The beginnings of the Jumble. First called the "Scramble". Artist and puzzle creator, Marty Naydel (Martin Dell), first puzzled people in 1954.
The beginnings of the Jumble. First called the "Scramble". Artist and puzzle creator, Marty Naydel (Martin Dell), first puzzled people in 1954.
About the Jumble...
Jumble is a word puzzle with a clue, a drawing illustrating the clue, and a set of words, each of which is “jumbled” by scrambling its letters to make an anagram. A solver reconstructs the words, and then arranges letters at marked positions in the words to spell the answer phrase to the clue. The clue and illustration always provide hints about the answer phrase. The answer phrase frequently uses a homophone or pun. Jumble was created in 1954 by Martin Naydel, who is better known for his work on comic books. Daily and Sunday Jumble puzzles appear in over 600 newspapers in the United States and internationally. As of 2014, Jumble is created by David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek. The current syndicated version found in most daily newspapers (under the official title Jumble, That Scrambled Word Game) 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.
There are many variations of puzzles from the Jumble brand including Jumble, Jumble for Kids, Jumble Crosswords, TV Jumble, Jumble BrainBusters, Jumble BrainBusters Junior, Hollywood Jumble, Jumble Jong, Jumble Word Vault, Jumpin' Jumble, Jumble Solitaire, and Jumble Word Web.