Carnival Booth

a cryptic puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon

This puzzle represents a carnival booth where players throw balls at rows of blocks. Solvers act as players by lobbing answer letters into the grid, scoring “hits” in the shaded blocks. Once all 24 of those blocks have been hit (i.e., filled with letters), add the last two letters to the center of the grid so as to match up with a certain clue answer elsewhere in the grid. Together they’ll tell you what prize you’ve won.

Across

  • 1.
    Cool place in Moab transformed (6)
  • 6.
    Marine arms foremost of jurors riding in American cars (6)
  • 11.
    Faux fur wrapped around French sea monster (7)
  • 12.
    Group of stars recalled kind of film Oscar (5)
  • 13.
    Correctly enunciated liturgy (4)
  • 14.
    Pass a soft drink (4)
  • 15.
    Close family’s opening hip beer (6)
  • 16.
    Whammed into back of bus and eighteen-wheeler, maybe (6)
  • 17.
    Extremely zany style of the 1920s music with washboards (6)
  • 23.
    Fanatic maintains Republican connection (6)
  • 25.
    Ibsen play suitable for all multitudes (6)
  • 29.
    No place for men around Latin neighborhood in NYC (6)
  • 31.
    2017 hurricane passing through infirmary (4)
  • 32.
    A republic for each one of us (4)
  • 33.
    Italian town processed anise (5)
  • 34.
    Spotted fruit eaten by two daughters (7)
  • 35.
    Name Baroque composer aloud (6)
  • 36.
    Cap right inside A.1. sauce (6)

Down

  • 1.
    Mars possesses cold stretches of land (5)
  • 2.
    Using your mouth, strain the impurities out of love potion (7)
  • 3.
    Gas unit illuminated well (5)
  • 4.
    A collection of states—eleven between Maine and Colorado (6)
  • 5.
    Where to skate following blade’s front edge (5)
  • 6.
    Some kind of bean inside of a vat (4)
  • 7.
    Jay resembling a nocturnal bird with wattles, say (5)
  • 8.
    Mad editor went wild (6)
  • 9.
    Carry out fifty-pound toy (4)
  • 10.
    Attachable fleece feature pocketed by boy (4-2)
  • 15.
    Join failing operation (4)
  • 18.
    Ruin both sides of dorm room (4)
  • 19.
    Figure at a party rearranged terrace (7)
  • 20.
    Not very congenial when it comes to schoolmates? (6)
  • 21.
    Guys in planes remain flying (6)
  • 22.
    Health club admitting that female guide (6)
  • 24.
    Some tuna salad in your nose? (5)
  • 25.
    Attack captures large crow (5)
  • 26.
    Carved slab least damaged (5)
  • 27.
    Small German car of Arabian provenance (5)
  • 28.
    A couple of ringtones with a melody (4)
  • 30.
    Like a bad tourist down in Parisian street (4)