'ouse saar Enow?'- Gast Your vote on crosswordesePlus America's Most Creative Crosswords

By the Nation's Top Constructors

WEST COAST CONTEMPORARYMerl Reagle

by Helene Hovanec

First of Two Partserl Reagle, the quintessential new-wave cruciverbalist, draws uponhis eclectic background as a rock

musician, stand-up comic, scriptwriter, andtelevision game show writer to create hisunique crosswords. Moreover, he was en-dowed with a natural facility for words, hadan early interest in puzzles, lives a Californialifestyle, and displays a new-age sensitiv-ity-all factors that contribute to his clevercluing.

A constructor famous for his wide-opendiagrams (those with very few black spaces)and ouEageous themes, Reagle has beenfooling around with words since he was fiveyears old. He'd draw an "S " or another letterin outline form and then fill in the shape withwords that crossed with each other.

"I just thought that was real crJte," he re-members. He also solved every puzzle thatcame his way, especially the ones in High-lights for Children. When he graduated tothe syndicated puzzles in his local newspa-per he got bored with solving other people'sclues and stafied to fill in the blank gridswith his own words. To do this, he appropri-ated his grandmother's first edition ofWebster's New International Dictionary tosearch for words to place into the grids.

"I went through the dictionary lookingfor words thar were the right length to fitwhat I was doing." Reagle was undeterredfrom this laborious task even though everytime he found a word it was "generally anobscure one,"

Reaglewas living in Lindenwold, N.J., atthe time and started to "make puzzles likethe one that was coming out in my dailypaper,The Courier." The standard grid wasll boxes across by 13 boxes down.

Rcagle vividly remembers the first timehe became consciously aware of wide-opendiagrams. It was when he saw a puzzle withfour 1l-letter entries (two each across thetop and bonom of the grid). "Wow!" hethought, "Stacking I ls!"

Reagle instinctively "knew it was hard todo." But "it looked like it was something Ihad to try to do eventually. The three-, four-and five-letter stuff was easy but doubles

across the top or stacking entries... that wastough. I copied the diagrams exactly andfilled them in with my words."

Reagle continued to make up puzzlesthrough his childhood, buthadno designs onselling them until he discov eredW orldW e ekmagazine in a high school civics class. Themagazine "spotlighted a different countryeach week by focusing on its history, geog-raphy, cunent politics, etc." Each issue alsohad a student-made crossword puzzle aboutthe spotlighted country. "How the studentsknew which country it was going to be Idon't know."

Reagle analyzed the puzzles and found

writing, "These are dazzling diagrams, butnot the most attractive-sounding words orpleasant-sounding phrases in the world."

Reagle was perplexed that wide-opengrids weren't the most important factor incrossword construction. He had thought thatFarrar wouldn't be able to "wait to get thepuzzles in the paper." Her polite rejectionwas Reagle's introduction to the conceptthat "diagram isn't enough. What matters isword choice and interesting themes." Thisconcept was "complelely alien" to him.

"I didn't know what a theme was. I wasjust trying to open ttre diagram up as wide aspossible to pop people's eyeballs out. I was

'I was just trying to open the diagram up aswide as possible to pop people,s eyeballs out.I was concentrating on show-off baloney.'

that. most contained an average of l0 the-matic entries. Thinking that "any idiot cando that," he constructed a puzzle aboutCanada wirh 27 pertinent facts and mailed itin. No sooner had he returned from the postoffice when the next issue came out with thehighlighted counrry of rhe week-Canada!The editors had to delaypublishingReagle'spuzzle for one year, at which time they paidhim the going rare ($10) for it.

Inspired by being in print, Reagle wasdetermined to explore new frontiers. Hethought, "Gee, that was easy. I'll just gostraight to T he N ew Y ork Time s."' MargaretFarrar was the editor at that time and imme-diately rejected two of the three daily sizepuzzles (15 x 15) Reagle had submitted.

a"DEAD AS A DOORNAIL" and.tot-

len in Denmark" were the ttreme entries inthe first puzzle and "edema" was in thesecond grid. Farrar wrote thatedema "wasn' texactly a pleasant idea" and scolded Reaglefor his "poor use of word choices." Herdictum was to reject puzzles with referencesto "death, disease, war, and taxes" becauseshe believed that "the subway solver gotenough of those subjects in the rest of thepaper." She softened the rejecrion blow by

concentrating on show-off baloney."Farrar did accept his third puzzle which"accidentally had nothing wrong with it,"

Reagle quips. She called the puzzle, wirh itstriple l5Jetter phrases vertically down thecenter, crossing with "Innocents Abroad',horizontally, a remarkable "tour de force',for a l5-year-old.

