Wednesday Wordplay: Cops shows and L.A. movies

[jbenz]

Take a word that often follows "stop". Place it inside a word that means "letting your pants drop". You’ll get the title of a TV show about a cop. What is it?

I really have nothing.

If I understand the rules right, these movies do not work:

City of Angels
L.A. Confidential
Hollywood Homicide
Escape From L.A.
L.A. Blues
To Live and Die in L.A.
Born in East L.A.
Chinatown

[Ken Jennings]

Place it inside a word that means "letting your pants drop".

You must be projecting. The outer word means "drop" OR "something you can pop."

If I understand the rules right, these movies do not work:

City of Angels
L.A. Confidential
Hollywood Homicide
Escape From L.A.
L.A. Blues
To Live and Die in L.A.
Born in East L.A.
Chinatown

Correct, those don't work. Every third letter of Escape from L.A. would spell "eafm" or "sprl" or something.

[RingoOSU]

I can't think of any shows with Hammertime in it.

[Rex Kramer]

Correct, those don't work. Every third letter of Escape from L.A. would spell "eafm" or "sprl" or something.

Oh, now I am confused, or at least, I was confused before, and now I know it:

Second, take a movie whose title refers to Los Angeles. Take every third letter out of the title, though (disregarding spaces), and you’ll get a word that might refer to, say, California. What are they?

I read "Take every third letter out" as "Remove every third letter and read what you have left." I was toying with "LA Story" leading to "la toy", which might indeed by how a French tourist views California, but it didn't seem to be what you had in mind. Now it appears that "LA Story" would just lead to "Sr", which is even more of a stretch.

Rex

[Ken Jennings]

You're right, it was ambiguous. Fixed. Every third letter spells the new word.

[jbenz]

Place it inside a word that means "letting your pants drop".

You must be projecting. The outer word means "drop" OR "something you can pop."

I should have said:

"Here's a different puzzle:

Take a word that often follows "stop". Place it inside a word that means "letting your pants drop". You’ll get the title of a TV show about a cop. What is it?"

[econgator]

For the first puzzle, when you place word one within word two, does word one need to "stay whole"?

In other words, if word one is dog and word two is fish, would the created word need to be fidogsh, or could it be fdiosgh?

[Ken Jennings]

It's a traditional "container" cryptic clue. The inner word stays whole.

[jbenz]

Second, take a movie whose title refers to Los Angeles. Take every third letter out of the title, though (disregarding spaces), and you’ll get a word that might refer to, say, California. What are they?

.
.
.

Southland Tales

and

State?

[SMWinnie]

Lynch's Inland Empire is tantalizingly close for removing, rather than using, every third letter.

...But it's not quite LA, and that last "e" would need to stick around.

[econgator]

Second, take a movie whose title refers to Los Angeles. Take every third letter out of the title, though (disregarding spaces), and you’ll get a word that might refer to, say, California. What are they?

.
.
.

Southland Tales

and

State?

Nice, but that doesn't fit the rules. You're keeping the first letter and then removing every third letter after that. To me, "take every third letter out" means remove letters 3, 6, 9, etc ... not 1, 4, 7, etc ...

*shrug*

[happysteve]

For the first: The Wire
hew = cut with an axe

[CellBlock]

Reasonable answer

Nice.

I've been sitting trying to use bubble as a "drop" and "something you can pop," and it gets surprisingly close with all those cop shows that have "Blue" in the names.

[Ken Jennings]

Nicely done; Southland Tales and The Wire are both right.

Nice, but that doesn't fit the rules.

From above: "Every third letter of Escape from L.A. would spell 'eafm' or 'sprl' or something." I think "the rules" are pretty silent on where the third letters begin. If the stipulation had been "remove every other letter," would it matter if you took the evens or the odds?

[jbenz]

"Here's a different puzzle:

Take a word that often follows "stop". Place it inside a word that means "letting your pants drop". You’ll get the title of a TV show about a cop. What is it?"

To be fair, it's not really a show about a "cop", but it is on Wikipedia's list of police television dramas.

[jbenz]

"Here's a different puzzle:

Take a word that often follows "stop". Place it inside a word that means "letting your pants drop". You’ll get the title of a TV show about a cop. What is it?"

It was Moonlighting, by the way.

[grodney]

Nicely done; Southland Tales and The Wire are both right.

Nice, but that doesn't fit the rules.

From above: "Every third letter of Escape from L.A. would spell 'eafm' or 'sprl' or something." I think "the rules" are pretty silent on where the third letters begin. If the stipulation had been "remove every other letter," would it matter if you took the evens or the odds?

The puzzle says "take every third letter". The similar wording would be "every second letter" not "every other letter". "every other" is sufficiently ambiguous, but I think "every second" is less so.

While a broad interpretation supports Ken, and the 'eafm' and 'sprl' examples further support it, I think a strict interpretation of "every third" indicates the 3rd, 6th, 9th, etc.