SCRABBLE®grams combines anagrams and crosswords in a quick-play game format based on the popular SCRABBLE® board game played by millions of people around the world. Scrabblegrams is exclusively available outside of North America.
About Judd Hambrick
Judd Hambrick produces two puzzles syndicated by Andrews McMeel — Scrabble-grams (48 years in syndication) and Word Scrimmage (15 years).
In 1977, while having breakfast in San Francisco on another matter with Jack Howard, President of Scripps Howard and Bob Metz, head of Jack’s NEA syndication division, Hambrick sketched his idea for Scrabble-grams on a napkin. They immediately recognized its potential. Hambrick secured all print and TV rights to Scrabble. The feature has appeared in newspapers every day since. When NEA closed in 2011, Andrews McMeel acquired both Hambrick’s puzzles.
Hambrick' has had two careers centered around words. He spent 5 decades in broadcast journalism as a television news anchor and program developer in major U.S. markets including Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Honolulu.
In 1981 he created a totally new type of journalism program for the NBC Owned Television Stations that was praised in the White House by President Ronald Reagan as “a breath of fresh air and much needed.” Despite the acclaim, advertisers considered the program too controversial, and it was ultimately shelved. Hambrick is now retired but continues to work on his word games — the new ones and the older ones.