Puzzle 6: A Crossword Puzzle Walks Into a Bar

The inspiration for this puzzle came from a tweet by Helen Rosner:

My secret dream is that someone will construct a crossword themed around joke punchlines

— Helen Rosner (@hels) June 21, 2019

This was in relation to her article accompanying a video chat between New Yorker crossword editor Liz Maynes-Aminzade and New Yorker (and other venues) constructor Natan Last, which also supplied one of the theme entries for this puzzle. Spoilers, obviously, so wait until after you solve the puzzle to read it. Or don’t — most of you probably know all these punchlines already.

Not surprisingly, this theme has been done before (“Served With a Twist”, Patrick Jordan, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, November 7, 2004) but I figured there were enough jokes out there to justify my own version — even though Patrick had already used the first punchline I thought of (“Why the long face?”). I also had to leave out my daughter’s favorite joke, so I’m including it here instead.

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

A FSSSH!

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• Solution