First off, BIG THANKS to everybody – to the puzzlemakers, but especially to the solvers/voters. Part of what’s cool about this contest for me – it was somewhat of a surprise last time, but I was happily expecting it this time – is seeing a LOT of user names I don’t recognize in the comment field. Hello, Mostly Silent Solvers!

And speaking of last time, when I ran the BEATLES SONGS HYPER CONTEST, I wrote in the wrap-up, “Note to self: next time pick a theme with shorter answers. Or maybe limit answer length.”

And do you know what? I was wrong.

Sure, the crazy long answers make building a nice, tight compact grid much harder to do. But I realized, this time, that this contest works better WITHOUT a helpful grid. Because you already know the limited subset of answers to draw from, so having a bunch of crossing letters actually takes away from the fun of solving these, IMO.

In fact, having made that realization, I spent waaaaaay too much time trying to build a grid with NO crossings or overlap… in the shape of an Oscar. Something like this:

   XXX
  XXXXX
  XXXXX
   XXX
 XXXXXXX
 XXXXXXX
  XXXXX
  XXXXX
  XXXXX
   XXX
   XXX
   XXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX

… but much much bigger, of course. With the bulk of the answers running down the middle of the statue. In fact, the long answers worked great for this. Alas, I didn’t have enough short ones to make the “head” and “arms” work right.

But I did get a Gigi :) From Must67. And I really liked how this clue worked. It was the Google logo, but abstracted down to just its colors in ovals. Both of the Google G’s happen to be blue, ergo “just the blue ones” = G, G or GIGI. And while this was one of my favorites, it was also tough for me… because this one could have been a little cleaner… but I had decided this time to NOT do any clue Moderating. Other than dealing with duplicate entries, and trying to pick what I thought were everyone’s “best” clues from whichever ones they had “available” for me to choose from, I offered no editing suggestions.

And boy, did I have my hands full with juggling duplicates. Sure, there were twice as many Beatles songs to choose from last time, but even so, with 80+ Best Pictures available, there were still THREE All About Eve’s, THREE One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’s, and FOUR Mutiny on the Bounty’s! There were also several TWO’s: Lawrence of Arabia, Driving Miss Daisy, Amadeus, An American in Paris, The Lost Weekend.

The great news: once again, just like last time, EVERY clue got votes.

And also, like last time, the winner of the popular vote was far enough ahead of the rest, that I didn’t need to worry too much about making sure no one voted twice :) Though, of course, I was checking for that as I tallied things up. No, humor and economy won the day this time. The elegance of using both the “in” and the “out” areas of a single image of a donkey… plus, well… “fart” is just a funny word… these things carried Murdoctor’s Braveheart straight to the top with 54 votes. Apu’s Amadeus was runner-up with 39.

And again, like last time, the “internal” puzzlemakers’ vote went to someone else: Jebediehard’s Rocky won that one with 9, with Doc’s Braveheart close behind with 8, followed by previous-winner Jewelia’s Dances with Wolves at 7.

So, congratulations to Murdoctor and Jebediehard! Way to represent the Mods, guys. Tanga Points headed your way.

Consolation Prize: For it’s really cool look, healthy number of votes, and well, it’s also gonna fit as a 300×300, I’m making Tanga Al’s Kramer vs. Kramer the future thumbnail for this puzzle.

Again, thanks to all who participated. We will definitely be doing more of these in the future.

Top Popular Votes
54 Braveheart
39 Amadeus
37 Dances With Wolves
30 Kramer vs. Kramer
25 Mutiny on the Bounty
20 Oliver

Top Puzzlemaker Votes
9 Rocky
8 Braveheart
7 Dances With Wolves
6 Amadeus
6 Kramer vs. Kramer
5 Oliver

The Clues
AMADEUS (1984), ForNoReasonHeresApu
GIGI (1958), Must67
BRAVEHEART (1995), Murdoctor
THE LAST EMPEROR (1987), Donimo
ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980), Philana
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951), Bargellos
OUT OF AFRICA (1985), Dragontrainer
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962), IceCurler
OLIVER (1968), j15bell
DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990), Jewelia
ANNIE HALL (1977), DaSaintFan
ROCKY (1976), Jebediehard
KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979), TangaAl
WINGS (1927/28), Duckpond_wkb
THE LOST WEEKEND (1945), Nocca
ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), JimboTab13
DRIVING MISS DAISY (1989), Pimanee
MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1935), LakeLivin
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975), Sonjahi

The Hypercross
http://www.tanga.com/crossword_puzzles/2094-2-27-2011

And where it all started:
http://www.tanga.com/forum/blogs/new-academy-awards-hypercross-contest