in a film whose title describes the method by which a solver may have come across the answer.
ReplyDeleteI think SuperZee and PlannedChaos are referring to the same film.
ReplyDeleteNope, there's another one, a movie the comedian was in with a title that contains a word directly relevant to the puzzle.
DeleteIt's easy to assume that the comedian has four letters in each name. But, it doesn't take a Law & Order detective to figure that assumption is wrong.
ReplyDeleteA caveman could figure this one out.
ReplyDeleteCan he also save 15% or more on car insurance?
DeleteThat's a musical clue.
DeleteI have heard the name, but I don't think I have seen the face.
ReplyDeleteGlad I got it fairly early because, with the number of names on Blaine's two lists, the permutations are unthinkably high.
More than one answer?
Last week's number of correct submissions was strangely low for such an easy challenge.
Not unthinkable. For a list containing G unique 4-letter gods, the number of permutations is P(G, 2) = G * (G – 1), which is G less than G squared. This would give the first four letters of both the first and last names of any potential comedians. When G is around 220–250, the answer is between 50,000–60,000.
DeleteAnd still I think there's only one answer. Remember, the gods also have to be fairly common.
Whom the gods would destroy, they first make common.
DeleteI am reminded of a senator...
ReplyDeleteHey there.
ReplyDelete.075
DeleteWhich one holds the most hot air?
DeleteI figured it out! [1:26 - 1:30]
DeleteJerry Ross was a professional singer and actor in the Yiddish theater, where he was billed as the “Boy Star.”
The Pajama Game premiered on May 13, 1954, four days before the Supreme Court rendered a landmark decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education. The attorney representing the plaintiff in that case was Thurgood Marshall, who would later become a Supreme Court Justice. Justice Marshall's given name was Thoroughgood, but he began writing it as 'Thurgood' in elementary school, because, well ... Jiminy Crickets! ... wouldn't you?
Laurence Fishburne has portrayed Thurgood Marshall on Broadway; he also portrayed a character called Morpheus in The Matrix Trilogy, who presents Neo with a choice between a red pill and a blue one.
Morpheus is the god of dreams in Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Muddling black, white, brown, red, and blue on the palette produces shades and/or hues like puce, mauve, and taupe, which somehow elicited a permuticative response from me. Yes, I know 'permuticative' isn't a real word.
There used to be a Glick's shoe store just a few blocks from where I now sit. It's not there anymore.
An easy puzzle that fails to meet expectations ... starts to sound like a melodrama!
ReplyDeleteI returned to bed after reporting at the end of last week's blog that I had solved it while still in bed. I decided not to get back up and post the hint I came up with soon thereafter. Here it is now:
ReplyDeleteIf you insert a vowel immediately before the last letter of the first name and then switch the order of the two names you should then understand why it is I am not completing this hint.
You could also add a vowel after the last letter of the first name, and do the same.
Deleteeco,
DeleteYou obviously don't know me well enough or you would never say that!
Can't wait until I get called on Thursday.
ReplyDeleteNow that Ringling Bros. is going out of business Trump will have lots more clowns he can choose from to pack the Supreme Court and lesser courts.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how he can utilize the midgets though.
I look forward to the funny noses and bright costumes on the bench...
DeleteI think Trump already has some mental midgets lined up...
DeleteClarence Thomas has done his mime act for over a quarter century.
DeleteI think he gave the circus too much competition.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree with you. All they had left was a dog and pony show.
DeleteHahahahahaha
DeleteWhat's the difference between a Donald Trump administration and the Ringling Bros. Circus?
DeleteAnswer: His Cabinet holds more clowns than can fit in the little car.
Alternate answer: The elephants can't produce that much shit in a day.
Regarding the demise of the Ringling Bros. Circus, you would have to say its owner was Feld in the end.
DeleteOr maybe it wasn't a large enough sideshow to compete with Trump.
DeleteOr perhaps they realized Trump would destroy their safety net too.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteOr they couldn't juggle that much spectacle at one time. Not to mention that their fire-breather couldn't compete with Trump either.
DeleteNow with the closing of the Ringling Bros. Circus the only snake handling lady will be moving into the White House.
DeleteI guess the circus's net income wasn't sufficient.
DeleteSDB: I thought Monica was the snake handler. Melania's chore is to hold on to the worm, Ivanka and Marla couldn't.
DeleteSad that the elephants originally chose not to join the circus and its ringmaster, but now are falling in line and grabbing each others' tail.
This is not a black & white issue. There is much gray area here.
