Old-timey "Darn!" / WED 10-28-26 / Shuffling dance move popular in the 1990s / Group of antlered deer, humorously / Isolate, in corporate-speak / "Stop," as said to someone filling a cup / Pokémon critter with a yellow snout and short, pointed ears / Member of the genus Pongo, informally

Constructor: Daniel Grinberg

Relative difficulty: Easy

[36D: Jedi of "Star Wars: The Last Jedi" (REY)]

THEME: SCARE QUOTES (66A: Indicators of irony ... or a way to describe the answers to 18-, 24-, 40-/44- and 54-Across?) — quotes from scary movies:

Theme answers:

• "HERE'S JOHNNY!" (18A: Jack Torrance, in "The Shining")

• "IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!" (24A: Dr. Frankenstein, in 1931's "Frankenstein")

• "BE AFRAID, BE / VERY AFRAID" (40A: With 44-Across, Veronica Quaife, in "The Fly")

• "I WANT TO PLAY A GAME" (54A: Jigsaw, in "Saw")

Word of the Day: The RUNNING MAN (12D: Shuffling dance move popular in the 1990s) —

The running man is a street dance, consisting of "shuffling" and sliding steps, imitating a stationary runner. The dancer takes steps forward, then slides the foot placed in front backwards almost immediately, while moving their fists forwards and back horizontally in front of them. [...]

Notable practitioners of the dance were MC Hammer, Janet Jackson, Five Star, Selena, Milli Vanilli, and Vanilla Ice during their live concert shows and in music videos. According to Janet, Paula Abdul learned and then taught her the dance. Abdul also choreographed the 1987 film The Running Man. Jackson further popularized the dance, when she performed it in her 1989 music video "Rhythm Nation".

• • •

I've only seen two of these movies (The Shining, Frankenstein), but all four quotes are familiar to me, even if I could've quite get the phrasing on the last one right at first—I kept wanting it to be an invitation, something like "WANT TO PLAY A GAME?" or "WANNA PLAY A GAME?" I think I was getting Jigsaw confused with the computer in War Games:

This reimagining of SCARE QUOTES is kind of cute, and the puzzle lands in an appropriate place—at the end of Spooky Season, in the week leading up to Halloween. So I think that thematically things are fine. But the fill. If anything was scary, it was the fill. Jump scare after jump scare. Sincerely, I was startled by how stale the fill was. In the NW corner alone, AREOLA BAHAI ELS RAJ and especially NERTS (oof) made for a very grim beginning. I took a screenshot, thinking that was going to be as bad as it got, but then the stale, crosswordesey fill just kept on going. On and on and on and on. I know that when the theme is dense and you run a lot of themers very close to each other, filling a puzzle cleanly can be a challenge, but yikes:

When I got to LEOI, I shouted (internally) "You've got to be kidding me." Uncle! Have mercy! I give! OLES LANAI ERNST OBVI OCHRE (you can see me pull up there, not knowing which OCH(ER/RE) it's gonna be), and then, after all that, LEOI!? The crosswordesiest answer of all? Brutal. Software is supposed to make it much easier to keep fill clean. I don't know what happened here, except that any enjoyment I might've had from the cute-ish theme was ruined by the pummeling I took from the dramatically subpar fill. It goes on: ABCTV IOTA INCA SOL OMNI ONIT ORANG ABRA. Things are somewhat better in the bottom half of the grid, though MEESE ... look, I appreciate the attempt to make the answer something fresh (60D: Group of antlered deer, humorously), but you and I both know, that's still Reagan's Attorney General, just as ABRA is still a partial magician's phrase, Pokémon be damned. (MOOSES!—now that's "humorous"). And then to top it all off, when we finally do get to non-theme answers that are longer than 6 letters (there are only two of them), well, one of them is fine—I'm always happy when the puzzle breaks into a silly dance (RUNNING MAN), but I that other long answer really EATS A SANDWICH (LANDS A DEAL). The theme was cute, but the fill really hurt. Palpably. From square one. Compare yesterday's puzzle—a superior Halloween-ish theme plus a grid full of interesting longer answers (though I sympathized with the people who didn't know KOOKABURRAS—or ANKE Huber or Olivia MUNN or LORI Greiner. Some brutal crosses in there).