This second published puzzle, printed inthe daily Times, was more than enough en-couragement for Reagle. Despite Farrar'sprotests he inundatedherwith "tons of wide-open puzzles with outrageous liberties in[hem." Farrar would always try to solvethem and tell Reagle "what was wrong withthem in the nicest way possible." She didpublish the crosswords that met her stan-dards.

Reagle continued to supply Fanar withpuzzles for The Times and the Simon &Schusterbookswhilehefinished high schooland enrolled at the University of fuizona.He never entertained thoughts of pursuingcrossword constructing as a career becausemosl constructors had "real" jobs and usedthe paltry payments they eamed from puzzlesas a way to supplement their incomes.

So, after college, Reagle co-founded a(Continued on Page 7)

September/October 1 991 CROSSW RD Page 5

Reagle (from Page 5)

rock band, Greylock Mansion, and was thelead singer as well as the keyboard player.The band performed in "every cow town inArizona" for four years. During one periodReagle was also a copy editor for theTucsonDaily Citizen. He worked double shifts-evenings until the wee hours of the morningin the band and from 6 a.m. to early after-noon for the newspaper.

Reagle quit the band in 1972 to join theInvisible Theater, the only all-original the-ater group in Arizona. The staff wrote all itsown plays and musicals while Reagle wroteall the music and performed in some of theshows. He doubled up on jobs again-thistime as a copy editor for the Arizona DailySrar. Reagle's schedule was chaotic. Whenhe was actually scheduled to perform onstage he had to cut out early from the Star. "I

was supposed to work until 1 a.m., but therewas very little to do after 10 so the bosswould let me off early. I would race downfrom the paper to do my stint."

Arriving just in time to catch his breath,

Reagle would metamorphose into a show-man. "Steprightup, folks, andplaceany six-or seven-letter word on the blackboard.Scramble the letters, and if I don'tunscramblethe word in five seconds I'll thrcw a pie inmy face. Or youcanthrow the pie." He usedthis spiel to warm up the audiences and getthem in the mood for participation in his"Special Ed and his Word-O-Rama" rou-tine.

SOMEONE placed the word MOONEESon the blackboard one night and stumpedReagle. "It was a very good word," he said,chuckling as he related the actual "pie in theface" incident. "I was supposed to use acustard pie, but we could only buy apple piethat night. It was really sticky and messy anddidn't blow up very well, but it was a pie inthe face." (Reagle's ability to laugh at him-self is evident by the fact that every time hetells this anecdote he starts by saying,"Someone...")

Reagle culled material for this routinefrom Dmitri Borgmann's book, Language onVacation. He "used only the screwiest, stuffthat a normal audience would think was

ridiculously funny." If Reagle was pokingfun at palindromes he excluded ttre standardones like radar, madam, rotator, etc., andconcentmted on stuff like "kinnikinnik,

amixture of sumac leaves and dogwood barksmoked by the Ohio Indians." Audiencesfound it "so screwy that they couldn't helpbut laugh."

Reagle enjoyed audience participation bitsand delighted in prodding people to exercisetheir brains. "What's the longest word youcan think of that repeats no letters?" he'dask, and then he'd write regular words like"uncopyrightable"

on the blackboard. Theaudiences would join in with their choicesand then Reagle would pull out all the stopsand start placing coined words on the board.He'd wr i te something l ikePUB VEXINGFJORDS CHMALTZY andwould then invent some "ridiculous definition that began as if in the manner of..." Theaudiences would howl and come up withtheir own words and zany definitions.

After four years ofpursuing two careers,Reagle wanted to try his hand at scriptwdting.

(Continued on Page 9)

I

Reagle SpecialtiesReagle is primarily an entertainer and wants to make people

laugh. This could involve changing or eliminating letters to get anew perspective on a familiar movie, expression, song, or place.

