Crazy to think one would realize that one had to type the letter over the body graphic. Especially since typing the letter didn't change the graphic to the text . A big BOO, not to the constructor but to whoever made the decision for this absolutely non-intuitive requirement.
@DawnW - I didn't have to type in any letters over the dancers. I left those squares alone.
@DawnW I just typed the letter in as usual and it advanced to the next square as it normally does. The images are presumably meant to resemble letters but not to replace them. Looking at the comments, I must be the only one who didn't have a problem with this.
@jennie Me too. So now there are at least 4 of us.
@DawnW I tried both ways. No music. Checked the grid twice (across and down) first against the clues and then against the answer key. Tried deleting the squares with pictures since I couldn't be sure whether any response from me was entered. Still no music. Tried entering the letters for those squares. Nope. I can be a little slow but I realized that I could find out whether there was a problem by checking the comments. I did think to order them according to the number of responses. But I had already done what people were saying worked for them. Since I was working on my (Android) tablet using the games app, I decided to try something else. Pulled out the iPhone with its app, but no luck again, though the time it gave was lower. Went to check whether I did/did not have anything typed in those squares. Deleted what may have been in the first, deleted what may have been in the second -- Bingo! Music! Have added a total of about 15 minutes to my time, but my streak is intact. At least I think it is. Last time I lost the streak, I got a gold star that was taken back a day or two later. We'll give it a few days! Hope this helps someone who may still be having problems.
The question is, Why, when it was clear that the dancers were shaped like a letter, was it necessary to enter the letter, especially when the actual letter never showed. Not your fault, Brad. It was otherwise a fine puzzle.
@dutchiris For me, it wasn't. In fact, I only got credit for completion when i *emptied out* the letters that I already HAD entered.
@dutchiris I didn’t get the gold star until I selected one of the break dancers and hit the Delete key. Nothing changed, but I had “solved” the puzzle.
@dutchiris This isn't what we meant when we asked that the puzzles be again made "harder to solve"! /monkey's paw
@dutchiris - I did not need to enter the letter. Done on a Samsung Android phone in the app.
In the app version, it was not clear that the icon squares had to have letters typed into them.
@John Kroll same. I looked over the puzzle 3 times to find a mistake before doing that.
@John Krollyup. I broke a streak
@John Kroll Yes and no. Though it took me some time, it was a pleasant “aha” moment when I figured it out. But I do see your point.
@John Kroll I solved in the app on Android and didn't have to add in the letters. 🤷🏻♀️
@John Kroll - I did not have to type letters over the dancers. I left those squares alone.
@John Kroll When I clicked the arrow to go to the next word, it landed on the breakdancer square. At first it seemed a bit odd, but then I realised. Fun puzzle!
@John Kroll The giveaway was when the last letter was entered but the focus didn't jump to the next answer.
"You said we would dance tonight! I came here under waltz pretenses!" (Sometimes that's just the sway it goes.)
@Mike Little known fact: realtors make the best dance partners, because they can go relo and they know all the moves
@Mike Oh Mike, why do you always have to polka the bear?
@Mike It salsa complicated. I’m not sure I can swing it.
@Mike I enjoy a waltz three quarters of the time.
@Mike You take the lead, Mike, even if your puns are hard to follow.
@Mike You've gotta tap into that creativity or you'll miss the pointe.
@Mike, It doesn't take much time, only a minuet.
Fairly easy for a Wednesday but a fun puzzle. I liked the theme. A little annoyed you had to actually type the letter into the visual squares to get it to trigger the victory cause you can't see the letter.
There seems to be an issue - completed correctly, it did not mark complete, I burned my streak and checked the puzzle, no errors. FWIW, I don’t like these hacks that make the puzzle harder to fill than the clue itself.
@A progressive I agree....I've been doing the puzzles online since they became available online and readily completed the answer key but was repeatedly informed that the it wasn't successfully completed. I then typed in delete for those three squares and I got the jingle for a successful completion. It shouldn't have to be that way as there was no "instruction" concerning this odd step.
