Helicopter traffic reporter on "The Simpsons" / FRI 10-22-21 / One-fourth of KISS / Vegetable also called ladies fingers / Digital color presentation

Constructor: Robyn Weintraub

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: AMY Heckerling (28A: Heckerling who directed "Look Who's Talking" and Clueless") —

Amy Heckerling (born May 7, 1954) is an American film director. An alumna of both New York Universityand the American Film Institute, she directed the commercially successful films Fast Times at Ridgemont High, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Look Who's Talking, and Clueless. [...] Heckerling's first feature was Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), based on the non-fiction account of a year in the life of California high school students as observed by undercover Rolling Stone journalist Cameron Crowe. When Heckerling first signed on to do a feature for Universal, she read a lot of scripts, but it was Crowe's script for Fast Times at Ridgemont High that really stood out to her in its quality; she has remarked on. Although she loved the script, she felt that it bore the marks of excessive studio interference, so she read the novel, determined which parts were strongest, and sat down with Crowe to rework the script. The film helped launch the careers of numerous stars including Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. In addition, it marks early appearances by several actors who later became stars, including Nicolas Cage, then billing himself as Nicolas Coppola, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, and Anthony Edwards. Most notable, however, is the appearance of Sean Penn as Jeff Spicoli, who was launched into stardom by his performance. Heckerling describes casting Penn, whom she first met while he was sitting on the floor outside of the casting office, as a feeling of being overwhelmed by his intensity, even though all he had done was look up at her. She knew that this was her Spicoli, even though they had seen other people who had read better for the role. Penn had to do it. Ally Sheedy, whom Heckerling loved, read for the role of Leigh's character Stacy Hamilton, but Heckerling decided that she wanted someone that seemed younger and more fragile. Heckerling was very discriminating about the film's soundtrack. Originally, the film was supposed to have music in it by bands like the Eagles.(wikipedia)

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A characteristically lovely offering from Robyn Weintraub, whose last name my fingers really hate typing. I make typos 9 out of 10 times. Why? Sorry, Robyn. The puzzle is fine up top but really takes off after you take the EXPRESS TRAIN down to the middle of the grid, with its delicious stagger-stack of 13s, and then the truly original and surprising and cleverly clued EATING FOR TWO. The rest of the grid is solid and clean, but it's the meat of the grid, between and including the twin poles of EXPRESS TRAIN and EATING FOR TWO, that the puzzle really shines. There weren't many parts of this that I didn't like. Crossing ELLA and ELLEN feels ... a little close. Obviously they're different names, but they feel and sound awfully similar, so I'd probably separate those two. TAKES A SIP passes the EATS A SANDWICH test because  ... well, you'd say "take a sip!" but you probably wouldn't say "eat a sandwich!" And though this answer isn't in the imperative voice (it's 3rd person present indicative), I'll just allow that "S" ... it's fine. Stand-alone status: granted. I didn't understand why there were quotation marks around "walk" at 48A: "Walk" (GO ON STRIKE). Yes, it's slang, or figurative speech, but we use unquotation-marked figurative speech in clues all the time. Or you could add "so to speak" or some such qualifier to the clue. The quotation marks make it seem like it's particularly a vocal command, when ... it's just slang. The quotation marks point so firmly toward speech that I had the answer as "LET'S STRIKE!" for a bit, as that is a phrase that might come from a human's mouth. Also, I had the STRIKE part first and with "Walk" in the clue, I though some weird reverse-baseball thing was going on. My brain was briefly spinning through baseball slang, trying (and failing) to find a term for "Walk" that might involve the word "STRIKE" (and not the more expected "ball"). 

The only thing that seems really *wrong* with today's puzzle is the OUZO clue, specifically the pluralizing of "spirits" (50A: Spirits of Greece). I am sure that there is some technicality that "spirits" is getting away with here, where the plural word stands for the singular "liquor," but it's still an awful and weak form of misdirection. [Spirit of Greece] works perfectly, and you would definitely describe OUZO as a Greek spirit, singular. "Spirit" (singular) = "strong distilled liquor such as brandy, whiskey, gin, or rum," and that's what OUZO is, and unless I am supposed to imagine that OUZO is the plural of ... OUZO, then this clue is kind of garbage. I understand the urge to do some plural-seeming / singular-acting trickery, but this ain't it.

The strangest thing about solving this puzzle was how delighted I was by a 3x3 crossing. Apparently if you cross artists I love, then short fill all of a sudden becomes precious to me. I genuinely smiled remembering SYD Hoff and AMY Heckerling, creators of things I have enjoyed looking at over the years. John Hughes is the filmmaker most associated with the teen comedy, but I'd put Fast Times and Clueless up against anything he made, any day. And I grew up on and loved the Hughes movies (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink)—exactly the right age / demographic for his films, dead-center Gen X. Speaking of (Gen X, that is), LOL I could not get that last part of the GENERATION clue (33A: What might be found between X and Z? => GENERATION GAP). I had GENERATION and thought "... OK, it's "Y" ... but ... nope. WHY? YYY? Gah." Then I got "G," then "A," and then sincerely I thought "they're not calling themselves GENERATION GAY now, are they!? That's pretty presumptuous." So congrats on the clue-writing there, folks. You got me. 

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. You change the dimensions of a photograph by CROPping it (46D: Take to another dimension?). 25D: Problem for a king (MATE) is (presumably) a chess clue. KISS = "Keep It Simple, STUPID"(37A: One-fourth of KISS). And lastly, here's ARNIE Pye with "Arnie in the Sky" (see, you think he'd go for "Pye in the Sky" ... but no) (1D: Helicopter traffic reporter on "The Simpsons"):

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