For this particular Ultra bonus, I'd got to thinking... I've been solving the Ultra for our team for quite a while, and I ought to be able to create one. I'd just been to the store and had been marvelling at the new Oreo flavors when the thought dawned on me that perhaps this was serendipitous. There are too many damned flavors, these don't even make sense, we just happen to be Oreos, maybe I can make the best of it. Thus, the study began.
Here are the clues:
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Hour 1: So often hour one seems tenuously related to the subject at hand. Often a location, or a set of sports players or some such thing. Conveniently, Swedish Fish Oreos were awful AND existed, as did Mississippi Mud Pie, and Rocky Road Trip. This Ultra wrote itself.
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Hour 2: Continuing on the location theme, I delved deeper, only to find that Oreo DQ Blizzard Creme, Dunkin' Donuts Mocha, and Mickey Mouse with Birthday Cake Filling had also all been flavors or Oreos in their own right. With all of the Disney hype, locating a picture of Mickey celebrating this particular 90th Year Anniversary was not a challenge.
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Hour 3: To help throw people off, we switched to events. Oreos love their holidays. Easter Egg Oreos were an easy choice, as were Firework(for 4th of July,) and what better celebration than a birthday with the never enticing Birthday Cake Oreos.
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Hour 4: This was the first real bone I threw to you brave triviamites, and a few of you caught it. Oreos are frequently (though mistakenly due to cross contamination) considered vegan, however they are vegetarian, making them vegetarian sugar sandwiches, such were our pictures “vegetarian,” “sugar,” and “sandwich,” in that order.
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Hour 5: Having crossed the 4 O'Clock hour, hints would start getting easier. Blueberry Pie, Strawberry Shortcake, and Red Velvet Cake were all flavors.
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Hour 6: Rootbeer, Pumpkin Spice, and Fruit Punch, again all flavors.
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Hour 7: Watermelon, lemon, and coconut, again all flavors, the latter two having several incarnations.
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Hour 8: The tell, as it were. This is the hint for those who just needed those last few points, and for a few of you, it worked. Chocolate cookies, sugar frosting, just like Weird Al might sing of on his legendary 1990 hit single The White Stuff.
Takeaway: All in all, we accepted answers such as “Oreos,” or the more on point “Oreo Flavors.” Our winners got it in the 5th hour, with the next team caught on an hour and 20 later, and the following team just shortly into the 7th. Four more teams trickled into the 8th hour with questions like "what does a Mississippi flavored Oreo taste like," or comments such as "I think this is one of the few times our post-college team has EVER figured out an Ultra and I've been playing most contests since '92," and with that, I think we've done our job. Well done, those of you who figured it out, and to those who didn't, better luck next time.
—Jacob Moga, for Four Oreos Away from Paradise
Note: We received 215 Ultra guesses, 119 of them from Meme Dream Team. Several of those guesses were in meme form. You guys were all in.