@A progressive same, I always knew my streak would end on one of the gimmicky puzzles.
@A progressive. That’s a real bummer, no cap.
@Joe P same here., in fact the puzzle locked and wouldn't let me make any changes even though it said it was incomplete
Was this significantly easier than a normal Wednesday puzzle for anyone else
@Nyeth Certainly set my Wednesday best. But I did feel like I struggled through it as I solved.
@Nyeth My time turned out considerably longer than it should have been because I didn't get the completion jingle when I finished. I assumed a typo because I didn't come across anything doubtful in my mind, so I went through the clues, one by one, looking for a mistyped letter. I couldn't find any. I went through the whole thing again. Then, I just decided to try typing in the three letters at the overlays, although I thought I had done that already. Apparently, the V was missing (although none of the three were visible). The music plays, and that was that. But I still thought the puzzle was fairly easy (but not too much so), yet clever, due to the multilayered theme.
Steve, I assume you solved on your phone? On the PC, I didn't need to enter any letters in the three picture squares. (I checked the online version after solving the puzzle offline.)
@Nyeth Yes! I finished in less than half my usual Wednesday time and 2 minutes quicker than yesterday's time. I figured out the entering of letters over the dancing figures because I got some sort of yellow highlight in the square and I was like, oh I guess it's expecting an entry there 😅
@Nyeth It would have been about average time for me except that I lost a few minutes, figuring out the north east corner.
@Nyeth I beat my average by about half - 13 min and change. Very, very easy.
You mean there's no such thing is EMU HAIR? Enjoyed Van Gogh -- he of one ear -- crossing echo locate AND hear, and other neat placements -- lace sidling up to eros, hock crossing credit score. Emu hair. It's a thing. And not just among emus.
@john ezra lol I tried emu hair first too
I don't know about emu hair but one should be warned to be very careful when getting down from an emu.
Well, this is a new one. Finished the puzzle, and nothing. No "Close", no "Congratulations", nothing. Eventually found a couple of mistakes. Changed them. No idea what was going on. I refreshed the screen to try to jar it loose. It lost a couple of my corrections. I solve on the NYT website with a Mac, about as vanilla as you can get. Eventually I got the congratulations. At some point the irritation of these puzzle glitches and the unasked-for redesign of the forum is going to drive me two places--crazy and away.
This is Brad’s second NYT puzzle. His first (3/27/25) was remarkably clever – felt like it was made by a pro and showed great promise. This follow-up shows that it wasn’t a one-off. This is a crackling good Wednesday puzzle. Break dance moves, pictured visually, actually breaking types of dances spelled out? That is a brilliant constructor-mind stroke for a theme. Truly, it's a virtuoso leap from BREAK DANCES to break-dance-images-within-dance-names-within-larger-words. No unclued or gibberish theme answers. Everything works. Just a masterful concept and design. Bravo, sir! Lovely wordplays in [Demo graphics, maybe] for VISUAL AIDS, [Signs of treble?] for CLEFS, and [Sound-track?] for ECHOLOCATE. And a prime non-wordplay clue in [Taps casino table] for HIT ME. I hope to see your name atop a new puzzle, hopefully soon, Brad, and when I do, my anticipation will soar. Thank you for today’s splendid outing!
Hey Brad! I wondered if VISUAL AIDS was just a happy coincidence or a sneaky second revealer. Can you chime in?
@Lewis Couldn't have said it better myself! You HIT all the points I wanted to call out. This puzzle made me happy from start to finish, from zooming in to check out the graphics, to confidently guessing (and confirming) 1A, right through to lingering over the grid at the end, relishing the layers within the theme. I've been keeping track of POY contenders this year, and added this one to my list before even cracking open Wordplay. And thank goodness I did! What a shame yet again a puzzle has been marred by poor technical execution. I feel so badly for all those frustrated solvers — and for Brad, whose puzzle got lost in the dreck!
