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My grandmother loves matchstick puzzles. Every time I visit, she shows me a brand new set for me to solve. I visited her recently for her birthday, and I was excited to receive a puzzle in exchange for my gifts. I opened the envelope and three sheets of paper fell out.

1

Puzzle

2

Puzzle

3

LSSIEHHNOHOFLSHNNNOFNHIIELET

I did not understand, so I asked my grandmother for clarification.

"Grandma? What does this mean?"

"I learned how to use the computer! See, even the matchsticks look digital!"

"Come on, that's called pixel art. So what's the puzzle?"

"What's my favourite show?"

"Huh?"

"Look at where the tips of the matchsticks land!"

"Grandma, do you need a doctor?"

"No, why?"

I left her alone after that, but these pixel matchsticks look intimidating...

Hint 1:

Notice how is not a tag.

Hint 2:

Only what is in the blockquotes is important.

Hint 3:

The colour and direction of the matchsticks do not matter.

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    $\begingroup$ two of the blue colors are really close to each other, is there any way to make them more distingushable? I have a hard time see which is which xD $\endgroup$
    – Liora Haydont
    Commented Jul 17, 2018 at 17:32
  • $\begingroup$ @LioraHaydont They look pretty different to me, maybe adjust your monitor settings? $\endgroup$
    – Zimonze
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 16:53
  • $\begingroup$ I mean like blue and indigo, I tried on 3 different screens. The issue is not when they are next to each others, but in the 2nd "paper" they are far from each other sometimes so I never know which of the 2 is here $\endgroup$
    – Liora Haydont
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 17:25
  • $\begingroup$ @LioraHaydont I can see that now. Sorry about that, jafe's answer has all the coordinates, so you can use that as a reference. $\endgroup$
    – Zimonze
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 17:37
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    $\begingroup$ @Zimonze I don't think the yellow-orange match should be there. It should end in rot13:-rf not in -rgf $\endgroup$
    – PL457
    Commented Jul 20, 2018 at 9:21

1 Answer 1

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Line up clues 2 and 3, and we have 28 colour pairs corresponding to 28 letters.
- (orange, magenta) = L
- (red, indigo) = S
- (cyan, magenta) = S
- (dark green, indigo) = I
- (indigo, indigo) = E
- (magenta, blue) = H
- (orange, indigo) = H
- (blue, magenta) = N
- (blue, indigo) = O
- (indigo, light green) = H
- (orange, red) = O
- (yellow, light green) = F
- (light green, orange) = L
- (light green, yellow) = S
- (red, red) = H
- (magenta, red) = N
- (orange, dark green) = N
- (dark green, orange) = N
- (dark green, blue) = O
- (magenta, dark green) = F
- (cyan, blue) = N
- (dark green, cyan) = H
- (yellow, blue) = I
- (cyan, dark green) = I
- (yellow, cyan) = E
- (blue, blue) = L
- (red, blue) = E
- (yellow, orange) = T
Since the first image has colours in its X and Y axis, we can use the colour pairs as coordinates and insert the letters into the image in their correct place.
enter image description here
@PL457 figured out that this is a sudoku puzzle. Solving for all letters: enter image description here

So the final answer:

Picking all the letters which are in the same square as a matchstick tip produces THE FLINTSTONETS (extra T there?)

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  • $\begingroup$ Have you tried its inverse, like (magenta, orange) instead of (orange, magenta)? $\endgroup$
    – athin
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 8:14
  • $\begingroup$ Yeah, with the inverse I get just the letters NT... $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Jul 19, 2018 at 9:11
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    $\begingroup$ @jafe (red, blue) is E. And I suspect there is another typo in the dark blue row. My guess with 9 unique letters (E, F, H, I, L, N, O, S, T) in a 9x9 grid, is that is might be a sudoku puzzle. (which is why I suspect that there is an error with the double I's in the dark blue row.) Edit: Yellow-Darkblue is Yellow-Blue. That I should be 1 row lower $\endgroup$
    – PL457
    Commented Jul 20, 2018 at 8:31
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    $\begingroup$ Added an explanation for the final step. $\endgroup$
    – Jafe
    Commented Jul 21, 2018 at 17:16
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    $\begingroup$ The bounty notice will disappear once I award the bounty, so I'll copy it here: "Awarding jafe a bounty not for this answer (though it's good) but for his stupendous puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/105330/93 (because it's impossible to bounty a question)." $\endgroup$
    – msh210
    Commented Dec 5, 2020 at 17:59

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