Oh, my heart. I am bad a so very many things. I am good at a few, and great at *one*. One thing. Claw machines. My boys would always be allowed a quarter at the diner we went to quite often. The claw machine was in the entryway. They started giving me their quarters, because they preferred to get a cheap toy than to actually play. But I’m too good. (My record was getting 3 toys with one grab.) But the toys began to collect in the back of our car. So the rule was that whatever we won had to be given away, immediately. They’d look around the restaurant, find a child or two, an elderly man, our waitress… Presenting strangers with little surprise gifts became the best part. Then, as they grew, they both surpassed me with their skills! Now, both boys are nearly 30. Neither can pass a claw machine without popping in a quarter, and leaving a toy for the next child who happens to pass by the machine. Would I have liked for my supreme talent to have been, I dunno, balancing a checkbook? Running marathons? Keeping a spotless house? Finding cures for diseases? Yes! A million times, yes. But I got claw machines. So, I feel like today is My Day. Fantastic debut Shaun. You get me. Happy day, all!
@CCNY That’s an awesome story. The world needs more acts of random kindness like that. Good on you and your family for coming up with a great family tradition and a small way to create a little happiness.
@CCNY This is the best thing I've read in many days. Your story belongs on one of those "good news" services touted as an antidote to all the journalistic gloom and doom. It sure did make me happy.
Breezy puzzle, but both “AMUSEMENT ARCADE” and “CLAW MACHINE GAME” felt oddly redundant to me. I know them as Arcades and Claw Machines, respectively.
@Stephen I've heard the term "amusement arcade" exactly zero times in my life before today.
When I don't win this arcade game, that really sticks in my claw. (It'll be a crane mutiny.)
@Mike You might win in a pinch...
Is it? Is it really? It is a stretch to have to turn "it is" into a question in order to make it a valid answer. I did not like that one at all. Other quibbles: "Game" is superfluous for Claw Machine and "Amusement" is superfluous for Arcade, as noted in Wordplay. There are no alternatives to Ticketmaster, which is the whole problem. Put dough in and take out bread seems to be trying too hard. Why exactly is "hold on a minute" something you'd say while using a claw machine - urging the rigged claw to stay closed I guess? Rinsing isn't cleaning. Claw machines are just the worst. 50 cents or more for barely 3 seconds of unamusement. They stink. Anyhow, the puzzle was okay and the "fill" was pretty clean, despite starting with yet another spa(s).
@B I hope you have a good day today considering you seem to have been upset by a crossword puzzle.
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past seven years, it is my duty to inform you that this puzzle has an unusually low number of double letters, at three, where unusual is any number less than five. This is the third time this year that this has happened. I remain your humble servant, ever on the alert.
Nice puzzle, liked the cluing. My fastest Wednesday so far, and my 2nd in a row with no Googling! An interesting observation over my last few months of solving is that increasingly often I find that my first guess for a clue is correct (even when it’s a wild stab/there are lots of possible answers). Today, I doubted several entries in the grid but realized on my 2nd or 3rd passes through that I was totally right! That never used to happen before. Such a nice feeling. I’m getting the hang of this, I think? After a year and a half of a (NATURAL in texture but unnatural in color) bright blond teeny-weeny-afro, I’ve decided to shave it all off this weekend and start BRAND NEW. My job interview last week went great (thanks for the good wishes!), and while I still have 1 more round to go, I’m optimistically preparing for a fresh start in work, so I figure I’d lead the way in life :)
@Jess Uh oh, I wouldn't change the hair. They like it like it is (unless they said they didn't). 🪮 — Any opinion, Emu?
@Jess Congratulations on the new job interviews. May your next interview go as well. Sounds like you have good intuition. I'm getting better as well. It's such a good feeling. I'm an old dog, so I especially love doing well on puzzles. I also get into that self doubt and think the word, then go "nah, that's too easy", then it turns out to fit later. And I've been crossword puzzling for a long time. Cheers and good luck (but you won't need it).