One more fun surprise today, solvers: There's now a Midi, as in medium-size, daily crossword, too! (Mini, Midi, Daily... didn't Caesar say that?) You can find it on the website or in the Games app. Just promise me you won't stop solving this one.
@Sam Corbin Absolutely promise, thanks for the heads up.
@Sam Corbin I found the link, clicked on it and got... "This page no longer exists." Not sure what's going on. ....
Sam, Really? Just went to the website and don't see it. Where is it?
@Sam Corbin - I've just updated my app and I can't see a Midi anywhere
Now it's there! <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/midi" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/crosswords/game/midi</a>
@Sam Corbin I see it with no problem every time I've looked on the App. I have a question about it. Is it supposed to be super easy every day, like the Mini, or a smaller version of the weekday difficulty level in the day it is published? It was very easy today, but if course it's only Wednesday.
@Sam Corbin Neato, proud to say I solved the first ever NYTs midi day of! I was surprised you can't gold star this one though. Maybe that will change in the future?
@Sam Corbin Thanks. It's there for me. And it's a great idea I think, especially if it bridged difficulty levels for newbies. Alas, this one did not. It was grade school simple. I don't think I'll return to them.
@Sam Corbin I found it too. Not sure if I have time to add one more NYT puzzle to my daily rotation, but then I AM retired, so why not?
@Sam Corbin Fun concept! For my own peace of mind, though, I must ask: since the mini is usually 5×5 and the daily is usually 15×15, was there a reason for settling on 9×9 for the midi instead of going right in the middle with 10×10?
@Sam Corbin That's awesome! Thanks for the update!
@Chris Thursday was very simple too, so I think I have my answer.
I thought this was a pretty Lively theme for a Lively constructor. I’m sorry that technical problems soured this for some people, I did fine by assuming the picture stood for the letter and not filing anything in there; I would have thought they would have treated them like black squares and not allow you to fill anything there if that’s what they wanted. So if that messed people up that’s a shame. Because I thought this was a pretty layered theme. At first I didn’t noticed the shaded areas and just thought we were replacing letterings with gymnastic moves. But in addition you had three very nice themers with hidden dances broken up by the letters which was nicely done, and a very clever revealer. I’m also surprised everyone found this so easy. Not hard for me for a Wednesday by any means but at least average. Notice the double 10 stacks on either side in addition to the theme which is pretty unusual for a Wednesday and some clever clues—sound-track for ECHOLOCATE in particular, and CTSCAN for “healthy self image”. So, well done from my standpoint.
@SP I did this in Monday time 🤷🏽♂️ At least it was quite fun, if not challenging.
Shouldn’t have to come to the blog to figure out how to enter the letters. Every time this happens, the comments go crazy. You’d think the editors would be more diligent.
@Sam Corbin Thank you for the nudge to watch Alysa Liu's performance. That was incredible. I enjoyed the puzzle too.
[Homer Simpson's words when channeling Hannibal Lecter and snacking on Mike Tyson] MM ... A FIGHTER
@ad absurdum Messy venue near an octagon? MMA FIGHT ER
@ad absurdum or in the realm of things that **actually happened**, “Tyson re Holyfield”
the gimmick of having to delete the dancer to complete was way beyond me. Spent longer trying to find the error than solving. Very much spoiled a perfectly decent puzzle. 🫤
@Ιασων agreed. Designers, please don't put anything in a space we're meant to fill out, and especially don't assume we know to delete it. This one was a big miss for me as well.
@Ιασων - agreed! Spent 1/3 of my time trying to find my error before finally trying to enter letters over the dancers. Cool puzzle, poorly executed in the app.
I liked this one...and luckily no mention of Raygun!
@Paul I feel like us Aussies are at a disadvantage today: those figures don't look anything like what we apparently recognise as the theme!