In "Don't S tart the Movie" the gimmick was to remove the firstletter from a movie title to answer a clue based on another movie:

'sleast popular CocHaiI garnish?tt .,Livcr twisttt"Works on The Road to Rio?" .rlars and Stripes Forever"3'Mom's request about

The Sound of Music?" "Lower Drum Song"

In "Take Two" the gimmick went one step further with theremoval of two consecutive letters from a movie title:

"Film atrout man's first encounterwith fire?" ..I am Curious. Yeow',

"Thc first all.bongo musical?" ..A Streetcar Namcd Desi',

In "Something's Backed Up in Here" one word in each themeentry was spelled backwards:

'(Most popular diner in Hcaven?tt .,St. Peter's Grubt,"Toy store for dumb people?tt ..O.A,F. Schwarz"

In "Maim That Tune!" songs were mangled:

filled with lots of new words, many of which happen to be brandnames. In the past editors would never allow constructors to usebrand names and there are still editors for whom it's a no-no. Reaglegoes out of his way to use brand names in the clues and the grids:

t t _ -F l ush (ba th roomproduc t ) t t , ,San i "

r'Walkmans, e.g." .,Sonys"

"Erstwhile soft drink" ..Fresca',

"Amerlcan competitor?,, ,.TWA,

"MY CAR anagramt' ,tCamry,t

"Gillette's _ II razortt tofract'

"Radarange makcrt' ..Amanatt

"Airwick targcttt (,Odortt

t'Granatelli goo" "STPI'

Reagle is one of the few constructors who can write mini-screenplays with his crosswords. In "A Night at the Movies" the thematicentries were all "names of movies that sounded like you would havethe worstnightof yourlife in the theater," e.g., House ofU sher,WaitUntil Dark, Torn Cwtain, The Big Chill, The Stranger, On yourToes, The Wild Child, and Dark Passage.

Reagle's grids are identifiable by the lack of black spaces. He'sa specialistin stacking lSletterwords andphrases acrossthetopandbottom of the grids, like the one for the 1986 hesenting Balrimore, slst Annual Crossword Open:

S T A R T I N G P I T C H E R

N A T I O N A L A V E R A G E

A U T O M O B l L E T I R E S

andI N C O M P A T I B I l , I T YF O O T B A L L D E F E N S E

I S T H I S S E A T T A K E N

_H.H.

' lnfrcqucnt flycr's remark?""Fri.day the 131h, Part 70?"

ttl'm heaving on a jct plane""Killing me softly with his saw"

In "A Capital Idea" state capilals were used conversationally:"Hcpburn's assent" "Ralcigh I dott"Start of Charo's American Express

commcrcial?tt "Juncau me?t,

MerlReagle is very aware of thecontemporary world, one that's

F * . - � -

CROSSW RD Page 7September/October 1 991

Reagle (from PageT)He relocated to San Francisco because it hadthe ideal combination of "big-city appealand small-town quaintness." To supporthimself, he worked as the assistant managerof the largest movie theater there, and usedhis spare time to writeToyworks, a science-fiction screenplay about "a young guy whoinvents the first voice-operative toys." Billedas a "special effects extravaganza," it hassincebeen rewritten several times, butReaglenever submitted it to a studio.

His next job was as a film inspector,where he and his staff would review filmsand check them for damage after they hadbeen rented out to theaters. Reagle alwaystried to inspect brand-new films so the ma-chine could run without stopping at flaws.While themachinewas on,Reagle taughthisstaff how to construct Laddergram puzzles(a type of puzzle in which a letter of the firstanswer word is eliminated to form a secondanswer word. The eliminated letters are thenplaced in two opposite columns and whenthe puzzle is finished the eliminated lettersspell out a related phrase. Traditionalladdergrams might spell out short phrasessuch as "fairy tales," "Easter Parade," etc.).

These easy puzzleswere never sufficientfor Reagle; he pushed his cohorts to create"real extravagant" Laddergrams and in ashort time they were creating l5-letterLaddergrams where the related phrasesspellcd out connections like Close Encoun-rers, Richard Dreyfuss, and S teven Spielberg.

Reagle loves to tickle people's brainsand prod them to go a step beyond theirperceived boundaries. He uses a similartype of goading in crosswords by puttingwords and phrases into puzzles that solversmight not expecr to find in either the gridsor the clues.

In the grids he'll use up-to-datephrases andwords. They're not difhcult,just unexpected:

"Tot's complaint at a

paradc""1,024 bytcs, bricfly"ttRevel"

'sPrinter's unit"t'Bingo calltt"Chromosome

possibilities""Certain facility"

tt l can't scett"One K"ttBe merrytt

"Onc emt'

ttB sixtt

"X or Ytt

"Mcn's roomtt

His clues make solvers think:

"It costs to take them

outrr ..Adsrt

"Lock turner?" ,.Curlcrt,

"It holds the mayot' "Jn""

"Fore scorett .,Part,

"They're made by

jerkstt "Sodastt

All through his show biz and copy-edit-ing years, Reagle was still constructingcrosswords for Farrar. But the low pay al-ways prevented him from devoting his full-time efforts to puzzlemaking. He'd occa-sionally wanglemore money from Farrarbywriting, "Gee, only $60 for this 2l x 2l

treatments of scripts, ideas for scripts, anddid"otheroddjobs."After l8 monthsReagledecided he'd rather write his own scripts andpeddle them himself.