Bullets:

• 22A: Top choices? (BRAS) — I think of "tops" as things you wear on the outside, but I can't deny that BRAS are the "top" part of a woman's underwear (or a bikini), so I suppose this works. Not the most scintillating wordplay I've ever seen, but it slowed me down a little, so mission accomplished, question mark clue! (with an assist from ambiguous OCHRE)
• 53A: "Stop," as said to someone filling a cup ("WHEN") — this, I like. Gives an otherwise pedestrian word a little personality, a lively, colloquial context. Thumbs up.
• 55D: "Knock my socks off!" ("WOW ME!") — I like this as well. Hard to find short fill that's not only tolerable but vibrant.
• 4D: One chasing the big bucks? (DOE) — do they do this? Do DOEs chase bucks? I'm no deer expert, but somehow this "chasing" thing doesn't sound right. The pun here isn't inspired enough for me to go along with the implausible representation of animal behavior.
• 31D: Popular band that had a 40-year gap (1981-2021) between its last two studio albums (ABBA) — initially went with Crossworld's other popular four-letter band that starts with "A"—AC/DC. Here's a little late AC/DC (2020!) for your Halloween season:

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Letterboxd]
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"Young Frankenstein" woman / TUES 10-27-26 / Sitar maestro Shankar / It might follow "Up top" and "down low" in a high-five trick / They wave their wands so you can fly, for short / Cupful for a cold

Hello, everyone, it’s Clare for the last Tuesday in October! I hope everyone has had a relaxing month full of spooky fall fun. This has been a good month for me — full of new routes at the climbing gym, hikes with my pup, and some Halloween candy that I’m totally supposed to pass out and not eat myself. (I may need to make another trip to the store before Saturday…) I don’t have a costume yet for Halloween, but rest assured my dog, Red, does! She’s going to be a flower, and my sister’s new pup, Gunner, is gonna be a bumble bee — she certainly “bugs” Red enough to try to get her to play with her. 

As I’m writing this, I’m trying to keep tabs on the WNBA, MLB, and NFL games I have up on my TV all at once (go, Valkyries, Brewers, and not-Cowboys), which is easier said than done. There simply aren’t enough screens in the world for this time of year, and that’s even without getting into soccer and F1!  

Anywho, on to the puzzle…

[53A: LEIA]

Constructors: Jeff Chen and Bharati Hemmady

Relative difficulty: Mostly average for a Tuesday

THEME: FLY BY NIGHT (60A: Like an untrustworthy business ... or a hint to the ends of 17-, 29-, 39- and 47-Across) — The final letters of each of the theme answers spell out something that’s known for flying at night

Theme answers:

• MOCK COMBAT (17A: Staged fighting) 
• WOOLLY MAMMOTH (29A: Extinct cousin of an elephant) 
• PRO BOWL (39A: Longtime N.F.L. all-star game) 
• BAIT AND SWITCH (47A: Unethical marketing tactic)

Word of the Day: KOOKABURRA (25D: "Laughing" birds from Down Under) —

Kookaburras are terrestrial tree kingfishers of the genus Dacelo native to Australia and New Guinea, which grow to between 11 and 19 inches in length and weigh around 11 oz. The name is a loanword from Wiradjuri guuguubarra, onomatopoeic of its call. The loud, distinctive call of the laughing kookaburra is widely used as a stock sound effect in situations that involve an Australian bush setting or tropical jungle, especially in older movies. They are found in habitats ranging from humid forest to arid savannah, as well as in suburban areas with tall trees or near running water. Though they are a species of kingfisher, kookaburras are not closely associated with water. (Wiki)

 

