AUTOFILL PROJECT: TV tag

Default: 363061
Default with Spaces: 146922

NOTES: I haven’t bee working on the sharedoc for a few months, but finally got around to adding about 200 entries from my notepad. Half of those additions were from my solving regimen of puzzles created by other indie constructors. Crossword-friendly names that have shown up on The 20 recently include OMI (55) and Elle King (65). I didn’t add the latter’s current hit “Ex’s & Oh’s” due to the ampersand, but it’s nice to have an alternative to the {“All My ___ Live in Texas”} clue for EXS. Interesting terms from recent Word Spy posts included divorce doula (72) and Walden zone (70). The latter is the Thoreau-inspired term for an area designated to be Internet- and technology-free. At first I though it might be the crossword solving groove you get into when you figure out a Byron Walden Puzzle-5 gimmick. My favorite addition from recent indie puzzles is TV tag (65). I remember playing that version of tag and recall that Cannon, for some strange reason, was a popular choice among my neighborhood playmates. In fact, my only memory of that show’s existence comes from its use in TV tag.

Seeing the entry in the crossword also made me wonder how that game spread across the country in the pre-Internet era. I doubt that it appeared in a work like The New Games Book. I wonder if it appeared in a youth magazine or on some television show in the 1970s or 80s. How many of you remember TV tag? How about sardines, or midnight werewolf, or swinging statues?