@Paul What is this apparently Aussie-specific Raygun, for the sake of the rest of the world?
Surprisingly buggy implementation of an otherwise good idea for a puzzle. If there's a picture there, it shouldn't require invisible letter entry. Despite that, I got a new Wednesday personal best time, though it would have been at least half a minute lower if I didn't have to waste time figuring out why I wasn't getting the chime.
What gives? I completed the puzzle in about 19:30 but the system isn't giving me credit for finishing. I even checked the solution to make sure I got everything right.
@LARRY Seems to be a common problem today. Another technical triumph for the NYT Games department.
@LARRY Not sure which combo of apps, programs, or machinery you're using but try overtyping the little dancers with the letters they're replacing. Worked for me.
First Wednesday solve, thank you for the fun puzzle!
I guess I’m not the only one having an issue completing the puzzle, which is reassuring but also confusing and frustrating. I have a 1200+ day streak going I don’t want to lose…
@Selective Walrus Try screwing around and putting letters into the squares with the graphics. I suspect that at least one of them is expecting an input even though it should not.
@Selective Walrus Ok I closed the app, reopened it, then re-entered the letters behind the breakdancing. That seemed to trigger it, though it wasn’t triggering the first time I was doing that before rebooting.
@Selective Walrus Yeah, I'm generally pretty careful, but I found I had to re-enter the T in tide. I though I had entered all the graphic letters. Based on others' comments I'm thinking it sometimes chooses to ignore us. This was not a great experience. It's been a bad month 'round here. Maybe they replaced a lot staff / outsourced?
@Selective Walrus I've also correctly completed the puzzle without getting the gold star. I've tried to enter the appropriate letters where the graphics appear, but the app on my phone is not allowing me to change any letters in the puzzle. I've restarted my phone. Still no success. Then, I logged out of my account and logged back in. Still no success. I guess I'll try my laptop. This is why I hate these gimmicks. Such a waste of time.
@Selective Walrus I went onto my laptop where I was able to enter the appropriate letter behind each graphic. Now it shows up with the gold star on my phone.
I have a theory. The black squares are unclickable. You cannot get the puzzle to put focus on the black squares. White squares are clickable, and when they have focus they are ready to accept input. But these figure squares are a kind of hybrid--you can get the focus, that is you can click on them, but you *can't* do the input. My experience was that I never saw the "Close" screen when I should have *assuming they puzzle knew that the figure squares did not require input*. My guess is that the programming is such that the "Close" screen was confused by these "clickable" squares that didn't accept input. I think I should get the Nobel Peace Prize for this. Does anyone have one they want to give me?
@Francis I'm not sure. Are you a stable genius? Can you ace the test requiring you to distinguish between four sketches of humans, animals, objects, and places? We don't just give these precious, very desirable, customized chachkes to anyone, you know!
@Francis Once I noticed the cursor moved onto the squares with the graphics, I understood letters needed to be typed in there. Slightly weird but ok... The Monday fill on Wednesday was weirder.
@Francis I'll let you borrow my Turing Award for a week.
@Francis Call FIFA, I'm sure they have some extras lying around.
@Francis Um, what is a "Close" screen? Is that an app-only thing?
I had a really great time! Fun, quick, quirky, and some unique clues. Nice!
Super fun, I loved the theme and the appropriate dance figures. An enjoyable romp!
This was fun! Yes, it seemed obvious to me that we needed to enter the missing letters in the pictorial squares, because the cursor landed there (making each a non-blank square). I did that on each pass, but I can imagine it was frustrating if you got to the end without having filled them in and thought you had an error somewhere. It seemed intuitive to me. I think it was an excellent feat that Brad Lively found all these answers that fit the theme in three ways: With a dancing “letter” in the middle, plus a dance name in the answer, plus a satisfying length. Bravo, Brad! I look forward to more of your puzzles.