Deletepuce, mauve, taupe
Deletepuce, taupe, mauve
mauve, puce, taupe
mauve, taupe, puce
taupe, puce, mauve
taupe, mauve, puce
Elephants are employing new theory: Survival of unfittest.
DeleteMauvelous!
Delete!!!!
DeleteThe future is not for the lily-livered. Don't Arum.
DeleteNatasha: Вы не ведет себя как хороший товарищ. Не хорошо!
DeleteТак жаль Переходный человек. Я хороший шпион, нет?
DeleteМы лучшие шпионы в мире. Вы не поверите, насколько велика и мы!
DeleteМы наблюдаем людей в этом блоге каждую неделю.
And the horror show is about to begin.
DeleteSeen at a "Save Our Health Care" rally yesterday: a sign reading "Рутин Лжет Вам!"
Trumptransition: Да, товарищ, мы лучшие. не должны раскрывать, кто мы есть на самом деле. До встречи на инаугурационной мяч. Красная гвоздика в волосах.
DeleteI must say, with such a puzzle as this, it's good to have friends on this blog, even if they can only be counted on one hand.
ReplyDeletewill you please be my friend, i need help and im desperate
DeleteUnknown: I will be your friend. Just go through lists of both categories. I started with the gods list.
DeleteBy sheer coincidence, today just happens to be a birthday milestone for a TV costar of the comedian in question.
ReplyDeleteFormer TV costar, I should say.
ReplyDeleteLiterary clue: Dr. Seuss
ReplyDeleteThe answer to this puzzle is not to go to the lounge and getting loaded.
ReplyDeleteBlainesvillians,
ReplyDeleteFIRST: This week's NPR puzzle by Peter Collins is a good one. Peter has a talent for composing Will-worthy puzzles. Thanks to Peter.
SECOND: Below is a sneak preview of one of the Ripping Off Shortz puzzles I will be including on this coming Friday’s Puzzleria! blog. My puzzle is admittedly less "elegant" than Peter's NPR offing this week.
If you solve my puzzle, please do not reveal your answer here, but wait until Wednesday, January 25 at 3 PM EST to post your answer on the Puzzleria! Comments Section.
But feel free at any time to give hints that do not give the answer away.
Thank you.
Ripping Off Shortz And Collins Slice:
“Comedeity!”
Take the first and last names of a somewhat famous comedian. The first four letters of the first name and the first letter of the last name, in order, spell the name of a god. The fifth letter of the first name and the second-through-fifth letters of the last name, all mixed up, spell the creature that, in Celtic mythology, a war goddess might take the form of.
Who is the comedian, what god is this, and what creature is this?
LegoRippingOffInTheMidstOfRipRoaringLaughter
A somewhat less inelegant Rip-Off puzzle that will be served up on this coming Friday's Puzzleria!:
DeleteTake the first and last names of a famous comedian. The third, fourth, sixth and seventh letters of the first name, in order, spell the name of a god in mythology. The second-through-sixth letters of the last name, in order, spell the name of another god.
Who is the comedian, and what gods are these?
LegoRespectfullyRequestsThatYouGiveHintsButNotAnswers
Don't you mean that "the THIRD-through-sixth letters of the last name, in order, spell the name of another god." ? I have an answer for that one.
DeleteYes, you are correct, ron. My mistake. Thank you very much for you help. And, congrats on your solving skills.
DeleteLegoDoes"Think"HoweverThatTheSecondThroughSixthLetterDoesIndeedYieldA"God"InTheRealmOfSculpture
WW
ReplyDeleteWhilst moving hash at the speed of light the WH gang loves this puzzle;)
zekey pooh
The circus is a high wire act and Trump is a why hire act.
ReplyDeleteDo the Russians have evidence of a Trump pees act?
DeleteTune in for the next gripping episode.
DeleteToo bad that Aaron Rodgers' streak was broken yesterday. But in the end it didn't matter.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot more streaking at games 40 years ago.
DeleteSpeaking of streaking. Yesterday as I entered the supermarket I could not help noticing all the employees in the deli section were naked. Then I realized the store had recently remodeled and it was a New Delhi.
DeleteAaron Rodgers' streak of passes without an interception (INT) ended last Sunday. Which was a veiled reference to the letters left over from Martin Short's name when you subtract Mars and Thor. Which, because they came at the end, didn't matter.
DeleteAnd if you include in the prescribed machinations: Add an "i" to the leftover letters and anagram to get a Native American God (thanks to Blaine's link).
ReplyDeleteYou anagram turncoat, you!
