Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #394 on July 9, the difficulty of this puzzle from Connections Companion was 3.5 out of 5, a significant jump in difficulty from yesterday.

We update our Connections clues and hints daily. And if the hints aren't enough, see the four answers below, along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #393.

There are spoilers for connection #394. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on.

Or see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to help you solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least be able to find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want the answer, scroll down further.

There is a bigger clue: it concerns a classic show with which people have such a deep connection that they can put it in writing. Then it's all about the hair and the blue stuff that probably isn't sonic, that fast food restaurant.

So what is the answer to today's Connections for Game #394?

Drum roll please.

I mentioned earlier that I take the approach of solving Connections with a magic eye image. To be honest, that may have been the only way to solve today's puzzle, since yesterday's puzzle was solved gently and easily.

I also tend to start at the bottom of the grid. So when I saw the word "mane" I immediately started looking for other "hair" words. I found "mop" and "tangle" right away. I had a hard time finding "shock," but when I did, it fell into the green category.

The yellow category was then easy to find, and journal, log, record, and register were fairly close in the rest of the grid.

Then I ran into trouble: three times in a row I couldn't find the answer. It was a combination of three blue and one purple.

I fell into the verb trap, with scrub, weed, trimmer, cheer, hog at various points in and out of my lineup, refusing to let it go like a dog with a bone.

Personally, I tend to have a hard time with words minus the alphabet and prefixes. So I couldn't see the blue category and its TV shows.

So I took a break and looked at the unused purple words: maze and fund never crossed my verb-addicted mind. I admit that my last guess was a Hail Mary with hog and trimmer because I couldn't think of anything else. I know I should have put purple in the generals. But I was hazy on the connections.

The blue category was then filled, albeit bitterly, by rote: Cheer(s), Friend(s), Scrub(s), Weed(s).

Read this later in the hour. According to the Connections Companion, the Connections answer for game #393, which had a difficulty level of 2.3 out of 5, is as follows.

I was almost thrown off by the obvious link between spirit and haunt, but this time the Connections crew was not: brainstorming other uses of haunt, the words patronize and visit jumped out at me.

Next up was green. I quickly connected grit and resolve. Then the spirits came back and I realized they were not talking about the kind in the sheets chasing Scooby Doo. All that was left was WILL, which, after all, did not refer to a person's will. See, there are a lot of spooky words in today's puzzle (cargo is an honorable mention).

Yellow was then, and I recognized SUGGESTION, TIP, and TRICK right away. Pointer made me think of a dog breed, but once I figured out the other three, another meaning came to mind.

The purple category was downright diabolical today. With only four words left, it was still not clear how the words related to each other until the category showed up. Each word ended with a number, such as caNINE, frEIGHT. That alone was a lot of work, and then I even found ozone. Ozone. A word that is not even pronounced like a number. That sucks, Connection Crew. Sue for emotional damages