It’s Follow-Up Friday: Funding and Fright edition!

Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today, I’ve got some updates and answers for you!

First off, I want to say congratulations to Patrick Blindauer, whose Piece of Cake Crosswords Kickstarter campaign was funded by solvers hungry for quality puzzles without the obscurities and crosswordese!

It was down to the wire, but the campaign raised the final $10,000 in just seven days to pass the funding goal and ensure that 52 terrific puzzles will be wending their way to solvers all over the world!

In fact, the first one has already arrived in solvers’ inboxes! I can’t wait to see what Patrick has up his sleeve for the next 51 weeks!


And now, on to the answers!

On Monday, I posted a video by musician, comedian, and pun-enthusiast Ali Spagnola where she assembled twenty Halloween themed (or just generally spooky) songs and challenged you to name them all.

How did you do?

1. “Thriller” — Michael Jackson
2. Ghostbusters theme — Ray Parker Jr.
3. “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” — Eurythmics
4. “Time Warp” — The Rocky Horror Picture Show
5. “The Monster” — Eminem ft. Rihanna
6. “Monster Mash” — Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers
7. “The Phantom of the Opera” — Andrew Lloyd Webber
8. The Addams Family theme
9. “This Is Halloween” — The Nightmare Before Christmas
10. The Twilight Zone theme
11. Little Shop of Horrors theme
12. “Crazy Train” — Ozzy Osbourne
13. Scooby Doo, Where Are You? theme
14. “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” — Backstreet Boys
15. “Enter Sandman” — Metallica
16. “Somebody’s Watching Me” — Rockwell
17. “Disturbia” — Rihanna
18. “Heads Will Roll” — Yeah Yeah Yeahs
19. “Hungry Like the Wolf” — Duran Duran
20. “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” — The Charlie Daniels Band

Admittedly, I didn’t get all of them — the Ghostbusters theme eluded me, and I don’t think I’d ever heard Rihanna’s “Disturbia” — but I got all of the others! Not too shabby!


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It’s Follow-Up Friday: And a One And a Clue edition!

Welcome to Follow-Up Friday!

By this time, you know the drill. Follow-Up Friday is a chance for us to revisit the subjects of previous posts and bring the PuzzleNation audience up to speed on all things puzzly.

And today, I’m posting the results of our #PennyDellPuzzleBands hashtag game!

You may be familiar with the board game Schmovie, hashtag games on Twitter, or @midnight’s Hashtag Wars segment on Comedy Central.

For the last few months, we’ve been collaborating on puzzle-themed hashtag games with our pals at Penny Dell Puzzles, and this month’s hook was Penny Dell Puzzle Bands, mashing up Penny Dell puzzles and favorite bands or musicians!

Examples might be The Beat-the-Clock-les, Brick by Brick Astley, or Kris Krossword.

So, without further ado, check out what the puzzlers at PuzzleNation and Penny Dell Puzzles came up with!


The Rolling Stepping Stones / Stepping Stones Temple Pilots / Steppin’ Stones Wolf

Fill-In Collins (singing Su-Su-Sudoku) / Fill-In Sync

Spinwheel Doctors

The Who’s Calling? / The Guess Who’s Calling? / The Who’s Who

Radioheadings

Men at Framework

Kenkenny Rogers (or Loggins or G) / KenKen Chesney

Kenny Chess Words

Paul Simon Says / Simon Le Bon Says / Simon Says Garfunkel

Paul Simon and Art Garfield’s Word Seeks

ZZ Top to Bottom / Top to Soggy Bottom Boys

Zigzag Top / Jay Zig Zag / Zigzag Marley

Missing Persons List / Missing Persons Trios

Cryptogram Parsons / Patchwork QuotaGram Parsons

Letterboxes Zeppelin / Letterboxes to Cleo

Led Zeppelin and Around

Tina Turnabout / Tina Turn a Phrase / Tossing and Tina Turner

U2 of a Kind / U2 by Two / U2 for One

Three Doors Down of a Kind / 3 Doors Ups and Downs

Three Doors Across and Down / Across and Three Doors Down

Big Brother and the Three’s Company

Three from Nine Inch Nails

Third Bull’s-Eye Blind

Never Mind the Bull’s-Eye Spiral…Here Come the Sex Pistols!