DeleteTrump's anti-Muslim rhetoric is just an attempt to Mosque his true feelings.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Ringling Bros. Circus closes the focus will no longer be on scary acts, but on a president who acts scary.
ReplyDeleteAwww, looks like rain on inauguration day in D.C.. I guess it means that it may rain on Trump's charade, I mean parade!
ReplyDeleteI don't think he'll mind the rain. [insert golden shower joke here]
DeleteDrink of choice on Inauguration evening? I'm thinking White Russian.
ReplyDeleteYou haven't been around here for awhile now, but I figured you would show again.
DeleteMissed. Plus, was outta town. Glad to be back.
DeleteYou can anagram the leftover letters to get a god, who is not on Blaine's list.
ReplyDeletecerium, strontium sulfide, and pure titanium: What do you think, sdb and jan and airborne all?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't seem to add much.
DeleteWas it a blistering day or one of freezing rain?
DeleteMaybe someone should buy the FBI a good microscope.
Agreed, jan. Mendo Jim, maybe it was blistering rain.
DeleteSay now, if you want to read about something that may add to your plans for August 21, 2017, check this out. . .
It was a cold, dark and rainy day all over the state that Thanksgiving day. That is one of the many reasons he did not survive. I would imagine he worked at Boeing, where most in suits did not wear bow ties, but he must have worn his fake bow tie there, which would narrow the field, if anyone alive recalls someone fitting the description.
DeleteI have no respect for anyone, other than a waiter or usher who would wear a fake bow tie. I even make most of my own real ones.
Jumping in warm rain is very unpleasant. Jumping out the rear of a jet would be a shock in good conditions, I cannot imagine how horrible it would have been in the conditions he jumped in. Besides he was wearing oxfords, which most likely would have come off, and if not would not be something anyone would want to have to land a round parachute wearing, even in a controlled situation, which this wasn't. He would most likely have broken both ankles and probably more, but I doubt he even was able to activate his parachute.
DeleteI guess the author meant "blustery" not "blistering."
DeleteI think I may have a necktie around somewhere.
The weather description is perfectly consistent...they're just a little confused in Alabama - ask PJ, er, Cranberry.
DeleteYeah, we've had warmer weather here. Definitely strange for January, if you ask me.
DeleteHer Majesty the Donald!
ReplyDeleteMore photos of the Donald.
DeletePresident Obama just commuted Chelsea Manning's sentence, making for a May release.
ReplyDeleteGOOD ON HIM!
Not a may release; a will release. (Just kidding)
DeleteWine pairing for inaugural luncheon: Rose and fatted goose.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the Trump Reich:
ReplyDeleteHAVE HOPE!!!
That is what I am being advised by numerous people. One even told me all the yoga joints were a good sign.
I am sure hope will work and solve everything. Hope worked for the:
The passengers on the Titanic
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster passengers
The Franklin Expedition
Weimar Republic
Danial Pearl
Hillary Clinton
Anne Frank
Al Gore
Or maybe it didn't.
Hope only controls the masses and hopefully prevents them from becoming really involved. We can shatter their hopes too if we try.
Hope is opium of the masses. I saw the site for ordering free tickets for the inauguration events. I ordered two weeks ago and still not received online. Reordered again. Want to see what ticket looks like. Seems like a scam. The site also asks for $50 for commemorative license plate which I thought Trump was not using this time.
DeleteElephants have very thick skin. It's called pachydermis.
ReplyDeleteBuggers to the President-elect!
ReplyDeleteFinally someone bothered to do the moth.
DeleteI just cannot get over the humiliation of having a president whose pee pee is smaller than Putin's.
DeleteOne flitters all the time while another Twitters way too much. But it's still tough to tell which of the two has more common sense!
DeleteOh, if it only were common.
DeleteI gently refer you to my Sun Jan 15, 04:07:00 PM PST comment, above.
DeleteJust received ticket to the inauguration. See you all there.
ReplyDeleteLucky you! I envy you getting to watch as he moves into the White Dacha.
DeleteAs the un-white DACA get moved out?
DeleteYes, it should be a colorful march too.
DeleteHow close do those tickets get you to the action? Have fun!
DeleteSuch a deal I gotcha on this great dacha.
DeleteI assume you mean bolt action?
DeleteHave a great day. God bless America.
ReplyDeleteThanks zeke. Ordered online and just got the ticket. Anyone can get one.