Reagle still resisted a full-time cross-word consftucting career. "I'd hate to lookback on my life and think rhat all I did wascrossword puzzles," he confided to a closefriend who forced Reagle to see what wasreally happening in his life. "Every time youstart to write something, you always stopand do puzzles. If making puzzles makesyou happy, just do it." That was the goadReagle needed. He headed to Connecticutto enter the second American Crossword

wave clue, "one that is so stripped downthat one must get one's bearings beforesolving it." For example, when a solversees the clue "Charlie's bro" which is an-swered by "Syd," he or she must figure outthat"Charlie" refers to Charlie Chaplin andthat "bro" is an abbreviarion for trother,necessitating an abbreviated answer. Reagleuses these clues sparingly:

"Romeo's firstname?tt . lAlfatt

"Ilalfway through a

9-to-5 job" ,rl p.m.t'"March celebtt (St, Pattt"981'65'4321,e 'g." ' rSSNtt

t'H'woodproduct" ..Pic,

-H.H.

Competition and to meet some people in"the busine.ss." In one eventfi:l weekend he wonthird prize in the mntest, met his longtime idolMargaretFanar, was innoduced to Dell's editor-in-chief Rosalind Moore, and also met WillShortz, Doug and Janis Heller, StephanieSpadaccini, and other crossword mavens.

Reagle's decision to pursue a career incrosswords came at an opportune time. Itwas 1979 and the dawn of the new-wave era.G ame s magazine, abrand-new type ofpuzzlemagazine with glossy, four-color pages andlots ofarticles, had recently been launched,crossword contests had been revived andwere generating lots of press coverage, andthe National Puzzlers' League had re-insti-tuted its annual conventions after an l8-vearhiatus, also awakening the public's interestin puzzles.

The puzzle world was ready for MerlReagle and Merl Reagle was ready to devotoall his energies to crossword constructing.

To be continued... tr

HELENE HOVANEC is Edirorandpub-lisher of Kids' Puzzle Express.

(Naughty amount?""Get some alr?""Husky state?""Hart's running

mate?,'

"Zerd'

"Resplret'

"Alaskatt

'(Doe"

'sProtector of the

crowntt"Not quitc like Ali?""Tip from your

butchcr?"

ttBnamel"

ttGreatertt

"Sirloin"

Reagle also uses anol.her type of new-

puzzle. Maybe this puzzle is just so arnazingit should deserve a litrle more." And Farrar,chuckling as she made out thepayrnentvoucher,wonld usuallyreply,' "That was a mistake, ttrere'san additional $60 on fhe way."

Concurrently, Reagle was constructinglots of "really wide-open goolball puzzles"and distributing them to his friends. In hisbest comedic patter Reagle would give thisspiel, "Here's what a normal puzzle lookslike and here's a Merlllllllllllllllll puzzle.Which one do you want?" Reagle still be-lieved "the more wide-open it was the moreappeal it would have to a mass audience."Looking back, he believes that this was an"idiotic" way to think. "How can anyonebreak into apuzzle like that?"

After a few years in San Francisco, Reaglerelocated to Santa Monica, California, toconcentrate on screenwriting. He went towork for his friend Dennis Hacken, whosecareer was on the rise after he hadwrittenWanda Nevada for Brooke Shieldsand Peter Fonda. Hacken was in such de-mand that. he hired Reagle to do the "small

stuff he couldn't handle." Reagle wrote

New Wave i la ReagleJust what are new-wave clues and how

do you recognize them? Reagle definesnew-wave as "a general movement towardmore vitality and wit in crossword puzzles.It's a direct reaction to the sfraight conser-valive approach."

Reagle likes to use teasers in his clues,those with question marks that tell thesolver that the answer is funny orunexpectedand should never be taken literally:

September/October'l 991 CROSSW RD Page 9

Maintaining the Farrar New York Times TraditionPlus America's Most Creative Crosswords

By the Nation's Top Gonstructors

WEST COAST CONTEMPORARYMerl Reagle

by Helene Hovanec

Second of Two Partshen Merl Reagle journeyed toStamford, Connecticut, in 1979to participate in the 2nd Annual

American Crossword Pluzzle Tournament.he was almost positive that he'd pursuecrossword constructing as afull-time career.

