Jumble

This article is about the word game. For other meanings, see Jumble (disambiguation).

Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by permuting its letters to make an anagram. A solver reconstructs the words, then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to spell the answer to the clue. The clue and illustration are often, though not always, designed to mislead the solver.

Jumble was created in 1954 by Martin Naydel, who is better known for his work on comic books. Jumble is one of the most valuable properties of Tribune Media Services, which holds the rights to the JUMBLE trademark. Daily and Sunday Jumble puzzles appear in hundreds of newspapers.

The current syndicated version found in most daily newspapers has four base anagrams, two of five letters and two of six, followed by a clue and a series of blank spaces in which the answer to the clue fits. The answer to the clue is generally a pun of some sort. A weekly "kids version" of the puzzle features three- and four-letter words. In order to find the letters that are in the answer to the given clue, the player must unscramble all four of the scrambled words; the letters that are in the clue will be circled. The contestant then unscrambles the circled letters to form the answer to the clue. An alternate workaround is to solve some of the scrambled words, figure out the answer to the clue without all the letters, then use the "extra" letters as aids to solve the remaining scrambled words.

In other media

Various electronic versions of Jumble have been released, including a version by Hasbro Interactive for Microsoft Windows. The game features 5 modes of play ranging from classic Jumble to crossword puzzles to an easier Jumble mode for kids. Universal Uclick currently features both the daily Jumble and the weekly Jumble Kids puzzles (among other variations of the game) in an Adobe Flash implementation on its Web site.

TextTwist, a Java game by GameHouse, is similar to Jumble. Players form words from a set of six scrambled letters, and must find at least one 6-letter word using all the letters to get to the next round. Additional points are granted for words using at least three letters.

A TV game show based on Jumble aired in 1994. It was hosted by game show veteran Wink Martindale, and aired on The Family Channel (now called ABC Family).

A variant of a Jumble-like game is featured in the round-robin portion of the 1990s game show Supermarket Sweep.

In the Seinfeld episode “The Pez Dispenser,” Kramer, upon hearing that George Costanza was doing crossword puzzles with his girlfriend, said he “likes to do the Jumble.”

In the Strong Bad email from Homestar Runner entitled "Caper," Strong Bad and The Cheat break into Homestar's house to steal the Jumbles from his newspapers. Strong Bad refers to this in song as "The Jumble Caper."

See also

• Jumble (game show)