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MITMH2022
Public Access

Solution to Board Members

Whoston

Answer: ALEXANDER CABOT III
by Deborah Levinson and Shai Nir Hana
Tech by Deborah Levinson, Sahil Bhasin and Shai Nir Hana

The Zoom gallery of cat-lawyers (well, only one is actually a lawyer) is a set of audio clips identifying different celebrities. The numeric buttons below the gallery each play a conversation between two people that simultaneously highlights two speakers: the first one outlined by a full yellow border, and the second marked with a single border below. Each conversation suggests a way to group sets of celebrities:

  1. People who are one award shy of an EGOT
  2. People whose names include a three-letter code for a major US airport
  3. People who starred in the Cats movie
  4. People who have hosted Saturday Night Live at least five times (the "five-timers club")

Group the celebrities in their categories, and then notice that the flavortext mentions "horsing around" and "stable." This Zoom gallery is actually a single knight's tour broken up into four segments that have a single possible path between each set's start and end points, which are indicated by the first and second speaker highlights. Three of the paths have a specific order to help you along: the near-EGOT winners cycle through the four possible missing awards, the airport codes travel west to east, and the Cats singers each share a musical number with the previous Cats singer. (Sorry, we were never able to get a five-timers' club sequence to work, so they're random.)

The final grid of celebrities looks like this:

BILL MURRAYFRANCES MCDORMANDBUCK HENRYJAMES CORDENCANDICE BERGENJULIE ANDREWSSTING
BEN AFFLECKJASON DERULODREW BARRYMORECYNTHIA ERIVOSCARLETT JOHANSSONTOM HANKSWILL FERRELL
JUSTIN PAULTINA FEYCHRISTOPHER WALKENDANNY DEVITOMETTE TOWLEYMELISSA MCCARTHYELTON JOHN
REBEL WILSONJAMES EARL JONESJENNIFER HUDSONRYAN SEACRESTELLIOTT GOULDCHADWICK BOSEMAN
FRANCESCA HAYWARDHELEN MIRRENROBBIE FAIRCHILDINDIA ARIEBONNIE WRIGHTJEREMY IRONSJOHN LEGUIZAMO
ELLEN BURSTYNHARRISON FORDCOMMONBILLY PORTERBURT BACHARACHCASSANDRA PETERSONPORTIA DE ROSSI
STEPHEN SONDHEIMJUDI DENCHHENRY FONDATONY SHALHOUBMEAT LOAFKATE WINSLETLIN-MANUEL MIRANDA

The groupings and related knight's tours:

EGOT

  1. JUSTIN PAUL
  2. FRANCES MCDORMAND
  3. CYNTHIA ERIVO
  4. JULIE ANDREWS
  5. ELTON JOHN
  6. JEREMY IRONS
  7. LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA
  8. BURT BACHARACH
  9. HENRY FONDA
  10. ELLEN BURSTYN
  11. JAMES EARL JONES
  12. COMMON
  13. STEPHEN SONDHEIM
  14. HELEN MIRREN
  15. BILLY PORTER
  16. KATE WINSLET

Diagram of knight's tour proceeding through the EGOT celebrity list in numeric order

Airport codes

The three-letter airport code is highlighted in each person's name.

  1. JOHN LEGUIZAMO
  2. RYAN SEACREST
  3. CASSANDRA PETERSON
  4. TONY SHALHOUB
  5. HARRISON FORD
  6. INDIA ARIE
  7. MEAT LOAF
  8. PORTIA DE ROSSI
  9. BONNIE WRIGHT
  10. CHADWICK BOSEMAN

Diagram of knight's tour proceeding through the airport code celebrity list in numeric order

Cats

  1. METTE TOWLEY
  2. JENNIFER HUDSON
  3. FRANCESCA HAYWARD
  4. JUDI DENCH
  5. ROBBIE FAIRCHILD
  6. REBEL WILSON
  7. JASON DERULO
  8. JAMES CORDEN

Diagram of knight's tour proceeding through the Cats celebrity list in numeric order

SNL

  1. TOM HANKS
  2. DANNY DEVITO
  3. ELLIOTT GOULD
  4. WILL FERRELL
  5. CANDICE BERGEN
  6. MELISSA MCCARTHY
  7. STING
  8. SCARLETT JOHANSSON
  9. CHRISTOPHER WALKEN
  10. BEN AFFLECK
  11. BUCK HENRY
  12. TINA FEY
  13. BILL MURRAY
  14. DREW BARRYMORE

Diagram of knight's tour proceeding through the SNL Five-Timer's Club celebrity list in numeric order

The dialogues display a list of extraction numbers in the black center square. When applied to the names in their set's sequence and filled in on the grid, you get this:

MANAGES
FORHATL
SFIVESO
REETGN
ANERHRG
EINPUOT
DNASLIA

In a spiral starting from upper left, the grid reads MANAGES LONG TAILS AND EARS FOR HATS GROUP NINE FIVE THREE. This is a reference to a line in the Josie and the Pussycats theme song along with an enumeration, pointing to the answer ALEXANDER CABOT III.