Wuzzles creator Tom Underwood retiring

CEDAR RAPIDS — Tom Ecker, known to his fans as Tom Underwood, is retiring from creating Wuzzles, a puzzle that was first published in The Gazette in 1982 before growing to national popularity through syndication in newspapers around the world.

Ecker, 89, lives in Cedar Rapids with his wife Carol. When the Eckers received the contract to sell Wuzzles to the King Features syndicate this spring, Tom remarked to Carol, “How quickly it’s gone.”

Ending this chapter of their lives is emotional for the couple, but necessary.

In October 2022, Ecker broke his neck in three places when he fell down the stairs. He previously told The Gazette it was a “brain freeze of the worst kind.”

After his fall, Ecker still was creating Wuzzles and Crypto-Quote — a coded word puzzle — but it was taking him more time to produce the eight-week batches.

In Ecker’s signature sharp wit style he told The Gazette, “It got to be a bit of a tiring experience, but I could still do them. I wasn’t dead, I was just dying.”

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Ecker has been producing 780 Wuzzles each year. That amounts to more than 30,000 Wuzzles across his four-decade career. Sometimes, those eight-week batches were created in two days, Carol said.

“He worked all day on it. He’d come out to go to the bathroom, and I don’t even know if you ate.”

Wuzzles are hand-drawn labors of love. Ecker relies on hand-drawn tables and lists, dictionaries he’s highlighted and marked up, and strokes of inspiration from the world around him. He has a natural talent for creating visual puzzles that, once solved, become words or phrases. Two pairs of the words “Good” and “Last” become “Too good to last.” The word “rock” printed small becomes “Little Rock.”

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Ecker’s knack for drawing puzzles expanded to the since-discontinued Diamond Criss Cross and Crypto-Quote, a Gazette exclusive. Crypto-Quote is his personal favorite.

Ecker’s final new Wuzzles puzzles will publish Sunday, May 12. After that, old Wuzzles will be reprinted. New Crypto-Quote puzzles will publish until later this year. Wuzzles books will be sold until the current stock runs out.

How did Wuzzles start?

Ecker caught the puzzle bug in the 1970s when a co-worker showed him rebus puzzles, which are puzzles that tell a story or reveal a phrase. Ecker wasn’t a puzzle aficionado but after seeing rebus puzzles, he thought he could make something better. He called his creation Wurdles because they were “word hurdles,” but later changed the name to Wuzzles.

By 1982, Ecker had created more than 3,500 Wuzzles in his spare time. That year, he pitched Wuzzles to The Gazette’s managing editor John Robertson, who agreed to a two-week trial period. When Ecker tried to call The Gazette office after the trial period, he couldn’t get through. The phone lines were clogged with readers wanting Wuzzles back.

At the time, Ecker was working as the athletic director for the Cedar Rapids Community School District, and the superintendent didn’t approve of employees having second jobs. So, Ecker published Wuzzles under the name Tom Underwood. He previously told The Gazette, “The reason I picked Tom Underwood is because I could remember Tom and the Underwood part was also a puzzle, Tom under wood.”

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The Eckers hold much gratitude for Diana Pesek, the Gazette designer who took Tom’s hand-drawn Wuzzles and turned them into the tidy graphics that appear on newspaper pages.

“If I didn’t have her, I’d be done,” Tom said.

“She’s been with Tom since day one,” Carol added.

Tom would draw inspiration from anything, like billboards or license plates. He always kept a stash of pens in his pocket for when an idea struck. Carol remembers waking up one night when she heard Tom run into their dresser.

“And I said, ‘What are you doing now? It’s two o’clock in the morning.’ He said, ‘I’m looking for a pen in the middle of the night’,” Carol said. She also remembers the Wuzzle he’d been inspired to create. It was “hypotenuse angle,” inspired by a drive through the Five Seasons parking ramp

In 2020, Ecker published his memoir “Wherever I Choose.” It details his unique life and many adventures, like hitchhiking from the University of Iowa to South Carolina and back between his last class on Friday and his first class Monday morning.

Ecker also is an Olympic games historian. For years, he was a correspondent for The Gazette during the Summer Olympic Games.

Wuzzles is a small chapter in Ecker’s robust life. Now, that chapter is coming to a close. But the Eckers have more adventures planned.

“We’re hoping to do some cruising in the fall,” Carol said.

Comments: bailey.cichon@thegazette.com