I was convinced it had to do with a dromedary and Drew Barrymore.Q: Think of two hooved animals. Take all the letters of one of them and the last three letters of the other, mix them together, and you'll get the first and last names of a famous actress. Who is it?
Sunday, February 01, 2026
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 1, 2026): Two Hooved Animals and an Actress
NPR Sunday Puzzle (Feb 1, 2026): Two Hooved Animals and an Actress
32 comments:
For NPR puzzle posts, don't post the answer or any hints that could lead to the answer before the deadline (usually Thursday at 3pm ET). If you know the answer, submit it to NPR, but don't give it away here.
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I wanted Salma Hayek to work with Yak. Alas.
ReplyDeleteI got nothing so far. Derailed by Len Caribou and Sandra Bullock.
DeleteMare Winningham didn't work either.
DeleteHa!
ReplyDeleteSomeone is on the right track...
Anagrams aren't a lot of fun. But there is one fun thing about this puzzle.
Wasn't STRAP going to save us from this kind of thing? Where is STRAP?
DeleteI didn't solve it yet, but I stumbled across a variant puzzle, which I am going to send to Lego for the next Puzzleria! In any case, I wanted to see if ChatGPT could solve my puzzle. Here are some of its comments:
ReplyDelete"If solving is the goal and you’re willing to give a tiny nudge that would keep it fun instead of brute-force"
"And yes—this is exactly the kind of clue where even solvers who love brute force eventually mutter, “There has to be a cleaner insight,” which makes your comment especially on-brand 😄" (my comment was that even ChatGPT got tired of brute force)
"Very clean, very fair, and yes: much funnier once you realize brute force would be miserable here."
Well, Pi Day is coming right up, isn't it?!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteSo many actresses...so many ungulates. At least Will could have told us if the actress is still extant.
ReplyDeleteOr something to narrow this down. "Famous" is a sufficiently vague term that it could be almost any actress.
DeleteMaybe we should send in Whitney Houston or Cate Blanchett just to be safe.
DeleteAt my age, it pleases in a perverse way that AI gave me two incorrect answers. It also pleases me that I can still recognize wrong answers.
ReplyDeleteI have posted on this blog before that in February or March 1964 I had dinner with Elke Sommer. I didn't score with her then, and I am not scoring with her now.
ReplyDeleteIt behooves us to know that elks have hooves. But does an Elke have hooves? Whoever heard of a herd of Elke without hooves? And bees (as well as some unwell humans) have hives.
DeleteLegoUngulatory
If it were just the surname...
ReplyDeleteOut of the mouths of babes... I think I have it!
DeleteI believe I have it. I predict very few correct answers this week.
DeleteAl, agreed.
DeleteI wonder if I can use Miss Piggy as one of the actresses.
ReplyDeleteARMY + spoNGE => MEG RYAN ... I don't think that's it, just saying.
ReplyDeleteK, Blaine.
ReplyDeleteI have an answer but I'm not sure it's the intended one. If it is, there's something I found extraneous. One of the animals is one I'm very familiar with and the other one not.
ReplyDeleteSame here.
DeleteOh joy! I think I finally got it.
ReplyDeleteWhat an awfully worded puzzle. A famous actress? Yeah, she appeared in a few bad movies. The Melania Trump of films.
ReplyDeleteEgad, is that the answer they're looking for?
ReplyDeleteI was working backwards, starting with names of actresses, seeing if I could anagram out a hooved animal, and have three letters left to be the other animal. I had a couple of names that seemed to work, but I couldn't think of an animal that ended in the remaining letters. On a lark, I googled the remaining letters, and hit a hooved animal that I was not familiar with. I suspect many others are not as well (and I see comments along those lines). If what I have found is the intended answer, then I score this puzzle a 1 out of 10.
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ReplyDeleteOh, wait--bad hint. Picking letters out of the name, reusing at will, I can spell five hoofed animals.
ReplyDeleteSo I have an answer. It might be the intended one, but I hardly think many would call her a famous actress. Maybe, but maybe not.
ReplyDeleteNumerical Clue: 34
My actress shares a first name with a few athletes including a couple that were in the news recently (not to mention who the last name may bring to mind).
ReplyDeleteMoments ago as I was reading a just now published new book I picked up at the library yesterday, I came across the name of the less well known animal in a somewhat different context. My life is filled with strange coincidences, and this is one of the mildest, but still interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the difference between the U.S. House and LA Fitness?
ReplyDelete