Having trouble solving today's NYT strand? Today's theme, “Toon time”, starts out easy, but becomes much more difficult after the first few questions

Below we have compiled not only the answers, but also some helpful hints for strand #223 Start with a few hints first, then work your way up to the full answer for strand #223

WARNING: There are spoilers for Strand #223

The official theme for NYT Strands #223 is “Toon Time

And here's an unofficial hint from me: “That's all

If you're still in the dark, here are a few useful words that will give you valuable hint tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram gives you a hint on conjunctions Today it starts with a “C” and ends with an “S”

Scroll down to see what it is

CHARACTERS

Now, what's the answer to today's strand?

Drumroll, please

And the spangram was CHARACTERS

Strands #223

“Toon time”

??

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Hello Strands fans, It can be hard to understand that the “Toon time” theme is about cartoons, because the “Toon time” theme is about the “Toon time” theme However, my knowledge of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons turned out to be more lacking than I expected

When I spotted PORKY in the lower right corner, I thought this would be a piece of cake In fact, I immediately began to eliminate the Looney Tunes staples one by one: BUGS, DAFFY, and FOGHORN all fell off, meaning that every corner of the grid had an answer

After this, however, I struggled I couldn't find “Road Runner,” “Coyote,” or my personal favorite, “Marvin,” anywhere

In the spirit of trying to get a clue word for the above section, I pieced together FOXY and was surprised when it lit up Was this not just the Looney Tunes/Merry Melodies world, or was my knowledge obviously limited?

It turned out to be the latter, and I was able to guess another one with GRANNY under FOXY That allowed me to guess the CHARACTERS spangram just above it: it is PETUNIA

According to Wikipedia, Petunia Pigg is Porky's “significant other You learn something new every day Not always useful, but that's life

Are you reading this late in the day? The full article on Strand's solution to yesterday's Round 222 can be found here