"Round Five" February 23, 2024

[Janet]

I never left the Love Boat! I got the round references, but never thought of colors!

[iggystan]

Even though I have sworn off the metas, I still like to read the write-ups here and on Crossword Fiend. As someone pointed out, Matt possibly left another albeit obtuse clue in 59D's answer - Myers. If you Google "Myers Olympics" you will find a reference to Linda Myers, an Olympian in, you guessed it, archery. Intentional or not? Who knows...

[Aragorn]

Nope. Anybody else fatally distracted by the fact that, except for white, those colors are the same as the Olympic rings? And a paper plate could be green. No idea what to do from there, but I couldn't let it go.

Or the fact that flag background is white (largest) you're just missing the color green. Then there is a clue that directly mentions the color green, then there are two more clues which mention primary colors in addition to the ones in the themes, and the answers to those are OPAH and OPRAH which looks like it's dying to give you an extra letter, and it really makes your head hurt

[John77]

Officially, I planted myself on the wrong beach for this one.

As I had no idea where to go with the clue answers, it was time to think outside the box.

I started with "The answer to this week’s contest crossword is a sport you’ll see at the Olympics this summer." In my case, the only Olympic sport I am remotely likely to see this summer is golf.

A quick "solve," followed by a free weekend. Cheers to all.

[Shirley]

I’m an enigma here. Someone asked what made someone think of colors but I didn’t. Not having much paper and seeing there were 5 circles of decreasing (or increasing) size, I drew them one on top of the other. I immediately thought, “That’s an archery target.” I then wondered about colors and googled to find the color of a pool two ball. Voila! Yellow, red, blue, black, and white. These brainstorms don’t come very often, unfortunately.

[Flamel616]

Mars threw me off. While it's hard to compare sizes of balls and discs, the largest radius of the other four was the paper plate and the smallest radius would be the lemon slice. So, I thought "largest" and "smallest" were telling me that mars wasn't one of the theme answers. Couldn't get out of that space.

[woozy]

I’m an enigma here. Someone asked what made someone think of colors but I didn’t. Not having much paper and seeing there were 5 circles of decreasing (or increasing) size, I drew them one on top of the other. I immediately thought, “That’s an archery target.” I then wondered about colors and googled to find the color of a pool two ball. Voila! Yellow, red, blue, black, and white. These brainstorms don’t come very often, unfortunately.

Am I the only who that the first one being the largest of something, and the last being the smallest of another, in no way indicated the middle three would of any particular size other somewhere inbetween. And am I the only person who just assumed that "largest" and "smallest" obviously weren't referring to anything physical like circles but to some word play manipulation where whatever we manipulated for paper plates would be the largest and whatever we manipulated for lemon slice would be the smallest but no idea about the middle three.

[DBMiller]

I got to colors by trying to come up with something that was summer sport related where paper plate was largest and lemon slice was smallest. I had tied paper plate to a volleyball and lemon slice to a tennis ball. But couldn't make anything more. But the color idea came from that.

[PHOFER]

I'm curious to know what caused people to look for colors in the first place.

Interesting question. I think only looked at colors because of the colors in the “Round Five” rings in the Olympic flag. Aha! Except … what to do with the paper plate. So the rabbit hole actually led to the path, though indirectly.

[SamKat9]

I was hung up by organizing ball sizes (basketball is largest, basket is something you take for a picnic) until I was steered in the right direction by @DavyGravy . I even came up with lemon/lime "wedge" (a golf thing) to justify golf as being the smallest ball. But it led nowhere so it was an obvious rabbit hole.

[DannyWalter]

I LOVED this puzzle because the solve was purely visual. Once I had the colors, I had no idea what to do with them or even if it was the right track, but it FELT right (pool reference?). Back to the title, what if I put a white circle, and then a slightly smaller black one on top of it, then blue, etc. Hey google, what's that?

Seeing my minds' eye in the archery target was a very nice aha moment, delivering that wee shot of dopamine that keeps us all after these buggers.

Right on target, so to speak, but why would they put yellow in the middle? I was thinking it would be black, like darts.

[FatJack]

So close yet so far, like Mars!

I had concentric circles in my head and even was focusing on the colors, but couldn't get past the fact that Mars is a bit bigger than a lemon, so doomed to drink my coffee from my cupped hands for another week. Sigh

[The XWord Rabbit]

Have you picked out your green paper plates for St. Patrick’s Day? Mr. Gaffney had a number of us wrestling with that issue this week. The five theme entries in his “Round Five” puzzle were circular and colorful. Identify those colors (and no, the plates were white), arrange them from largest to smallest and you create an archery target. Voila!

The search for lost Muggles begins with an honorable mention – and that would be Woozy (Post ##209). It certainly is in the right spirit of things, but ultimately, it’s another LITFTATT response that your Rabbit has been avoiding of late. Sorry!