@Jess Hey, sis! After decades of lye-based relaxers followed by medication-induced alopecia, I shaved my head about four years ago, vowing to be NATURAL. In the last couple years I realized that my ability to care for my NATURAL hair was as low as my interest in doing so. More than three steps in one day and I’m done. Switched to Kamalaesque silk press. Over here in Portugal, the Brazilian community of course has Keratin (not a match for my 4C 🤣). Then a stylist used something she could only translate as Botox for the hair. Wow! It’s amazing. It’s a protectant somehow yet it looks like a silk press. My hair journey is possibly over! Each one is different, right? As for the puzzle, the redundancy of CLAWMACHINEGAME and AMUSEMENTARCADE irked, but otherwise I found the puzzle fun and fast. Bom dia! PS Mr OSHEA irks but that’s another matter unrelated to this puzzle 🙃
My step daughter was a claw machine savant. She almost always grabbed a cheap stuffed animal. I stopped funding her when her room looked like the Enterprise overrun by Tribbles.
I like the stark simplicity of the grid art. I tried to guess what it was before entering the first word, and all I could see was an upside-down goalpost. Now, looking at it, I like imagining the claw closing in on itself to grab the doodad below. I think in my childhood I played the claw machine twice, each time starting out with great hope, and finishing with, “This is stupid!”. Twice was enough, and I still huff when I pass one by. At least this puzzle was fun to fill in! This grid design looks so basic, but that is deceiving. There are only 68 answers, the average for a Saturday puzzle, and the average word length of the answers is equivalent to a Friday puzzle. Furthermore, every theme answer is a NYT puzzle debut, including the two outstanding why-has-this-answer-never-appeared-in-the-Times-puzzle entries CRANE OPERATOR and HOLD ON A MINUTE. My favorite moment was filling in PIERONE and seeing it as a fancy Italian-named home décor chain that I never heard of, rather than the store I’ve been in many times. Also, several lovely answers sweetened the journey: STUB HUB, ALFALFA, IRON OUT, TROMP, and HIT IT BIG. Congratulations on your debut, Shaun. Thank you for this, which brightened my day!
@Lewis Thanks for the lightbulb moment on 15A! I was stuck in that unfamiliar Italian-named home décor chain store...
@Lewis and @ChungClan LOL I see we have a lot in common today! Now I don't feel quite so silly, if you two got sucked in as well! Emus don't shop there
@Lewis There's a nice little pinball museum/arcade in downtown Asheville that we visited when we came down to see the Biltmore. If I remember correctly, it was $14 to get in, and you got to stay for the rest of the day or 'til whenever the lights and noise got to be too much for you. For that reason it helped to get there when they opened, because they had a limit on how many people were allowed in. They had a nice collection of not only pinball machines but also a few regular video arcade games.
Thank you for this puzzle - if only I could have secured the stuffed toy before it fell! This was my 1000th solved puzzle in the NYT online crosswords!
Congratulations on a fun NYT debut, Mr. Phillips! Your theme reminds me of the very funny scene from the first “Toy Story” movie that features three-eyed aliens desperate to be chosen by “The Claw.” I also enjoyed seeing NUDIE Cohn in the grid. I’m a longtime fan of Gram Parsons and can easily picture him and the other Flying Burrito Brothers in their Nudie suits with the marijuana leaves. Hope we’ll see you back here soon!
No, I’ve never called it a “claw machine game”. And I’ve never felt the need to explain that the arcade I’m visiting is of the amusement variety. But this is not a conversation, it’s a puzzle. Answers don’t have to conform to common parlance, they just have to be reasonably intuited. I had no problems filling in the extra squares, and I doubt many others, did, either. I’ve never constructed a crossword, but I’m sure it is very, very hard, requiring a number of compromises and workarounds. Sometimes, following the logic of the constructor is just part of the puzzle!
Spent a lot of time at the penny arcade when I was a kid but never heard the terms AMUSEMENTARCADE or CLAWMACHINEGAME so this one was a whole lot of working the crosses. Managed to finish it but it was a good long workout for me. Not a complaint - I'm just that old. Oh... and of course here's my puzzle find today. A Sunday from January 8, 1989 by Richard Silvestri with the title "Hear! Hear!". Theme answers in that one: BARONSEESBARRENSEAS MINERMISSEDMINORMIST CHASTEAUNTSCHASEDANTS EIGHTFRIARSATEFRYERS STAIDBASSSTAYEDBASE I'm outta here. ..
The clue for 31A "Where you might put in dough and take out bread?" was absolutely adorable. ATM. While the answer was pretty obvious and frequently found in the NYT CW, I just loved the clue.