Advantages of solving on paper: 1. You don't worry about your time. 2. You don't think about your streak. 3. You're not concerned about "hearing the music" at the end of your solve. 4. You don't have to think about whether you need to enter letters on top of the dancing figures.
@The X-Phile But then, you still have to come on-line, and log in, to head to the Wordplay comments. (Always surprises me how many people--including so many I have great respect for--do this!)
@The X-Phile I solve on the app without checking time or streaks. How could I get an accurate time, anyway, with so many distractions in my life, not to mention a demanding lap cat?
Terrible clue in the Mini. 4D. Curling and Speed Skating are not Olympic Events. They are Olympic Sports. Mixed Doubles Curling or Women's 500m Speed Skating would be an Olympic EVENT.
@Steven M. Nittle-de-dee!
@Steven M. It's possible the intended answer is the generic "event," not "Event" - which I think makes the clue valid, since the mentioned things are as much Olympic "events" as is the guy in seat 22B of the curling venue getting up to buy a drink at the concession stand.
I've tried this puzzle on Firefox. I've tried it on Brave. I've tried it on the iOS app (using IOS 26.3). I've tried it with the letters under the dancers. I've tried it without the letters under the dancers. I've tried it with Rebus. I've tried it without Rebus. I want my subscription fee back. This wasn't a puzzle. This was beta testing in production.
@Brunsworks I don't work for the NYT, but you might look below to see if your problems resemble any of those. This has been a bad technical night, for some reason.
@Brunsworks Should have tried it in a box with a fox....
So easy i did it standing on my head with one arm behind my back
@Petrol What a coincidence - I did it standing on my back with one arm behind my head.
@Petrol I did it with my back while handstanding.
@Petrol I did it by tossing treats to my perpetually confused dog, Opie directly on to my keyboard from across the room. Gold star in 45 seconds.
@Petrol At my age I do pretty much everything I can sitting down 😁
I liked seeing MADONNA cross DI SCO, as I consider much of her earlier, dance music to be disco, but then, I'm pretty liberal with my definitions of musical genres. And older Detroiters will reminisce about espying Madonna on the dance floor at Menjo's, but sometimes I think they're just imagining. And, although I have not read the books, I can imagine Hannibal Lecter listening to Tchaikovsky or Delibes, although I would expect the coolness of Bach or Mozart to be more of his taste. But did Vincent Van Gogh ever tango? Well, typing "Van Gogh Tango" into YouTube's search box produced a surprising number of hits! Here's "Tango Van Gogh" by the Seattle-based cellist/composer Bradley Hawkins (although what it has to do with Van Gogh, I don't get, at least out of context): <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUhR98cyYM4&list=RDUUhR98cyYM4&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUhR98cyYM4&list=RDUUhR98cyYM4&start_radio=1</a> Here's a tango, "Opasan Ples," by the Serbian group Van Gogh: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8EtvKd55TY&list=RD-8EtvKd55TY&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8EtvKd55TY&list=RD-8EtvKd55TY&start_radio=1</a> Finally, here's "Van Gogh Tango," from "Kiss & Tell Cabaret," by Jeremy Limb, Lloyd Evans and Melinda Hughes, and sung live by Ms. Hughes. I admit, I don't know enough about contemporary art to get all the references (but I know what I like), but I got enough. For a hoot, try listening to it with the CC on!: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byBTou_EnSY&list=RDbyBTou_EnSY&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byBTou_EnSY&list=RDbyBTou_EnSY&start_radio=1</a>
@Bill What about MADONNA doing the jitterbug in "A League of Their Own"?
@Bill "Van Gogh Tango" is a great find, thanks! A lot of the references are the British aet world circa the economic crash of '08, so don't feel too badly at not knowing the names. :) As I mentioned elsewhere, the French Olympic ice dancers' short program to Vogue by MADONNA was worth the viewing for the costumes alone! And the choreography wasn't too shabby either. A lot of their competitors were fun to watch, too, as the theme was '90s music.