And now we come to this week’s nominee and it’s a surprise to say the least: It’s Mark, Wendy Walker’s long-suffering partner who has reluctantly taken up meta puzzles (that’s her description, not your Rabbit’s). Mark's rabbit hole story (Post #214) managed to demonstrate uniqueness, humor and “sticking the landing” in two lines, like so:

“The five themers are all round. Round round round round round ... Hey! that sounds a lot like "I Get Around," the classic surf rock tune by the Beach Boys, so the meta answer must be the Olympic sport SURFING.”

Well done, Mark. That is very likely the shortest story ever written and nominated. Will wonders never cease? Your Rabbit continues to be surprised by what he finds.

When one thinks of archery one immediately thinks of Robin Hood so your Rabbit searched the internet and here’s what he found:
One man’s opinion of the worst-to-best Robin Hood movies ever made.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls569073902/? ... ail&page=1

Please understand, these are not your Rabbit’s choices, as he would definitely have voted for Mr. Flynn’s classic portrayal in the top spot. As to the rest, well… he’s ashamed to say he didn’t even know there was a Doctor Who episode with Robin Hood, and he regrets having never seen the worst-ranked film. You just can’t beat the classics. Until next week, then.

[altosax]

I went down the list of Olympic sports, and was lucky that the answer started with "A". I wonder if Matt made up these terms, or if they are established archery phrases.

[JeanneC]

I got RUGBY, via a somewhat forced rabbit hole that I knew wasn't correct.
R = red = PLANET MARS (the largest, in reality)
G = green = PAPER PLATE (next largest)
B = blue = TWO BALL (next)
Y = yellow = LEMON SLICE (smallest).
The "U" came from the U in HOCKEY PUCK (black, keeping with the Olympic Rings theme), which is shot into the middle of the word, just as a hockey puck would be into a net.

I did rugby too but on the basis of the card colors for infractions or time off. Congrats to those who solved!

[Tom Shea]

...

When one thinks of archery one immediately thinks of Robin Hood so your Rabbit searched the internet and here’s what he found:
One man’s opinion of the worst-to-best Robin Hood movies ever made.

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls569073902/? ... ail&page=1

Please understand, these are not your Rabbit’s choices, as he would definitely have voted for Mr. Flynn’s classic portrayal in the top spot. As to the rest, well… he’s ashamed to say he didn’t even know there was a Doctor Who episode with Robin Hood, and he regrets having never seen the worst-ranked film. You just can’t beat the classics. Until next week, then.


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Mr. Rabbit,

First of all thank you for your invaluable service on these pages. I have yet to compliment you on your lifting our spirits when we go astray.

Having said that, where oh where is the love for THE absolute best take on Robin Hood -- "Men in Tights"? The debut of Dave Chappelle amongst a star studded cast! Isaac Hayes playing his dear ol' dad and Sir Patrick Stewart as good King Richard!

I guess people just don't appreciate art films anymore.

[DrTom]

I started off with a bang...round things, colors, rings, what about rings on a target!!! I figured Paper Plate was white and the rest were pretty well known, but the TWOBALL. It has been a LONG time since I played pool so I looked up the color. Quora quickly came back with "Yellow, though it can be other colors including orange".

Well that clinched that, no target has TWO yellow zones, besides what did largest and smallest have to do with it. I "phoned a friend" who said they had gotten it with Discordant help so I listened when he said "The size thing is the second step, focus on the colors....DANG!

OK, maybe I have to look again at the TWO BALL:

I got the same answer BUT this time I looked at the graphic included which of course completely contradicted the person who "answered" the question (to be fair their screen name was POOLMANIAC but they were talking about swimming pools!). GIven that, and knowing what a target looked like it was an easy step to the answer. To echo @BarbaraK and to add my own incredulity - who looks at an archery target and thinks META! I mean I come up with some odd ideas but they are all very mundane sources. It is just a constant wonder.

[Cindy N]

I did exactly the same thing - 2 ball = yellow. I didn't go back and look again until the Zoom call when people were saying "5 different colors". How is that possible? Let me go to images and...ohhhhhhh.

[woozy]

Quora is in my experience is the absolute last place to get answers.

[Joe Ross]

FWIW & IMStupidO, yellow has always been the #1 ball & blue #2. I'd abandon Quora as a trusted source..

16. BALLS AND BALL RACK

A complete set of pool balls consists of one white cue ball and fifteen color-coded, numbered object balls. The object balls are clearly and highly visibly numbered 1 through 15. Each object ball has its number printed twice, opposite each other, one of the two numbers upside down, black on a white round background. The object balls numbered 1 through 8 have solid colors as follows: 1=yellow, 2=blue, 3=red, 4=purple, 5=orange, 6=green, 7=maroon and 8=black. The object balls numbered 9 through 15 are white with a centered band of color as follows: 9=yellow, 10=blue, 11=red, 12=purple, 13=orange, 14=green and 15=maroon. The two printed numbers 6 and 9 are underscored