This was apparently a controversial puzzle with words such as OSHEA, OBESE, EENIE, and NUDIE crossed with ERIN. For those that were triggered, I challenge you construct daily puzzles using only words that wouldn't be offensive in the slightest to any person on Earth.
It was the summer of 1989 and we were staying at the Nevele Hotel in the Catskills. After dinner, my 11 year old niece got quarters from us and headed off to the claw machine. She was a wiz at manipulating that thing and went home with about 30 stuffed animals. We delighted in her joy. Thanks for the puzzle and the memory of a gentler time shared with people we love. Happy Wednesday to all.
I always enjoy seeing puzzles that have a visual element to them. This was great fun to solve.
Cute puzzle, although I have to look pretty hard to see a claw machine in the grid. I knew about NUDIE Cohn, courtesy of the Ken Burns documentary on country music. The first singer I ever saw in person wearing a Nudie suit was Gram Parsons at the Bijou Cafe in Philadelphia shortly before his untimely death.
@Marshall Walthew Gram Parsons' Nudie suit is pictured in the Wikipedia article about Mr. Cohn. Would an emu like a nudie suit?
I’ve never heard the term “amusement arcade”
@Matt I'm old enough to have spent time in one, though the name was always shortened to arcade. I don't know if they exist anymore.
@Matt I made change in one, donkey’s ears ago. The theme came easily, and helped speed along my solve. Even with a loooong flyspec to find HOLDONeMINUTE, which is plausible if you don’t know hoopsters.
@Matt Here you go. It's a thing, really. A real thing. Since you know about it now, there's this in case you want to learn more about it: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusement_arcade" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusement_arcade</a> And there's also this: <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amusement" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amusement</a>%20arcade ...among other dictionary definitions.
Overall, a meh puzzle with forced answers to serve a cute theme. ___ school is a guess what I am thinking answer. I had MiD (thinking middle school) thinking that Sam I love is a reasonable song title. CLAW MACHINE GAME is redundant, and no one ever calls it that. Likewise, AMUSEMENT ARCADE. The correct answer for "that so? " should be "is it?", as both are questions; "it is" is a reply to the question, and not how clues work. Finally, the racist origins of Eeney meeny miney mo have been well discussed in this forum, and should be forever banned. Very underwhelmed and unimpressed.
@DocP It is? can also be a question. Just say it with a degree of incredulity, and you will hear it. I always knew it as "catch a tiger", but maybe it should be retired since it has a negative association for so many people.
@Steve L That just reflects your lived experience, and ignores the trauma that the rhyme inflicts for many. I would argue your comment even underscores your privilege. There have been many controversies regarding this poem in the last 2 decades. Just look at Wikipedia
Thoughts on the CLAW MACHINE: Does anyone actually call it the CLAW MACHINE GAME? To my ear that sounds more redundant than AMUSEMENT ARCADE. Like @Sam Corbin, I've always thought those machines were a RACKET, and so I think I've played them once or twice in my life, and got a touch of Schadenfreude from watching hundreds of others try and fail. And then I had to read @CCNY and the allegation that they are an expert at this machine! Can this really be true? I'll tentatively believe them, but I'm gonna need video evidence!
Someone on reddit described today's puzzle as giving vibes similar to a Nathan Pyle alien comic and that is a spot-on description IMO. Some technically correct but just weird picks. And I don't think a counting rhyme is the same as a counting out rhyme.
@Bela I have to agree with you. A counting rhyme has to have numbers in it. I loved the rest of the puzzle, but before I filled in EENIE, that whole area was just messy.
@Bela me too! Eenie meenie miney mo was the first thing I thought of but counted it out because it didn't have numbers (no pun intended lol).
@Bela I put in EENIE at first, then deleted because I went through it and clocked it wasn't a counting rhyme...only to refill it again.
I just heard that John Mayall passed away this week. One of many great songs from his 7 decade career: <a href="https://youtu.be/xu5NsjoNBcM?si=6yH5Xqk9mrnDj2YI" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/xu5NsjoNBcM?si=6yH5Xqk9mrnDj2YI</a> As is my habit, I will cue up all of his music from my collection today.
@Nancy J. R.I.P. John Mayall. So much of the music of my youth got its start with John that he is truly the father of blues rock.