The Four-Most Tops / The Four Tops to Bottom

Four Square Blondes / Tears Four Square

Gang of Foursomes

The Crackerjackson 5

The Jackson Fancy Fives / Maroon Fancy Five / The Fancy Dave Clark Fives

Black 47-Up

Seven Mary Three’s Company

The Jesus and Mary Chain Words

Alice in Chain Words

Square North of Nines

Thirteenth Floor Escalators

Mix and Matchbox Twenty / Match-Up Twenty

Talking Heads & Tails / Radioheads and Tails (singing Creepto-Families)

Florida Georgia Line ‘Em Up / End of the Florida Georgia Line

Drop-outs Kick Murphys

NickelThrowbacks

Wall Flower Powers / The Flower Power Kings

ColdWordPlay

ColdPlaces, Please / The Black Eyed Places Please

Jefferson Starspellship / Ringo Starrspell

Ringo Starr Words / Mazzy Star Words

Thompson Twin Crosswords

Pairs in LeAnn Rimes

Eric Clapboard

New Kids on the Blockbuilders / New Kids on the Crossblocks

Around the New Kids on the Block / New Kids Around the Block

ABBAcus (singing Take a Letter Chance On Me and Waterloose Tile)

Bobby Vee-Words

The Partridge Family Ties

Missing Fats Dominoes

Morris Day & the Rhyme Time

Right of Waylon Jennings

KC and the Sum-Doku band / K.C. and the Sunrays Band

Sunrays & Cher-A-Letter

Motley Crueptograms

Janis Joplinkwords

Alphaville Soup / Bowling for Alphabet Soup

The Smashing Pumpkin-Patchwords

Junior Walker & the All Stars and Arrows

Stars and Aerosmith

Sudoku & the Banshees

Sudokool & the Gang / Kool and the Changelings

Mirror Imagine Dragons

Kelly Picker-Upper

Blackout Sabbath

They Might Be Puzzler’s Giants

Sweet Honeycomb in the Rock

Busta Rhyme Time

A to Z Maze featuring Frankie Beverly / A to Jay-Z Maze

Beat the Strawberry Alarm Clock

Foreigner ‘n’ Aft

Metallicancelations

Frank Zip It

Patsy Cline ‘Em Up

Golden Earringmaster

Add One Direction

Jethro Full Circle / Jethro Tiles

The Point the Way Sisters

Santanagrams

Marcy Word Playground

Mariah Carey-Overs / Carry-Overs Underwood

The Black Keywords

Neil Diamond Mine / Nine of Neil Diamonds / Neil Diamond Rings

What’s Left Eye Lopes

Face to Faces / The Small Face to Faces

Split and Splice Girls

Word Player

Quotefall Out Boy

Word Mazey Gray

B-U-S METRO STATION

Simply Grand Funk Railroad!

“C” the Spice Girls and “C” the Beastie Boys

Little Mix at a Time

Anagram Magic! Square

The Associations

Fats Domino Theory

The Washington Jigsaw Squares

Linkwords Park

Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Occupancy

Scoremaster Flash

ABeeGee’s

John Mayall’s Codebreakers

Nat King Collective Crossword

Dave Match-Up’s Band

Jane’s Letter Addition

Counting Cross Sums

Fleetwood Mac & Logic Problems / Flinkwords Mac

Crostics Stills & Nash

Maxi-Score Priest

Drummerman-heim Steamroller / Drummerman-fred Mann

A Trigons Called Quest

Sir Mixmaster-A-Lot

Weird Al Wacky Words Yankovic

Uncle Crackers

The Marshall Mind Tickler Band

Banana Word-A Rama

Ashford & Simpson Says

The CultureWords Club

Earth Wind and Fill-Ins

The Mamas and the Papas Grand Tour

Ringer’s Eleven

Public Double Trouble Enemy

Guns ‘n’ Rows Garden


Those bands would be sure to win plenty of AnaGrammy and QuotaGrammy Awards!

Our fellow puzzlers on Twitter also offered up some terrific entries themselves!

@EmilBurp was “torn between the obvious ‘A-Dell’ or the semi-obvious ‘Anacro-Styx'” — two very clever entries! And @_PaulSurf offered up several choice entries, including “Panic at the DisCodewords,” “ZZ Top Choice Sudoku,” and “CryptoGraham Parker and the Rumour.”

Have you come up with any Penny Dell Puzzle Bands of your own? Let us know! We’d love to see them!

Thanks for visiting PuzzleNation Blog today! Be sure to sign up for our newsletter to stay up-to-date on everything PuzzleNation!

You can also share your pictures with us on Instagram, friend us on Facebook, check us out on Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr, and explore the always-expanding library of PuzzleNation apps and games on our website!