Middle Of The Road by Trick: Full Solve (incl. clues)

[@bachgammon1]

The crossword's great but I want to salute Simon's dogged progress through very inhospitable terrain. Such a joy to watch him fight through from start to end. More hard puzzles like this, please!

[@doubleaabbs]

Am I the only one that was just incredibly overjoyed when he figured it out?! His awe was palpable!!!

[@stevewithington1787]

Gorgeous puzzle. Just for those who don’t know, “What, me worry?” was the catchphrase of Alfred E. Neumann, the character who appears on most Mad magazine covers.

[@vinyl1Earthlink]

Some notes on the usage in this puzzle: 'Cooler' is 50s West-coast slang for a jail A 'pol' is commonly used for 'politician' in the US, and E for 'excellent is from grading records or coins. The Oakland A's are the ball team, they were originally called the Athletics. E for 'empty' is from your gas gauge One of the several slang meanings of 'poop' is inside information

[@Rob-oj9bj]

Also PR is public relations, and XOXO at the end of a letter to family members here means kisses and hugs, the X's are kisses, and O's are hugs!

[@jroemling]

As a non-native speaker I had no chance of even getting a single one of those clues and after your first run-through where you didn't even get half of them I thought: "Well, after that he is going to look things up in the dictionary", but you somehow made it through with your brain alone. I'm absolutely stunned and awed, not only by the puzzle, but by your solving abilities. I watched your videos daily for the last two months or so after one of your Sudoku-videos randomly appeared in my KZbin stream and I'm now able to comfortably solve Sudokus except for the extreme type. I looked around a bit and could not find a better channel for Sudoku-tips and the crossword videos are just instilling tremendous respect for the both of you! Tremendous!

[@JamieAtSLC]

37:30 - the words of someone who only ever got A grades, I bet. :D. awesome video.

[@nicokuhne3255]

i just got it.. and i only ever got D's.. guess my teachers were correct

[@n8r8rutube]

One of the few pieces of insight that I knew, Oakland's baseball team is literally called the A's. What a spectacular twist at the end!

[@monkeysvsrobots]

52:30 "Why is an Oakland ballplayer an A" is hilarious to hear living in the area

[@gordonglenn2089]

Amused by Simon's struggle with American-isms, so similar to my difficulty with British-isms in the newspaper cryptics!

[@cz1822]

'just passing' is a D. In America school grades are given on a scale of ABCDF. An A is the best, and an F means you 'Fail.' D is the lowest grade you can get and still pass.

[@FrogSkull]

Ah - makes sense. In the UK it tends to be a C to pass.

[@GreenKatFromRes]

This isn't universal in the US btw. Definitely in my area there is no "D"

[@tremkl]

My only problem with this video is there aren't enough like buttons to click. Great puzzle, great video. No need to apologize for long videos, we're all here because we enjoy watching them.

[@ryanwarr9526]

Truly incredible puzzle! That final trick has just completely blown my mind

[@Kieza12]

This is an amazing puzzle. I'm so glad I stuck around until the end

[@pipebernal]

The puzzle was crazy and awesome. But what blows my mind is your solving skills. Absolutely amazing. I couldn’t solve that thing even if I looked at it for days.

[@HannahG9]

What a fantastic puzzle and beautiful twist at the end! I thoroughly enjoy watching all you videos whether they be crosswords sudokus or variations! You've found yourself a new Australian subscriber

[@benbush1742]

That is epic. If I'm not mistaken the font they've used for the title means you get a pretty accurate reflection of the MAD masthead after folding. I had almost forgotten those amazing fold-ins. Well done for persevering.

[@gordonglenn2089]

This puzzle is a work of genius, and a fun trip down memory lane for this MAD Magazine fan!

[@gordonglenn2089]

I solved it a year ago, and then again more recently, after completely forgetting how it worked. What I missed both times was the results of the folding above the grid!

[@leonhardeuler675]

Feeble attempts is poor because "promotes goodwill" is PR and "with hugs" is OO as in XoXo that might be put at the end of a card meaning hugs and kisses.

[@JimmyLundberg]

Absolutely astounding. Didn't see that coming!

[@johnnicholson4862]

Very impressive that you saw that as quickly as you did, Simon. I solved in Compiler, printed the grid and was playing around with it for longer than I care to mention. Obviously I wasn't going to get anywhere. I know the saying too - my older brother used to say I looked like Alfred E Neuman when I lost a front tooth in a sledging accident. Great puzzle.

[@jay1men]

Tremendous tenacity shown to verify where the blanks were! A super puzzle in the sense that all answers could be got via several ways without need to check out references. When A meets B , I was transported back to those back pages of MAD! So many connections make this puzzle definitely NOT middle of the road. Tks Simon and Trick.

[@iabervon]

I remember doing this puzzle when it was new. I was slightly annoyed that it was only available as a PDF, but everyone said it was amazing, so I printed it out and solved it on paper. Having everything line up at once was completely astonishing.

[@timothybexon6171]

I'm so glad I watched until the end. That is amazing.

[@nadeemhajiiqbal9214]

49:17 "Feeble attempt to promote good will including hugs" - Feeble is POOR, Attempt to promote good will is PR, Including Hugs, which is a texting thing, XOXO is kisses and hugs, where a kiss is X and a hug is O, so hugs is OO in PR makes POOR

[@lancemc9298]

This is why I come here. What a great video through-and-through!

[@Ruddigore]

Awesome. Not only in a different league to my puzzle solving skills but on a different planet too. 👍

[@smericano7241]

this is one of the best things ive ever seen

[@abubakardouglas8268]

Loved this. Brilliant puzzle

[@MegaSmiley]

That was absolutely brilliant!

[@sueytonius]

Absolutely phenomenal.

[@IntelligenceCorn]

The all ighty ollar? Hahaha, I get it.

[@dryoshiyahu]

Absolutely fantastic!

[@DanielMorris1]

Mind-blown!

[@JohnProblem]

Wonderful stuff!

[@brandonbecker8707]

Great video!

[@richardrobertson3115]

Oh my goodness. MAD magazine. Of course. I actually have the fold-ins anthology so as the penny was dropping I was reading the start and end of lines, to see the hidden words. An amazing puzzle, and the compiler must have gad to work on so many levels at once to do this

[@JackMartin-applejack1963]

Does "gad" mean what I think it does in this context, "g >__ __ < ad"? Wed!

[@joshuasturm7495]

This is like watching Adam West's Batman solve Riddler puzzles. He gets the right answer, but I can't follow the logic whatsoever.

[@richardadams7667]

What an incredibly bizarre puzzle! Thanks :) I am Awe Struck

[@pedroslots184]

Wow, just wow!

[@jinga9862]

B. Part 3) Hernando De Soto, spanish soldier, explored Nicaragua and the Yucatan Pennisiula. And a D is 1 letter grade above an F, aka barely passing

[@RandomBurfness]

AMAZING!

[@PickledWhispers]

amazing!

[@lostcabrio]

There’s a Ford Edsel from the fifties, with a horse collar like grille

[@Qazqi]

I'm not quite American, but yes, getting "put in the joint" means going to prison. And you're right, a "joint" is also slang for marijuana.

[@epsilonzero77]

Mind=blown.

[@57thorns]

That was absolutely mad.

[@johnh2052]

Today (in August 2021) there are 11 dislikes, which blows my mind almost as much as this puzzle. I honestly don't get some people. What is it? Genius bugs you for some reason?

[@koszuta]

The Oakland Athletics more commonly refered to simply as the Oakland A's

[@MICHIGANEVA]

360p D:

[@vjunnia.king6]

Made it an hour into the video before realizing I watched this before 😂