I thought a SCALPER would be a reasonable alternative to Ticketmaster. Never used STUBHUB, but I haven't bought tickets to anything in a while. T need to get out more. I furnished my first college apartment with stuff from PIER ONE, because IKEA wasn't a thing at the time, at least not in Ohio. I had black and teal dinner plates, with white spatters. Hey, it was cool in 1990, anyway. That answer took me back.
@Grant PIER 1 got a lot of our disposable income in the 1980s. I think the last one here closed many years ago. We still have three of the four oval dinner plates we bought there. Great for big burritos, but otherwise they don’t get much use.
@Grant STUBHUB is where scalpers sell the tickets they bought on Ticketmaster
I loved this puzzle and found it a lot of fun. Maybe because I live near the beach and have an amusement arcade 15 minutes’ walk from my house! To the question about the redundancy of the phrase, “amusement arcade”: In the UK, certainly (unsure about the other side of the pond), there are things called “arcades” that are shopping malls but taking the form of a sort of passageway with exits/entrances at either end. Often containing jewellers’ shops for some reason. There may be other types too, but that’s the extent of my knowledge.
@PrincessApricot I will add my vote from the USA side that AMUSEMENT ARCADE is not redundant. This specialized meaning of arcade may be the only one many younger people grow up with, but shopping arcades are still common in many cities here, especially as locations for small shops, sometimes on multiple levels, in passages through downtown office buildings. I believe the meaning is even older and more general than that. It’s like the word hockey: one meaning has swallowed up the others in most people’s vocabularies where I live, and I doubt I ever say ice hockey, but I wouldn’t label it redundant.
@PrincessApricot Although Merriam-Webster labels “shopping arcade” “chiefly British”. It is the first thing that came to my mind when I asked myself, is there any other kind of arcade? And I thought of the Cardo in Jerusalem.
So *that* is what a NUDIE suit is! (I had imagined something rather different.) Enjoyed the puzzle! But the commentary is not helping me get rid of my latest ear worm (Paper Moon - "A melody played in a penny ARCADE..."
@WindowBlinds As ear worms go, Paper Moon is probably not the worst. For me, the Kars4Kids jingle or A Horse With No Name have the power to drive me crazy.
Sam, I can think of a most serious arcade. Victorian London offered fancy shopping arcades. One that remains and is of overwhelming poshness is Burlington Arcade off Piccadilly <a href="https://www.burlingtonarcade.com" target="_blank">https://www.burlingtonarcade.com</a>/ . Does it offer amusements? Well, maybe if your pocketbook is up to it.
I can still remember giving numerous nickels, dimes, quarters to my kids to throw money away to play the CLAW MACHINE. As rigged as any carnival games , they may have been the losingEST
Excellent and very Wednesday puzzle. If you couldn't figure out an answer (like Nudie), you could get it eventually from the crosses. As for claws and that arcade game, the scene from TOY STORY is so wonderful that it still entranced me when I watched it again just now: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Esh4W3dfI" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Esh4W3dfI</a> ...a lesson on the genesis of religions, in kid-friendly language & visuals. Genius. Anyone else put down SCALPER as alternative to Ticketmaster? Or ON A ROLL before you corrected to TEAR? Catch you guys later...
I was a little shook by all the white space (in spite of the cool pic!) but once I got started it flowed pretty smoothly. I agree with those who felt some of the answers felt forced but it didn’t ruin the fun for me. :)
I enjoyed the puzzle! But I didn't like like the clue for TILT at 2D, [pinball infraction]. An infraction is not a big deal. The adjective minor often precedes it, and MW in a usage note points out that in Federal law an infraction is even smaller than a misdemeanor and penalized by a mere fine. A TILT is a heck of a lot more than an infraction! It's game over baby! No more balls. Flippers don't flip. Bumpers don't bump. Lights are out. Weird sounds are mute. It's the arcade equivalent of capital punishment. Always gets a prize, Never seen it fall, That deaf dumb and blind kid Sure plays a mean CLAWMACHINE.
@Roberto Tilt in pinball takes the current ball out of play. Except for some very, very old machines (old, like old when I started playing in the early 70s), tilting doesn't shut down the machine for a whole game.
This puzzle really grabbed me. Thanks, Shaun!