The events of that weekend solidified hisdecision as he mct puzzle-purchasing edi-tors, interacted with avid solvers, and talkedshop with new-wavs constructors. Most ofthe innovations in the crossword world wereemanating from the East Coast and Reaglehad the wherewithal to enter the top echelon.The isolation ofthe long-distance construc-for was over.

Tournament director Will S hortz, buoyedby the avalanche of publicity from the firsttoumament, had assembled a panel of "puzzle

stars" for the Friday night program. Theseincluded constructors Maura Jacobson. Jor-dan Lasher, and William Lutwiniak; Delleditor Rosalind Moore, and author of ThePuzzler's Paradise, this writer. Judges in-cluded constructors Henry Hook, StephanieSpadaccini, and Norton Rhoades. and editorsDoug and Janis Heller. Puzzledom's firstlady, Margaret Farrar, awarded the prizes atthe Sunday afternoon banquet.

Although Reagle really didn't know theconstructors and editors, he did know how totalk shop with them (diagram size, wordcount, wide-open grids, favorite clues,lhemes, pay rates, etc.) and quickly infiltratedtheir supposedly off-limits chambers. Hecracked jokes with rhem as they markedpuzzles, computed statistics, entered dataon tabulation sheets (this was the era ofmanual calculations), and bolted down mealsin crowded hotel suites. He dazzled thejudgeswittr copies of his wide-open puzzles fromthe Simon & Schuster Pocket Book series.

Reagle used the 72-hour competiLion as astafling point to set up appoinr.ments to seepuzzle editors while he was in the New yorkarea. One of the people he focused on wasRosalind Moore. If Reagle was going tomake the plunge and earn his living frompuzzles he needed a publisher like Dell, whopurchased lots of crosswords. Reagle hadgown up with Dell puzzles, but their tradi-

tional grids and straightforward cluing werenot exactly the style he was intent on creat-ing.

When Moore saw a Reagle puzzle with its15-letter entries stacked across the grid sheasked him to "make one of those" for her.Right after the contest Reagle retreated to afriend's house and, without any of his ref-erence books, constructed a thematic cross-word with triple 15s stacked across the topand bottom. Moore accepted it on the spotand Reagle started submitting puzzles to herregularly.

HIS BAR PUZLESCryptic aficionados ttrink of bar puzzles

as those British inventions where wordsare separated by heavy black lines insteadof black squares. Reagle defines "barpuzzles" as "little puzzles that you can doin a bar that occupy people's minds whilethey're drinking." Reagle and his fiancehabituate a"Cheers"-like bar in Los Ange-les where they sit around with the regularsand "shoot these puzzles back and forth."No paper and pencil needed...

Name a car modol that's a patlndrome

Not including.rY,ttname theonly U.S. president

whose last name starts wlth two vowels

Not Including..Y,"name theonly U.S,presldentwhosc last name cnds with two vowels

Not including .Yrt'name the only U. S. capitatwhose only vowel ls..E,

Name the only state whose only vowel ls.(E '

Reagle likes these because they don,trequire rivia knowledge, per se, but theydo make people stretch their brains.

' a o il o w, r, ̂" r, " iri i ffj, ::ffiiMany were rejected. Some of the time,

"Dell had no idea of what I was talkingabout," recalls Reagle. "I submitted a puzzlecalled 'Where are you Mr. Chaney?' in whichevery theme answer was a movie title with'Lon' in it-Quee n of B abylon, Godzilla v s.Megalon, The Lone Wolf in London. It wasreturned with this note,'We don't under-stand what N.{r. Chaney has to do with ttrispuzzle,' Dell wasn't used to the kind of

puzzles I was sending."But Reagle really wanted to have his

puzzles published in Dell, so he adaptedthem to meet the needs of a mass-market.publishing company whose puzzles aregeared to a "typical" solver, a 35- to 50-year-old woman living in the Midwest. "I leamedto do neatly squared off seven-by-sevencorners with no 'bad' abbreviations. It wasreally hard to learn because it wasn't mvstyle at all."

(Through the years Reagle and Dell havedeveloped an excellent relationship; alongthe way they've both compromised. Reaglesaves his most outrageous themes andnewest-wave clues for other outlets and sendsDell puzzles he knows will be published.And the Dell editors, especially editor-in-chief Erica Rothstein, have recognizedReagle's talent and allowed him many lib-erties not permitted other constructors.)

