"Soccer" by Jan van Haasteren: Little Guys Everywhere

One Tiny Section of "Soccer," CEACO, 550 pieces, 16 X 24 inches (The Penalty Shot from Hell)

"Soccer" is my first experience with one of Jan van Haasteren's many puzzles. It's not that I've just become aware of the man's work, but (frankly) they are so "busy," with all those little cartoon characters running around everywhere that they just don't appeal to me that much. It took me, in fact, a long time to figure out a plan of attack on even this smaller one, but once I got into the hang of it (the secret seems to be to just take what the puzzle gives you at the moment and worry about assembling it into one coherent piece later), I enjoyed it. I can't imagine though what a 1000-piece puzzle of his would be like, and probably won't go there even though I already have three of them on my puzzle shelf.

After finishing the puzzle-frame and taking a couple of the more obvious spots on, it was time to use the various signs dispersed throughout the crowd as a way to keep making progress. Finally, some of the sign-sections started to hook into the frame, and I just placed the others in their approximate final settings.

 After I got all the signage in place, I decided to pull all the green pieces out and use the remaining ones to finish the upper half of the puzzle. Despite the sections of the crowd being as segregated by type as they are, that was not as easy for me as I expected it would be.

Then it was time to finish up the pitch itself and all the "players" running around on it, including the track that runs around the perimeter of the pitch. This would prove to be the toughest part of the puzzle for some reason. The funny thing is that, in addition to the soccer teams on the pitch, there are also a basketball team, a football team, a baseball team, a tennis match, track and field athletes, and who knows what else?

And finally it was done...but let's look at some of the detail.

The football and basketball teams

The Indians in the Stands (Politically Correct?)

A Group of Navy personnel from Some Country's Navy

Even the Zoo Animals Had a Section in the Stands (to the dismay of nearby fans?)

There is even a TV Crew in the Sky (and in the way of some fans)

Even a criminal on the pitch choking out one of his opponents (I don't like this image)

Another politically incorrect section in the stands - the Mexican Section?

This one kind of surprised me. It's funny, no doubt about that, but Mr. Van Haasteren seems to have no fear about straying into some areas of humor (ethnic costuming, and the like) that surprised me. The puzzle is only five years old, so I'm surprised that the PC Police haven't caused him a problem yet - but I hope that they never do because this is not mean-spirited humor at all - not even close, in my opinion.

I have three more Jan van Haasteren puzzles of 550 pieces and three 1000-piece ones on my To-Do shelf, and I'm sure that I'll get to some of them later on. But as much fun as this one turned out to be, they are still a little too busy to be a relaxing experience for me - and that means I'm not in a big hurry to do the next one.

Loony Tunes Puzzle - Seven Days of Fun

"That's All Folks," Aquarius Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 27 x 20 inches

I finished this Looney Tunes puzzle a couple of days ago and enjoyed the whole process from start to finish. The Looney Tunes cartoons were my favorites as a kid because they were so much more fun to me than the sugary sweet Disney cartoons. Mr. Disney was a marketing genius, but in my opinion, the Looney Tunes were generally better - I know they always made me laugh, usually out loud.

I could tell from the start that this was going to be a relatively easy puzzle, and it's easy to see why. This is one of those puzzles that an initial sorting effort will easily divide into just a few primary colors. The only color-blending is in that large pile on the bottom left, the red and black pieces that blend together to frame all of the cartoon characters. Those pieces could be challenging at times, but in the end, they came together fairly quickly too. 

As usual, I started with pulling all of the border pieces and completing the frame before moving on to the rest of the puzzle.

Because the color patterns were pretty obvious, I next pulled the smallest of the piles, the green ones, and began to put together the Frog and Alien characters. When the green was gone, I was left with filling in with all the connecting pieces of other colors.

Next up was the yellow pile. That gave me all of Tweety, the brush on the Alien's helmet, and most of the words "Looney" and "Tunes." Things were starting to come together nicely at this point.

Then it was time to begin Daffy Duck and Sylvester the cat by tapping into the orange and white pieces a bit. It would prove to be a long time, however, before I would complete these two characters.

Next, was a little progress on the Coyote character, a character that would keep me busy for a bit longer than I expected it would - the guy had very long ears.

Then it was finally time to start working Bugs Bunny into the picture. Because Bugs is the central character in the piece he is a good bit larger than everyone other than Sylvester the Cat.  

This is the point at which I started to feel I  was coming to the homestretch of the puzzle, little realizing how long those red and black blended pieces were still going to take me to complete.

This one was more fun than most, probably because it brought back so many good memories. The quality of the puzzle is excellent: thick pieces, bright colors, a large but manageable size, and NO missing pieces. My only complaint is that the pieces did not always fit together quite as tightly as I prefer them to fit.

Overall Grade: Excellent

Jan van Haasteren Puzzles: Goodwill Store Finds

"Tall Ship Chaos," Jumbo Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27

I make a regular circuit of visits searching for puzzles to the three Goodwill Stores within a few miles of my house (mainly because I've got to be in two of the parking lots everyday anyway for other reasons) but I find them to be a hit-and-miss proposition. But this week has been a real puzzle bonanza for me, with the three mentioned in the previous post, and now these EIGHT Jan van Haasteren "comic puzzles."

Now comes the rub, though. I've never worked one of these before and have no idea how I'm going to react to them. But the Goodwill Store that I found these puzzles at has a one-third off discount for senior citizens every Wednesday, so who could possibly resist getting eight puzzles for a grand total of $9.02? Well, not me. The puzzles do strike me as "love them or hate them" puzzles, but there's only one way to find out for sure.

"Seashore" and "Track Meet," CEACO, 550 and 750 pieces, 24 x 18

"Soccer" and "The Fire Station," CEACO, 550 pieces each, 24 x 18

As you can see, the puzzles seem to have been purchased over a few years by one collector/puzzler. Information on the boxes indicates that the puzzles were first produced between 2011 and 2015, and during that time the CEACO company seems to have changed it's box style to the more durable one shown just above. The eight puzzles break down this way: three at 1000 pieces, two at 750 pieces, and three at 550 pieces, all in all, a pretty good haul.

"The Winter Fair," Jumbo Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27

"The Zoo," Jumbo Puzzles, 1000 pieces, 20 x 27

"Emergency Room," CEACO, 750 Pieces, 24 x 18

So I suppose this is the beginning of a new Jan van Haasteren collection or it's the beginning of a huge disappointment. Time will tell...can't wait to find out.