ReplyDeleteIs Putin channeling Borat? On the Trump dossier: “He is a grown man, somebody who for many years has been organizing beauty contests, interacted with the most beautiful women in the world. You know, it is difficult for me to imagine that he ran to a hotel to meet with our young women with lowered social responsibility. Even though they are undoubtedly the best in the world, too."
ReplyDeletejan,
DeleteConsider this. Have you ever seen a photo of Putin and Borat together?
Maybe.
DeleteI sit corrected!
DeleteWhy else would Trump give his youngest son Borat's alter ego's middle name?
DeleteDo you also have a photo of Trump in a mankini?
DeleteNo, but I bet that dossier does.
Delete("Dossier does" sounds like a square dance move.)
DeleteWell they are dancing around the issue.
DeleteYou may be on to something. Is ISIS the Allemande Left?
DeleteAlternative für Deutschland is certainly Allemande Right!
DeleteMy god! Tomorrow is almost here and I cannot find where I stored my jack boots. Not only that but I must have thrown out all my old white sheets when I switched to colored sheets.
DeleteMartin Short >>> MARS & THOR
ReplyDeleteMy Hint:
“If you insert a vowel immediately before the last letter of the first name and then switch the order of the two names you should then understand why it is I am not completing this hint.” Short Martian.
I also posed you could have a short martini, though references usually mean the glass.
Delete"An easy puzzle that fails to meet expectations [comes up short] ... starts to sound like a melodrama!" Come up Short is a song by Kevin Garrett, whose first EP was "Mellow Drama".
I wrote, "I will admit, since I do not keep up with comedians, to resorting to lists to find an answer. I succeeded, but I certainly wish that the lists had been not so long." "Not so long" is "short," and of course I am not the only one using this hint. ---Rob
ReplyDelete
DeleteMARTIN SHORT and MARS, THOR
Indeed, Blainesville was long on SHORT clues this week.
"Hey there." referred to Martin Short's middle name, Hayter.
I also posted a SHORT video (one minute).
Late to the party today. Putting the finishing touches on my ball gown. . .or something like that. It's really more appropriate for March.
The name of Short's character in Mars Attacks! was Jerry Ross. Coincidence?
DeleteMARTIN SHORT -> MARS, THOR
ReplyDelete> Blaine's list of gods isn't long enough.
It's too short: Mars (along with the rest of the Roman gods) is missing.
> Airplanes.
Martin (later Martin Marietta and Lockheed Martin) has made planes since 1912. Short, now part of Bombardier, is a Belfast-based aerospace company that made the ugliest plane in the world.
Jan - That is one ugly plane! I had never heard of Short Aviation before. Looking at the internet, their planes have been famous, maybe not for looks but for practicality.
DeleteI see that they made the first Canberra in the late 40's. That was an advanced plane that Martin Aircraft had a license to build in the USA, as the B-57.
At the local AFB near me, the USAF used a retired model to practice putting practice fires out on.
Interesting that it had a Martin / Short connection, there.
Ernie Kovacs
ReplyDeleteAt what age does a child advance to being cocious?
ReplyDeleteMartin Short
ReplyDelete...go to the lounge and getting loaded.
Lounge-bar-Mars bar
Loaded-hammered-Thor(s) hammer
If you watch the video of the Tehran, Iran tower collapse you will see it falls in a similar manner as did the WTC in New York. This will either prove that there was no conspiracy and finally silence the conspiracy theorists, or, more likely, it will prove that the former G. W. Bush administration is also responsible for the Iran disaster.
ReplyDeleteA 55-year old building collapsing as a result of fire proves nothing, except maybe for the value of building codes and sprinklers. The tower was built by Habib Elghanian, a Jewish entrepreneur who was executed shortly after the 1979 revolution for having contacts with Israel and Zionism. The date of his execution -- 19790509, i.e., May 5, 1979 -- was found by Symantic researchers to have been encoded into the Stuxnet worm, which crippled Iran's nuclear centrifuge program, as a marker to identify computers that should not be affected.
DeleteIf you're looking for accidental disasters that provide grist for conspiracy mills, how about the crane collapse at Islam's holiest site, the Masjid al-Haram, the Grand Mosque in Mecca, on -- wait for it -- September 11, 2015. The crane was owned by the Saudi Binladin Group, Osama bin Laden's dad's firm.
Well, now that I am scared to death, I vow never to stay at a RamadaM Inn.