During this eventful period Reagle alsohad the opportuniry to meer wirh Will Shortzat Games magazine and to analyze thepuzzles done by the two constructors whosework he admired most-Henry Hook andMike Shenk. He gained valuable insighrsfrom everyone.

From Shortz he leamed to close up hisgrids just a little so that he could make berterword choices for the diagram. From Hook heleamed about "alphabet soup puzzles" withinterestin g abbreviations-FTDlXNJ (FortDix, New Jersey) or EXAFLCIOVIp (ex-AFL-CIO V.I.P.). And from Shenk heleamed to put more emphasis on his three-letter words so that they werereal words thatcould be clued cleverly, notjustabbreviationsthat finished the diagram. It was an edifying,yet humbling experience. "I wasn't as goodas I thought I was when I saw these otherguys."

The highlighr of rhe weekend was meer-ing his longtime idol MargaretFarrar. Itwasmutual admiration at first sighr, althoughFarrar's firstwords to him werein referenceto his beard, "You're much hairier ttran Ithought you'd be." An additional bonus wasReagle's third-prize award, a check for$50!

When Reagle returned to California he(Continued on page 7)

November/December 1 991 CROSSW RD Page 5

IReagle (from Page 5)

rncorporated his new discoveries with hisspecial way of cluing and soldlots ofpuzzlesover the next two years. In the early ,g0s

heentered Bantam Book,s Great Masters Hunt"for new crossword puzzle experts" withone of his trademarkpuzzles, a mini_screen_play. Titled "Signs

of Destruction,,' eachthemed enlry was clued as ..a sign in adepartment store that you hope Junior won'ttake literally": throw rugs, pound cake, slitskirts, scatterpins, pocket calculators, watchrepairs, paint counter, floor manager, andstretch socks.

Reagle was notified that he had won firstprize. However, he had originally sent thepuzzle to Dell, who had informed him that itwas being put "on hold." Reagle interpretedthat as a rejection and sent the puizle toBantam witrout requesting its return. In theinterim, Dell published the puzzle making itineligible for the prize. (This was befJreDell and Bantam mersed.)

-In retrospect, Reagte waxes philosophi_

cal on this mix-up..,The factthatbeilediiorswould turn down a puzzle that would go onto win first prize in something struck me asfunny. It was more of a misunderstandins.fne1.{id.n_t specifically turn it down. The],just didn'r know what they were going to dowith it. Dell published it with perfect tiriing_perfect timing for me to lose the first priz"e.,,

In 1985, after six years as a full_timeconstructor, Reagle organized a Westerncrossword tournament, co_sponsored byGames magazine. Borrowing heavily fromthe Stamford format, the weekend event was

for the top prizes and team games for light_hearted diversion. The contest drew 70pailicipants, most of whom had never par_ticipated in a crossword toumament. public_ity generated by ttre contest was directlyresponsible for Reagle's next job as a TVgame show writer.

At this time "Cross Wits" was beins re_vived. When the producers saw the arti"cleson Reagle they immediately contacted himto write for the show, and he accepted."Cross Wits" questions were designed so thecelebrity contestants could respond with agag answer before the buzzer rang and theyhad to give the correct answer. Foiexamplgbefore answering ..umbrella"

for . peoplesay it's bad luck to open one in the house,,,a contestant might ad lib with ..a yogurtshop" or "an oyster bar.,, Similarly, .iSJr"people get on their knees to scrub them"could conceivably be answered bv"chihuahuas"

or ,dachshunds,, before the

real answer, "floors.,'

When "Cross Wits" went off the air thesame producers hired Reagle to consFuctword mine puzzles for their new show, .,TheHome ShoppingGame.,'In a wordmine, thecontestant is given a key word, e.g. CRyS_TAL, and must form and spell-as manvwords as possible in 30 seconds, using onlythe letters in that word (stay, car, tai sar,rat, rats, etc.).

. Unfortunately, this show aired weekdaysin mid-afternoon during the Iran_Contrahearings and was pre-empted almost everyday by Oliver North,s teslimony. The rat_ings were low and it was cancelled after five

until he joined the writing staff of ..CouchPotatoes" in 1989. The philosophy behindthis show was ..TV rivia that haO to bephrased in an interesting way," so Reagledeveloped "cute" questions:

"Woody Allen, Woody Woodpecker,Woody Harrelson-which one is noia natu_ral redhead?"