This was FLIPPING awesome! Funnily enuf, the only place I ever see a (lonely) claw machine is in my laundromat. Often, I peer into its prize-laden contents while waiting for my machine to finish. However, quarters are a precious commodity in a laundromat, so I refrain! LOVE the link to the Country Hall of Fame's page on NUDIE. It's right up my visual and informational-gleaning alley! To see Nudie and Gram Parsons - in all his bare-chested, washboard-abbed glory - together is a thing of beauty. To think, that photo is more than 50 years old, yet, it looks like someone took it yesterday. The glory of color film is it ALWAYS looks contemporary! LOVE IT!!!!
@Jason I loved that deep dive also, and all the photos of those glorious [49D] suits. The headline photo of Graham Parsons looks like it could be a rock star on stage today, and when I read the caption indicating 1969, I was surprised!
@Jason I was thinking the same thing about the CLAW MACHINE. There was one in my laundromat up until a recent renovation. All it had inside were sorry-looking rubber balls, like dodgeball ones but smaller. Come to find out from this awesome earlier comment thread, the "games" with balls are definitely scams: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/40lfe3?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/shared/comment/40lfe3?rsrc=cshare&smid=url-share</a> ... And I went down a total rabbit hole this morning thanks to the incredible Country Hall of Fame link @Sam Corbin shared. What a history! The NUDIE suit: fascinating stuff!
Great Wednesday puzzle! I was able to do the top half before needing help with the bottom half. I stumped myself thinking that THEIR / THEY’RE worked perfectly and thus couldn’t imagine WHOSE / WHO’S until reading reader comments that the ARCADE was an AMUSEMENTARCADE and not a MOVIEMENTARCADE (?) as I was trying to invent.
@Michael Gaobest You're/your also worked perfectly...until it didn't. Sigh.
@Michael Gaobest I was thinking They're/Their too but I think the order in the clue would have had to change to make it fit.
This puzzle brought back my winningEST memory of claw machines. I had just come out of a movie and saw one in the theater lobby. I had one loonie (the cost of one try) so I plunked it in knowing I would probably lose. The claw grabbed onto my chosen stuffed animal, and then proceeded to knock two more into the chute. Three for the price of one! I felt like I'd HIT IT BIG!
@Janine Thank you - I love to hear stories about winning, especially against the CLAW!
Well, that was an unusual theme. Seemed like quite a few proper names in this one. Knew STUBHUB, PIERONE, JOANN, ERIN, OSLO, UEFA, EDAM and ESAU. Didn't know PEET or NUDIE. Half remembered OSHEA, and guessed WNYC for the radio station, having no clue about Radiolab. Wonder how our non-US solvers felt about some of these, which struck me as rather parochial in nature. Could have been worse, since the clue for 53A could have been "Well known rust stain remover". Congrats on the debut!
@Xword Junkie Monday to Wednesday it's usually quite straightforward to get those from crosses. Later on the week having a lot of US names can be tough, but it's a US magazine so don't really have an issue with this. It was the word "parochial" that stumped me :)
Clue for 16A reminds me of a definition for an infinite loop: LATHER, RINSE, REPEAT Sorry--maybe only funny to 8A but that's what I am. Noting also a long-ago fashion article (back when I read them) claiming those instructions were just a scam to sell more shampoo and you would never need to shampoo twice unless you'd just spent a month in the desert on a camel.
@RozzieGrandma I kept thinking of that too, as I struggled to figure out what it could actually be! ☺️
@RozzieGrandma I was thinking of the old joke; "Why was the (stereotype) always out of shampoo?" "Because the label says lather, rinse, repeat."
@RozzieGrandma Back in the late 20th Century (I love saying that), we bought all the nieces and nephews a gag gift of a soap dispenser called "Wash Your Sins Away". The tag line was . . . Lather Rinse Repent Good times. <a href="https://www.ebay.com/itm/166722762322" target="_blank">https://www.ebay.com/itm/166722762322</a>
Congratulations, Shaun, this was breezy & enjoyable! I'd never heard of 49D, but thanks to Sam Corbin's link, I learned something new, interesting, & fun today! Thanks! 😀
Enjoyed the solve helped to take my mind off the heat. 🥵 Congrats on your debut, Shaun. I’m sure we will be seeing more of you.
Congratulations on your debut. It was a fun puzzle that made me think of the movie, Toy Story……the claw, the claw, the claw. I am still reading all the comments each day and loving the puzzles -especially Wednesdays.
