Jumble facts for kids
Jumble is a fun word puzzle that you can find in many newspapers! It comes with a clue, a picture that helps explain the clue, and a few words that have their letters all mixed up. Your job is to unscramble these words. Then, you take certain letters from the unscrambled words and put them together to solve the main clue. The picture and the clue always give you hints for the final answer. Often, the answer is a clever pun or a word that sounds like another word (a homophone).
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All About Jumble's History
Jumble was first created in 1954 by a person named Martin Naydel. He was also known for his work on comic books! When it first came out, the puzzle was called "Scramble." Later, in 1962, Henri Arnold and Bob Lee took over making the puzzles and kept it going for over 30 years. More recently, since 2013, David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek have been creating the Jumble puzzles.
Jumble is a very important part of a company called Tribune Content Agency. This company owns all the rights to the JUMBLE name and its puzzles. You can find daily and Sunday Jumble puzzles in more than 600 newspapers, both in the United States and around the world!
How to Play Jumble
The Jumble puzzle you see in most daily newspapers is officially called Jumble--That Scrambled Word Game. It usually has four words with mixed-up letters. Two of these words have five letters, and two have six letters. After you unscramble these four words, you'll see a clue and some empty spaces.
To find the answer to the main clue, you need to look for circled letters in the words you just unscrambled. Once you find all the circled letters, you put them together to form the answer to the clue. The answer is usually a funny pun!
There's also a special "kids version" of Jumble that comes out every week. This one has a three-letter word and three four-letter words to unscramble, making it a bit easier. A cool trick is to solve some of the scrambled words first. Then, try to guess the main clue's answer even if you don't have all the circled letters. You can then use the "extra" letters to help you solve the words you haven't figured out yet!
Different Kinds of Jumble Puzzles
The Jumble brand has many different types of puzzles! Besides the regular Jumble, you can find:
- Jumble for Kids
- Jumble Crosswords
- TV Jumble
- Jumble BrainBusters
- Jumble BrainBusters Junior
- Hollywood Jumble
- Jumble Jong
- Jumble Word Vault
- Jumpin' Jumble
- Jumble Solitaire
- Jumble Word Web
Jumble in Other Ways
Jumble isn't just in newspapers! You can play it in many other places too.
Jumble Online and on Your Phone
You can play Jumble online on websites like Tribune Content Agency's site. It's built using HTML 5, which means it works well in your web browser. You can also download Jumble as a game on your mobile phone through apps like Apple's iTunes, AT&T, and even on the Amazon Kindle.
Jumble Books and Cards
If you love Jumble, you can find books filled with puzzles from publishers like Andrews McMeel Publishing, Triumph Books, and Tyndale House Publishers.
Jumble is even available as a special deck of Bicycle playing cards made by the United States Playing Card Company. These cards let you play different games like "3-4-5," "Jumble Word Meld," and "Jumble Solitaire."
Jumble on TV
Did you know there was a TV game show based on Jumble? It aired in 1994 and was hosted by a famous game show host named Wink Martindale. The show was on a channel called The Family Channel, which is now known as Freeform.
