Thursday, November 17, 2016

Ipana



Earlier today I filled in an old crossword written by Fred Piscop. It's not dated so I don't know when it was published. Mr. Piscop is a fine constructor. His themed puzzles are very nice. I downloaded an entire file of them, maybe fifty, maybe a hundred, 

Ipana is the solve for the clue "Classic toothpaste brand" so I wrote "crest" and that showed to be wrong right away. When it narrowed to "Ipana" I had no idea what he was talking about. I never heard of this toothpaste. And their commercials on YouTube are all odd like this. Brusha brusha brusha, here's the new I-pan-a. 

The puzzle is titled "Take a stab." 

And that puts you on the lookout for the words within phrases like "knife," and "icepick," and "scissors," "needle" and "pin," and "sword." 

But that's not how it worked out. And this is what makes these puzzles so fun. Psych!

Long crisp munchie = breadstick

2007 Peace Nobelist = albertgore

City on Florida's Atlantic coast = fortpierce

Tropical viper = ferdelance

Stick, gore, pierce, and lance to satisfy the theme "take a stab." 

Clever theme, clever title, clever clues, clever entries. These puzzle constructors are playfully clever. If you met them, you'd have a great time because they know so much bizarre stuff and they make connections that would blow your mind. 

3 comments:

edutcher said...

"Brusha brusha brusha, here's the new I-pan-a."

Boy, now there's a blast from the past.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Brusha-Brusha-Brusha

Chip Ahoy said...

I saw that when I chose which video to use, but I didn't watch it. The key frame give it away that's playing in the background. So I didn't know Jan was mocking the commercial. In comments a lot of girls are saying the were given the role of Jan for their high school play. One said she gets the biggest applause in the show. Others dread singing the song. Others say they sing this to their kid every day. Others still sing it when they see their kids brushing. I had no idea at all about the popularity of this. I'm always last to find things out.