Branded baby carriers / SUN 12-24-17 / Plot device in Shining / Restaurant chain founded by Raffel brothers / avoid a bogey barely./ 1990s tennis great Huber

Constructor: Mary Lou Guizzo and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "Making a Fast Buck" — the theme is RUDOLPH the red-nosed reindeer, THE MOST FAMOUS / REINDEER OF ALL. If you connect the circled squares, alphabetically, you get the profile of what purports to be a reindeer—RUDOLPH, actually. A rebused "RED" provides the nose (see above). Other theme answers:

Theme answers:

• GENE AUTRY (44A: Singer with a #1 hit about 123-Across)
• SHINY NOSE (45D: Feature depicted in the upper left of this puzzle) 
• NORTH POLE (82D: Starting point for an annual flight) (why would you put this in your puzzle without a corresponding symmetrical answer? Is TOOK A SIDE thematic? Is that something Santa did when he made Rudolph the guider of the sleigh? Also, SANTA is in this grid (94D: Deliverer of Christmas packages), and he also has no symmetrical theme equivalent ... anything goes, I guess)

Word of the Day: DO LOOP (100D: Repetitive bit of computer code) —

Noun

do loop (plural do loops)

1. (computing) A section of computer code in which an instruction or group of instructions is executed repeatedly depending on the value of a Boolean condition. (wiktionary)

• • •

Just did a red-nose themed puzzle like three days ago, so this one ... was anti-climactic. Also, just not as good. The other one was a superior puzzle on every level. This one is a child's placemat game. Once you get that it's RUDOLPH, the theme stuff just fills itself in (mostly), and then it's just ... you know, drawing. And, as you can see in grid image above, I followed that damned alphabetical dot-to-dot puzzle to the letter (!) and got ... some Dr. Moreauvian abomination.  These draw-on-your-puzzles puzzles almost never work out, and the more complicated the drawing, the worse it usually is. Some will find this idea cute. Some who don't solve a ton of puzzles. That's fine. It is cute, in its way. But it's unsatisfying as a *crossword puzzle*, except for that sneaky little single-rebus-square trick. That was kinda neat. But DO LOOP and NOM DE and ECARD *and* ESIGN (!?) and the idiotic ONE-EARED (48D: Like van Gogh, in later life) ... all of that can get lost. Also TAUTOU (114A: Actress Audrey of "Amélie"). Come on. I know you've got a proprietary gigantic wordlist or whatever, but you're not Required to use everything on it. New isn't always good. Knowing the difference between "new" and "good," well, that's the heart of crossword artistry. Don't get enamored with crap just because no one's used it before. That is not, necessarily, a virtue.


What's a DREW / SCOTT? What's "TV's Property Brothers?" ... ??? ... What's a LEFT KEY? Is that like "Back space" or "Delete"? Oh, wait, do you mean "left arrow"? LEFT KEY, pfft. Again, why cram your wordlist full of marginal baloney? I don't get it. GRADEAEGG ... sigh. Does this mean GRADEAAEGG is a better answer? I doubt anyone would agree. The clue is off on this one, too (21D: One of a dozen good things?). Grade A appear to be defined by how *not* good they are, i.e. they have a lower "interior quality" than Grade AA eggs, which are the real "good eggs." There's also a Grade B, but those aren't sold in supermarkets. They're used in egg powders and other products where appearance doesn't matter. So, if nothing else, this puzzle turned into a lesson on egg classification. Which leads me to my primary cluing question today: why would you clue SEXES as a verb related to chicks?! (126A: Sorts, as chicks) I mean, SEXER, yeah, you don't have any other options, but SEXES is a perfectly good noun. I just don't get people sometimes. Interesting trivia on that ARBY'S clue, though (23A: Restaurant chain founded by the Raffel brothers (hence the name)). So "R" for Raffel and "B" for "brothers" = R + B = Arby's. Neat. I won't remember it, but neat.


Probably the hardest part of the puzzle was the rebus RED square, largely because I know very well what's written backward in "The Shining," and I was none too happy to have DRUM in there? Also, weird to call a "word" a "plot device" (22A: Plot device in "The Shining" that has significance when spelled backward) Alright, enough of this. I hope Christmas brings you all a nice puzzle. See you later.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. [Descartes's conclusion] was SUM. There's a difference between "tricky" and "wrong."

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