Sunday, May 17, 2026

NPR Sunday Puzzle (May 17, 2026): Actor and Character

NPR Sunday Puzzle (May 17, 2026): Actor and Character
Q: Name a famous actor of the past, seven letter first name and seven letter last name. Remove three consecutive letters from his last name and the remaining letters in order will be the well known lead character from a long running series of films. What actor and character are these?
Rearrange the letters of the actor and you'll get an animal and a fruit.

35 comments:

  1. The key is in the Bible.

    Congratulations once again, legolambda!

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  2. Sounds like a good Sunday Puzzle.

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  4. Remove all letters that appear more than once in the name of the character. Rearrange to get something you might find in the ocean.

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  5. One actor who played the long running character is from my old stomping ground. Although by today's standards, he'd have to be from somewhere else.

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  6. Name an actor who played the character. Remove five consecutive letters. Add a word that is the opposite of what remains of the actor's first name. The result is a novel solution.

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  7. The three letters that are removed can be anagrammed to either spell a rock band abbreviation or the first three letters of another musical group.

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  8. Hi everyone. Easy puzzle today from Lego but you can always change the station if you don't like this week's offering.

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  9. Nice one, Lego! I'm thinking the correct submissions will be back to 4 digits this week.

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    1. Yes, I expect bigger numbers this week too.

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    2. I agree—more correct answers this week.

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  10. I got the answer - this week’s challenge is relatively easy, in stark contrast to last week’s challenge.

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  11. The character was originally described as being from a specific location, although many of the films featured different locations.

    Several TV shows, in a similar genre to the original, feature the original location.

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  12. Nothing to add but my congrats to Joseph. Not sure anyone keeps track of this but is it possible that you are the all time leading guest contributor to the NPR Sunday morning puzzle? It wouldn't surprise me a bit... :)

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    1. Thank you, JayB (and others who have posted complimentary comments). But I strongly suspect there are others (likely many others!) who have had more puzzles featured on NPR than I.
      LegoGratefully

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  13. Mad Magazine ran a piece back in the 50s that went something like this: “You’ve read the book, now watch the movie!” “You’ve seen the movie, now watch the tv show!” “You’ve seen the tv show, now play the board game!” “You’ve played the board game, now buy the cocktail napkins!” In the case of this particular character we got a radio and stage version as well, but sadly no cocktail napkins. Hoping this isn't TMI.

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    1. No napkins, but there IS a cocktail.

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    2. I'm a little sloe, but this is what got me there.

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  14. A modernist poet comes to mind.

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  15. Blaine’s clue confirmed my solution.

    And Joe… Superman walks around with a big “S” on his chest for Super. You walk around with a big “P” on your chest for Puzzleman.

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  16. Nice puzzle, Lego! Not too hard, for me, but I'm out of novel avenues with which to clue it without saying too much. Congrats!

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  17. I guess for the Star Trek question he was only counting broadcast series…

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  18. If you change 2 letters of the actor's last name, then you will get something interesting.

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  19. Anyone else feel like going for a brief hike?

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  20. This is an excellent puzzle. Usually when I solve one of these while still in bed, and without using any lists, I find it too easy, but not this time. I doubt there will be many correct entries.

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  21. You can also get two non-name words, each by removing 3 other consecutive letters from the actor's last name.

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  22. Name a famous actor of the past, 7 letter first name and 7 letter last name . There are 4 different ways to remove 3 consecutive letters from his last name so that the remaining letters in order spell common words. Too bad, Sandra Bullock!

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  23. Think of another famous actor of the past, 5 & 6 letters. His last name is a homophonic synonym of a common vehicle. Add 5 letters to his last name and you will get a common brand name of this vehicle.

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  24. One played a character of his own many times and would never have encountered the other character.

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