DeleteIf you kneed more pruff of Konspiracy theories, consider that these famous people all died on September 11:
Jessica Tandy
Lorne Greene
Salvador Allende Gossens, president Chile
Ralph C. Smedley, Founder of Toastmasters International
Robert W. Service
John C Smuts, co-found British RAF/South African PM
Mohammed Ali Jinnah, 1st governor of Pakistan
Francois Couperin, French composer
Emperor Go-Mizunoo of Japan
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteMartin Short – Mars, Thor
ReplyDeleteI was unable to join you this afternoon at 3 Eastern as I had a doctor’s appointment. I think this was a good puzzle.
Last Sunday I said, “I am reminded of a senator…” That would be Al Franken as in Frankenweenie, in which Short voiced a leading role.
MARTIN SHORT (of “Mars Attack”)
ReplyDeleteMARS
THOR
My clues: “share” anagrams to Ares + h, Greek God of war, equivalent of Mars, Roman God of war. 2nd clue:
“THORough,” Norse God of thunder and etymology of THOR'sday>>>Thursday.
Mendo Jim: Ancient Incan sun god: INTI.
Yep. He/she was also the god/goddess of anagrams, which is why jumbling is such a worthwhile way to waste time, init.
DeleteMARTIN SHORT, MARS, THOR
ReplyDeleteI referenced "The Three Amigos" and the phrase "I must say", which Short's Ed Grimley character often says. Sunday just happened to be the 70th birthday for Andrea Martin, Short's SCTV costar. Short also provided the voice for the Cat in the Hat on a PBS show made in Canada. My nieces like to watch it sometimes, that's how I knew that.
Now that Trump has filled the swamp to overflowing with effluvia he should have no trouble keeping his promise to drain it.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteJust trying to be polite so as not to rile Big Brother, but I just wonder how long the 'honeymoon' will last?
DeleteOnly until he rubs their "whatever" raw.
DeleteAt the risk of taking WW's place here: let's not disparage swamps (and bogs and marshes and fens and glades and sloughs) by using the incoherent language of the one who lives in a gilded tower (and a really tacky one at that).
DeleteTrump has filled the swamp with oil.
eco, and lots and lots of gas (What the frack?!).
DeleteNatasha: Please give a report from DC, I wish I were there.
ReplyDeleteWhile making my sign for tomorrow's protests in Oakland and SF, I discovered the font Trump used for his logo used was "Akzidenz Grotesk Bold Extended". I wish I could make this up
Sure, but I doubt any of us will have font memories of today.
DeleteHe'll put us all in the pen.
DeleteEco, I did not make it to the inauguration. A lot of my friends went to DC to march though.
DeleteActually I can deal with the carnage, but I would appreciate it if he would do something about the potholes.
ReplyDeleteWhen he said, "This American carnage stops right here and stops right now." did he actually mean Carnegie?
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing and great to see the crowds turning out to speak their minds today, all around the country and many foreign capitols!
ReplyDeletePeople have got to turn out and vote in every future election. There were way too many people who did not even bother to vote this past November!!!
It's especially important to vote in the off-year elections. The presidential race gets all the attention, but the congressional and senatorial contests are important, too. Remember how the Republican Congress was able to stymie Obama after they took control. Perhaps even more important are the state legislative races, which almost everyone ignores. (Can you even name your state senator and assembly representatives?) They're the ones that, every 10 years, get to draw the congressional district boundaries, which make many districts a lock for the party in power.
DeleteOhio, a clear purple state is a great example: Trump got 52.1%, Clinton 43.5%, Gary Johnson 3.2%, Jill Stein 0.8%, and Richard Duncan (local guy) 0.4%. They have 1 Dem and 1 Repub in the Senate.
DeleteIn 2010 Republicans took control of the Ohio state legislatures, and they learned computers can help gerrymander very effectively; the Ohio contingent in the US House has 12 Republicans, 4 Democrats.
Are you doing the moth again?
DeleteNext week's challenge, from Dan Pitt of Palo Alto, Calif.:
ReplyDeleteThis week's challenge is unusual. The numbers 5,000, 8,000, and 9,000 share a property that only five integers altogether have. Identify the property and the two other integers that have it.
"Nearly 1100" correct entries last week.
DeleteI have either 3 more integers with the same property, or 9 more, depending on how you count (if I have the right answer, of course).
@jan Picasso
ReplyDeleteApples and oranges again
ReplyDeleteLet B(0)=z
ReplyDeleteLast week's Car Talk puzzler was about how to lower a heavy, brittle piece of slate into a precisely cut hole in the floor without breaking it. My wife correctly says the answer to puzzles like that is always "ice cubes". She says the answer to "shared property" puzzles like this week's is always the same, too.
ReplyDelete