@_chs_ I too was reminded of that scene.
As depicted the claw can absolutely never win … a degree of asymmetry should have been allowed 😃 Too many USAisms for this member of the international contingent: JOANN, PEET, OSHEA, ERIN, TROMP, STUBHUB, NUDIE. All cross-able but less fun than it could’ve been. A decent Wednesday puzzle Rheas are better than emus
@Ιασων I’m in USA and still didn't know most of these—the only one I knew was Joann. These puzzles must be so much easier for those who know them right off! Had to get them all from crosses.
@Ιασων As an American, I have the same problem when I try to solve cryptic crosswords, whose clues sometimes include homophones based on BBC pronunciation and which use all kinds of unfamiliar British references. ‘Tis the nature of solving puzzles internationally.
Despite having to change shanty to ICE HUT... I've only ever heard shanty and my husband has only ever called it a clam shell... I was agile enough to take that out when it didn't work but the NE killed me! Cdc docs, IT pros, IT Tech, simply doctors... Epidemiologists didn't fit, that was for sure! The NE was my very last to fall. And probably took me as much time as the whole rest of the puzzle. If you read my comments, you know I'm not much of a nitpicker, but RERINSE for clean again, as in hair... Yikes! Rinse is what I do with dishes before I put them in the dishwasher, not exactly clean. But of course I know that crossword answers aren't equivalents. On a roll before ON A TEAR! Which biblical brother? Wait for the crosses... but I keep changing the crosses... Clomp or TROMP?Slav or Serb? Coffee chains other than Starbucks or Caribou? No idea what Spanish Agnes is...I originally had HIT IT BIG, but I changed it so many times... Ha! 😂 I seriously don't know how I ended up working it out without any help. Maybe it was the martini I eventually decided to make while I took a break. And honestly, I didn't know EENie meenie miney mo was considered a counting poem. I just kept thinking 99 bottles of gin on the wall, 99 bottles of gin... Take one down pass it around, 98 bottles of gin on the wall! Obviously that didn't fit! 😂 Still, it was a fun puzzle all the more so because the NE was so crazy for me! Phew!
@HeathieJ It was *definitely* the martini.
Nicely constructed puzzle with long answers both across and down. Congratulations on the debut. Third Wednesday now without having to resort to help but still takes me about an hour to solve. NE was slowest as some others also commented. I prefer this style of crossword here in NYT over the ones that the papers here publish. Here the clues are inside the squares and often pictures or very short texts. It doesn't allow for much pun or quiz type of clues.
I feel like, if you're gonna use a Serbian name to clue a SERB, you could at least use the proper Serbian spelling of it. His last name is Jokić.
@Sonja Clues (although not answers) must conform to the NYT style guide, which may instruct to omit most diacritics. Hope this helps! !!!!
Like others, I wasn’t thrilled with the redundant AMUSEMENT ARCADE but I *love* the idea of a “serious arcade” - thanks @samcorbin for the laugh.
Probably because I started this last night when I should have gone to sleep my first reaction was "Holy Cow, this is tough for a Wednesday" but got my toehold in reasonable time and finished up before dozing off. A very fine debut indeed! Never really got into the Claw game (it's rigged, rigged I tell you!). In our world it was always Skee-Ball which was played obsessively in the boardwalk ARCADES. Well done and thanks.
The theme was cute but the answers for it had to be so long it became a real stretch. Still a fun puzzle
Fun puzzle! Thank you Shaun I enjoyed this puzzle and learned a few things. I'd never heard of Nudie Cohen but I'm looking forward to returning to Nashville and will certainly visit "his" Honky Tonk
Re: Mini Red and white striped character is known as WALLY in most of the world and in the original publication, and only WALDO in North America.
@Nathan . So? It's the NY Times, based in NY in the US, and Waldo is a much funnier name. Eye the emu...
@Nathan That’s an interesting bit of trivia that some enterprising puzzle maker might use some day, like those Britishisms that puzzle some of us in the U.S.
@Nathan And you guys get your Whoppers at Hungry Jack’s, while the rest of the world goes to Burger King, like we’re meant to. (Hungry Jack’s is a pancake batter mix in the US.) So many differences….at least you can go to Mickey D’a…er…Macca’s.