• • •

Well, this was definitely a Tuesday puzzle! It was pretty standard and inoffensive and interesting enough, even if it’s not one I’m going to remember next week — or even the next day. I took a bit to see the theme, mostly because I couldn’t get my head around the theme answer not being the final word and instead just being the last few letters. I suppose that’s fair, but I wasn’t particularly wowed by the puzzle’s execution, and I tend to prefer themes that feel clever (or make me feel clever for solving them). Here, I think my reaction was basically just “Oh. OK.” And while I liked most of the theme answers themselves — BAIT AND SWITCH (47A), in particular — they don’t have much in common beyond those hidden endings (three animals and something else Halloween-ish, I guess?), and there wasn’t anything about the solve that made me want to go back and marvel at how everything came together. 

But other than that gripe, the puzzle’s answers were solid. WOOLLY MAMMOTH (29A) is a fun word to see in the grid (even if I was pretty sure it only had one L in it for some reason). There were some other longer answers with more personality, too. KOOKABURRA (25D) was easily my favorite word in today’s puzzle — and one of my favorite words I’ve seen in a grid in a long time. It’s just so fun and musical to say! GO ROGUE (54A: Deviate from the herd) is a good phrase. I also liked SAVE THE DATE (11D: Words said with reservation?), which was cued in a way that felt fresh and fun, and TOO SLOW (22D: It might follow "Up top" and "down low" in a high-five trick), which I can practically hear the 6-year-old version of myself telling my dad (oh, fine, the 30-year-old version of me, too). 

I wasn’t as enthusiastic about some of the shorter fill, though. I found ANKE (23A: Tennis great Huber) tough, and I say that as someone who has watched more than her fair share of tennis. ANKE Huber was certainly a solid player — she reached No. 4 in the world and made the 1996 Australian Open final — but calling her a “great” feels like a stretch. INGA (58D: "Young Frankenstein" woman) was another name I struggled to puzzle out. And I may not remember my middle school biology class that well, but I’m pretty sure there’s a difference between GENUS and “class” as it was clued for 67A: Biology class? The PRO BOWL (39A) is also no longer a thing, as the NFL decided to just put everyone out of their misery, but I guess its ghost will live on forever in crosswords. 

There were a few other things I enjoyed, such as MOO (31D: Cry before being milked, maybe) next to MEW (32D: Cry for milk, maybe) and GLEE (54D: Great delight) crossing ELAN (65A: Pep). The clue for UFOS (55D: Crafts seen around the world?) was fun; and TSA (64D: They wave their wands so you can fly, for short) also got a chuckle out of me because I couldn’t get wands and witches out of my head. (Side note: Do we think TSA’s 3.4-ounce rule applies to interplanetary travel?)

Misc.:

• As someone who bikes a lot of miles each week, I can confidently say that something HILLIER (46D: Tougher, in a way, as a bike course) is much, much tougher. I still remember going on runs in high school while my dad kept me company by biking alongside me, and I could beat him to the top of most hills, though maybe that’s just because he was slow :) 
• I was watching the ManningCast while solving this puzzle, so seeing OMAHA (37D: Midwest city where Malcolm X was born), Peyton Manning’s best-known catchphrase, was well timed. Fun fact: He was selected to the PRO BOWL (39A) 14 times over his career, which is clearly a very meaningful statistic. 
• My grandma used to collect INKWELLs (4D: Bygone writing accessory), and I loved to pretend I was doing my homework with a quill and ink. My parents still have those INKWELLs now, so maybe I’ll get going on writing some letters. 
• MOES (34A: Homer Simpson's watering hole) reminds me that, thanks to crosswords, I know a lot about “The Simpsons” for someone who has never watched the show. Maybe I’ll give it a try one of these days. 
• This feels like a great week to have Catherine O’HARA (45A: Catherine of "The Last of Us") in the puzzle; between “Beetlejuice” and “Schitt’s Creek,” she’s certainly given us enough costume inspiration for more than a few lifetimes.

And that’s all from me! Hope you all have a spooky Halloween, and I’ll see you in November.

Signed, Clare Carroll, who has a dog who will do tricks for treats

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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