On the technical issue: I had no problem with the fact that you needed to type over the dancing figures. When I finished the puzzle, and the app didn't acknowledge that I was done. I quickly figured out that was the problem, and went back and typed in the letters. Having done that, the app acknowledge I had finished, but I got the dreaded "something's amiss" message. And here's the problem I have with this: Whether you type in the right letter or a wrong one, nothing changes with the dancing figure. So you can't know if you've accidentally mistyped. I re-typed all the "figure-letters" and something's still "amiss". Well, I had a mistake else where (thinking that REZ was REs, and not checking the cross), and that's on me. But I still think there needs to be a way to know whether you've got a typo on the figures.
@The X-Phile I use an iMac with the Safari browser and almost always do the puzzle on the web, as I did last night. I did not have to type anything in the dancer squares to get CREDI[T] for the solve. I had assumed that the dancers' positions were the letters involved and got the "You're done!" as I finished the SE corner. I also briefly had REs for REZ until I saw that the cross had to be MAZE.
@The X-Phile Flashing the letter you've typed in would have been a remarkably simple and effective way (assuming they insist on the silly drawings being present at all).
@The X-Phile - if you had clicked to the list view there are no break dancers - so future solvers should check there.
"So-called" melting pot. Not so much anymore, tragically. Catastrophically.
It would have been a fun puzzle if I didn't need both the answer key and then these comments to figure out why it wouldn't finish. Since the picture didn't change when I put the letter T in 17A, I assumed they should remain as pictures. It wasn't until I checked myself twice, then twice again against the answer key, THEN read comments here that I went back and tried again. The pictures still did not change when I put the letters in, but once I at least tried the correct letter on all three squares it finally finished (although the pictures never changed). Very annoying and a waste of my time trying to find my "error".
I would love to hear from the editors as to the difficulty (or lack thereof) of recent puzzles. I’m not a regular commentator but I know I’m not alone in feeling like the difficulty has gone way down and been disappointed by that. This was a fine puzzle but again way easier than I would like to see for a Wednesday.
@Stephen That poor old dead horse has been thoroughly beaten in recent weeks. But you are correct. It would be sweet if the editor gods would deign to comment. I wouldn't hold my breath.
@Stephen I am only an average solver, and I found this puzzle much harder than Wednesday's used to be. I needed nine cheats. I do admire its cleverness, though. Apparently by the time I got up, the technical difficulties have been solved.
@Stephen As Francis said, the horse is dead as a doornail. But I will add one thing… Used to be, although the editors always (or at least almost always) arguably made it *possible* to solve a given puzzle without prior knowledge of arcane trivia or especially esoteric/contrived vocabulary, the puzzles also reflected a clear willingness to stump/frustrate/defeat the average solver. That was just part of the deal — sometimes even early in the week! And while that could indeed be frustrating at times (at least for me), what you got in return as part of that bargain was a steady supply of genuinely challenging puzzles (along with plenty of easy ones, to be clear). For the moment, I’m afraid the editors seem to have lost that willingness. Here’s to hoping they regain their nerve soon, and the current participation-trophy era ends up being a merely short-lived phase…
I rarely noticed things like this, and it's probably already been mentioned, but I was amused that the same puzzle row contained NENE and NAYS.
@Francis - did it make you think of Vaya Con Dios and "Nah Neh Nah"?
VISUAL AIDS indeed! An amusing irony considering the technical issue. I very much enjoyed the clever theme and the artistic vibe of the puzzle. VINCENT VAN GOGH, the inner BALLET of HANNIBAL LECTER (picture that, if you will), and the “sound-track” of MADONNA, HIHAT and CLEFS. On Sunday, in the midst of a blizzard, I saw The Sleeping Beauty ballet, which was a magical experience. Perhaps the lingering high from that experience made me enjoy the dancing silhouettes even more. A lovely puzzle, thanks Brad!