_ "Klingon, cling-free, or Klinger_which

of these is a cross-dresser on a TV show?,,Reagle's main crossword showcase is the

Sunday San Francisco Examiner magazine.When the magazine was being developed (itdebuted on Ocrober 3, l9g5), rhe advertis_ing person felt that ,,if you're going to stafia new magazine you have to have a Duzzle inthe back." Reagle quips that he wasiired forthe job because "I have a California sensi_bility. I use 'Perrier'instead

of.terrier'in theCrid."

Reagle feels that this audience is a ,.hip,,crowd and more accepting of liberties tlrat irecouldn't use on a mass_market audience. Inhis "Modern Latin,'crossword he used cluesthat he "would never be able to get awaywith in Dell":

"Great bunst' ,,A posteriori"ttAwesome bunst' ..Ars magnart"We are out of mulch.

I think" "Non compos mentistt

months.a combination of individual speed solving Reagle took a hiatus from game shows

"I love Japanese food",,O tcmpore, o mores,

Bu-t even Reagle, the rule_breaker, has acut-off point. After testing his themes on"friends who never solve puzzles," he,lldiscard clues that are too ,,way out,,, e.g.,"Ingredients

in a cannibal cocktail" ior..B?_nanas, Three Men and a Babv."

(Continued on pa[e 9)

More Reagle SpecialtiesIn "Knowing

the Angles," rhe gimmick was to place the themed |

.,Resutt of a surgeon sitting on hisentries into the grid at right angles: I r-.-^a,,I

hlPo?" "A shot In the doc'R B I

"Southern dish that never runs out?', .oThree pot hominy,,I o |

"Movies in Brief'summarized films in a single word:COCHETRoMANCE SNCEDCHECK | ..-- -|

"PLIJM"| ..^_-

,.The Color purple,,

The,brand names of popular sofr drinks popped up in ..r"r,, c.t | ,,ffiot*t"tsvr,srs ovrr u rrrr pup1reu up m -'Let.S

Ggt | ..LAMp.

,*^,, , ,^*. ;;:;;. ;Fizzical": r ,..-..--_--.

'Tou Light Up My Life"

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rs73,, il:il::T;,,, I H:3:":*:*:"i::::':1.31nr;,tn "goog Vibrarions,,he spoofedi.Natatoriarnymph" L'tr

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each.themed enry sentence which started ur;irr. Jrjrffif;'f,I the.. ."puzzler, ..Dyspcpsi1r, |

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'fish market come.on?" {.pick e cr.r | "Plcnic ground, -" "collapsing tab;ss'r.,Nerghborhoodbuirdings?,, fiil;#;:il:"' | ;:.T_*i*."v,J, _:::T:lr,yl:,

"Placcs In the Heartrt

"Bouncing baby boysl

RDCROSSWPage 7

Reagle (from PageT)

Examiner solvers are loyal toReagle andbitterly disappointed ifthere's a blank spaceon thepuzzlepage when he takes a vacation.But Reagle did test his fans' loyalties onApril 1, 1990, with his "Tearfully Yours"Etzzle whose six theme entries told a story:

I'm moving to the Big Apple

The change will do me good

I got hlred by the NY Times

I'll miss everyone dearly

You can't be funny forever

Incidentally April F'ool

Solvers werereally upsetuntil they solvedthe frnal theme entry. Some confessed to anearly peek at the answers, "As soon as 'I ammoving' creptinto thepuzzle I was unable tocomplete the puzzle without checking thesolution." The editor received so many let-ters that one column was devoted entirely toReagle's practical joke. "I could kill MerlReagle, were it not for the fact that I can'tlive without him" was typical of the solvers'feelings.

Reagle, who supports himselfcompletelyfrom puzzles, is an extremely gregariousperson involved in a career that requires himto work independently most of the time.Consequently, he has developed a schedulethat allows him to be alone with people (seesidebar).

"I can't shut myself in a room and justmakepuzzles all day long," he explains. Heenjoys los of orher activities-going to ttremovies, dining out, hanging out with friends,going to bars, and chatting on the phone.Reagle is also still very involved wirh hismusic, using his synthesizer and computerto produce demo tapes that he takes aroundHollywood so people will "see if what I'mdoing is different or gimmicky enough orweird enough."

Reagle has a fiancee, Marie Haley.They've been together eight years, "living inseparate apartrnents together" a few blocksapart, Reagle says, "She's the actual adult ofthe two of us-the good investor, the book-keeper, the agent, the business person."I{aley works wittr Reagle on cluing.

Reaglehas specific goals wittr hispuzzles.Hismainaim is "to make someone laugh outloud." He hopes that "when solvers tell theirpuzzle-hating spouses the themaric gag theytoo will laugh. If it's funny stuff it has to befunny in thereal world.Itcan'tbe crosswordfunny."

He also wants "to wake people up to allthe neatlittle things that are hidden in words,e.g., how things anagram-'Shop Rite'

scrambles up into 'trophies.' I want to dothings in puzzles thatpeoplemay neverevenhave heard of before, e.g., that John philipSousa actually died in March. I think it'samazing that almost nobody knows this, soI'll stick it into apazzle.I want people to go'um,' or laugh or something."

Anothergoal is "to have something trickythat solvers have to catch on to that's notquite like anything they've ever done be-fore." In "Leave Us Out of This," the unsus-pecting solver thought that "us" had to beeliminated from the answer; actually,,,me"had to be removed twice;

"Graduationtime', ..ComncentDay"

"CertainHlspanlc" .,XicanArlcanrt

"Wicked Witch's last

wordstt ..I'm lting lting',

EmestBorgnine's name was the one solv-ers had to discover through poems, riddles,and a progressively shrinking bank of 99letten. (As the names were discovered, solv-ers crossed out the letters contained thereinfrom the bank.) Reagle purposely madeBorgnine the final discovery because,,it hadthe word 'nine' in it; he was born in llamden,Conn., and leamed to act in Flarford, Conn.',More than 1,400 people entered the contest.

Reagle also wants to syndicate hispuzzles, "There are all those regionalareas in America that have no idea Ieven exist and I would like to somehowget my puzzles in front of their noses."He bemoans the fact that "puzzles thatare hard and obscure are bad becausethey discourage new solvers."

wrought-iron chairs with red seats, andlarge tables. Eschewing the high-calorie,high-cholesterol pastries, eggs, andcheeses,Reagle sticks to his regular orderof two oatbran muffins, a large decaffeinated coffee,and a srnall, flavored coffee-of-*re-dav(coconut-raspberry on the day I joined himj.

Reagle arrives benveen six and seven andslays forafew hours. Flaleyjoinshim atvrying

on clues; he fixls that'because of

let0ers, works on puzzles, and thinks of

comes from and how stre grew rp," slelmadifferentperspective ttrran hedoes urdis anassetin cluing *le "same old words in brand rew*t#;

breakfast Reagre pops ino hisaparunent to check his phone messages,then dashe,s out to a fast food restaurantwhere he nurses iced tea for hows, writes

times, depending on her sctredule (she wqt$for an accounting firm and has limited time

themes and ideas.In the afternoon he reUrms o his.

b work on the cornprter and puttcnrches on theprzzles prio o maili

HELENE HOVANEC is editor and pub-lisher of Kids' Puzzle Express.

Reagle wants to expand his outlets by"getting into contests more. I want to reacha very, very wide audience using wordpluzzles and word games." He had a chanceto enter this arena with a nine-day contestcommissioned for the ninth anniversary ofthe Har tford C ourant' s Northe ast magazinein March, 1991.

Contestants had to solve eight wordpuzzles to figure oul a) the names of ninefamous people associated with Connecticutand, b) thepattern associated with ttre names.Reagle specifically designed r,tre contest sothatwinningwas a testofthesolvers' abilities,not the result of a lottery.

The nine famous people, in order, were:Sancy Marchand, Qscar de la Renta, RingLardner, Jr.,Iom Brokaw,flenry Kissinger,Ernest B orgnine, dndy Rooney, gusan SaintJames, andlom Seaver. And thepattern wasthatthe first letters of ttreirnames spelled outthe magazine's name.

A f i rm bel iever that . .new-wavepuzzles encourage new solvers,,' Reaglestrives to create lively puzzles that make"learning a game experience.', He feelsthat "all of us who are in the biz arebasically studenrs of the mind. We liketo see how it works."

When asked if he sees himself doing ttrisfor the rest of his life, Reagle hesitates mo-mentarily. "Yes, in one form or another. Idon't think I'll ever stop unless I make somuch money from my music that I don'thave time for puzzles."

Before solvers bleakly envision the con-sequences of this, Merl Reagle then makes acomment about his future ftat should makehis puzzle fans breathe a sigh of relief, ,,If Imake it as arock musician I don'tknow if I'llgive up puzzles." n

November/December 1 991 CROSSW RD Page 9