I think this one was programmed wrong. I finished (without putting anything in the dancing figures). I got the dreaded almost there popup. This generally means that you filled everything in, but you have a mistake somewhere. After searching hard for mistakes, I finally just put letters in to the dance figures squares. Success!! But it shouldn’t have given me the almost there popup if technically I had three blank squares. Or am I missing something???
@Tom mine wouldn't complete from my tablet, but I got it to complete from my phone. Weird.
I agree. This puzzle is an “absolute vibe!” My wife and I loved this for all its lively elements. Including breaking up the dances. And it worked flawlessly on an iPad.
Like others, I had the problem that I finished (solving on a laptop) and did not get the gold star even after flyspecking for mistakes. So I switched to the phone app, used the list view of the answers, and found that some of the breakdancing squares had random incorrect letters filled in (not sure if I had inserted those letters or a computer glitch did so). But when I fixed those letters in the app using list view, I got the gold star. No way I could have found this on the laptop since those squares just included the breakdancing pictures.
@Susan, I was going crazy; thought I might have to sacrifice my 1600+ streak in order to finish the puzzle. Your post led me to enter the letters over the figures and voila. Thank you.
okay, i just wanna say... i thought the figures were the letters and didn't realize i had to add the letter on top of the figure as an overlay. and so i'm trying to figure out what i got wrong forever.. answer, i got nothing wrong. having a graphic in a square that signifies a letter is hella confusing in terms of needing to put a letter on top of it. grrr. waste of time.
It was just lucky guesses that got me the last few letters (atop the northeast).
Bad enough that I lost my streak, but this is my 8th time trying to comment because to comment page keeps closing on me!
@Mike Same thing happened to me.
@Mike I have noticed that it slowly refreshes the entire page (starting with the column view) every time I hit Reply to a post now, including here. Sometimes drafts disappear. The web/comment experience has gone significantly south quite recently. It's as if some people with half baked ideas and no skills just took over everything. Which I suppose is also a metaphor.
Talk about a Lively puzzle! What is it about graphics that just amp up the fun-o-meter to "Woo-hoo!'?
I found this a very enjoyable puzzle to solve, although, curiously, some of my favorite parts were not theme-related: HEAR(! Hear!) paralleling HUSH(-hush) (Aural) ECHOLOCUTE paralleling VISUAL AIDS. A little disappointed that there wasn't a post-solve animation of the little dancers, but I guess that would be too much to ask.
@Bill Are you serious about that "LOCute" part? Because the crossing should have alerted you. Or it just might be a typo in your comment.
Typing a V over the V in Van Gogh got me to completed. The T and the C still did not let me overtype in the square. Tech problems take a lot of the fun out of puzzle solving
@Jim in Forest Hills None of the suggestions worked for me though it's complete and correct...very frustrating....
To add to the discussion, I did the puzzle on my laptop. I recognized the graphics as standing in for letters and didn't type over them. I completed the puzzle (without lookups) and got the gold star!! I also finished the Tuesday puzzle without lookups. Yay! And I'm almost finished with the recommended also-dancing puzzle by Paolo Pasco--without any lookups so far. I saw Paolo Pasco on Jeopardy recently. I wonder--is he a dancer? Or what is his connection with dance? <a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1215361/jeopardy-paolo-pasco-champion-facts-puzzle-writer" target="_blank">https://www.tvinsider.com/1215361/jeopardy-paolo-pasco-champion-facts-puzzle-writer</a>/ So many great dancing movies. Always loved them. Starting with Carousel, I guess. Sign me--Newbie bragging!!
Nothing works. Not replacing dancer, leaving dancer, won't be left blank. Bah.
Weird that you had to put the letter into the square, as though it were a rebus, in order to have completed the puzzle, rather than just letting the drawing be good enough.
@ST - Hmm. Using the Android app, I did not need to type a letter in any of the squares with the drawings.