Guy who inspired an early 2010s hip-hop dance / THU 5-18-23 / Video game franchise featuring a clone assassin / Cuban song genre that shares its name with a Spanish dance / First film appearance of Herbie, a sentient 1963 Volkswagen Beetle

Constructor: Kiran Pandey

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ignore the comma and put some quotation marks around the last word? — all the theme clues end with ", for ___"; you have to take the word in the blank literally, so, e.g. with 17A: Slang, for many, instead of "for many" meaning "Slang used by many people," it now means "Slang for the word 'many'," i.e. ZILLIONS
Theme answers:

• ZILLIONS (17A: Slang, for many) (i.e. not slang used by many people but [Slang for "many"])
• ROMAN NUMERAL (24A: I, for one) (i.e. not "Me, for example" but [What "I" is when it stands for "one"])
• ELECTRICAL FAULT (37A: Scientific definition, for short) (i.e. not an abbr. of a scientific definition, but [Scientific definition for "short"])
• SEVEN LETTERS (49A: Length, for example) (i.e. not something length is an example of, but [Length of the word "example"]) 
• ANCIENTS (61A: Anagram, for instance) (i.e. not something that an anagram is an example of, but [An anagram of the word “instance"])

Word of the Day: The DOUGIE (63A: Guy who inspired an early 2010s hip-hop dance) —

The Dougie (/ˈdʌɡi/ [...] DUG-ee) is an African-American hip hop dance generally performed by moving one's body in a shimmy style and passing a hand through or near the hair on one's own head.

The dance originated in Dallas, Texas, where it took its name from similar moves performed by 1980s rapper Doug E. Fresh. The Dougie gained notoriety through rapper Lil' Wil, whose song "My Dougie", released in late 2007, became a local hit. Then, a person called C-Smoove in Southern California taught the future members of Cali Swag District how to do the dance. Cali Swag District recorded the song "Teach Me How to Dougie" and filmed the music video in Inglewood, California, during the summer of 2009. Subsequently, the video along with the dance became popular on YouTube. (wikipedia)

• • •

I confess I did not grasp the concept here fully, and after trying to describe it (above), I'm still not sure I get it. I didn't even see that there was a theme until I was halfway down the grid. Everything was so easy, I got real suspicious, expecting that at any moment the gimmick would leap out and bite my leg. And then I got to [Scientific definition, for short] and none of it made any sense. But I put this down to my being very ignorant of scientific definitions generally, and I just kept going. It was only at SEVEN LETTERS (which was a bear to parse) that I finally saw that there was some kind of clue trickery involved. But that trickery seems inconsistent and ... well, largely invisible for a good chunk of the solve. I guess the core idea is that the theme clues are written to look like they're asking for one type of answer, with familiar crossword clue phrasing at the end (", for ___"), but then the real answer can only be arrived at if you repunctuate the clue, eliminating the comma (for the most part) and putting quot. marks around the final word so that you understand that the clue refers to the word itself, not what it appears to mean grammatically in the sentence. So, it's [Slang for the word "many"]. OK. This is almost a non-trick. It's more confusion than trickery, since trickery would involve my eventually going "Aha! You have done this one clever thing and now that I understand that thing, the whole puzzle becomes clear." But instead I was left going "Is this ... it? Is this the gimmick?" And 40% of the themers were easy to get without having any idea there even *was* a theme. That [I, for one] clue is really really bugging me, because I see that "I" is the ROMAN NUMERAL for "one" but that is basically what the clue already says, as written. And I see that you are trying to misdirect by making "I" look like a pronoun, but ... the theme isn't just misdirection. If I don't have to change the cluing in my head at all to make sense of the clue, how is it ... thematic? [V, for five] could also get you ROMAN NUMERAL. [X, for ten], likewise. I mean, they're not *good* clues, but they work. And [I, for one] seems good as written for ROMAN NUMERAL. Also "I" is in fact an example of a ROMAN NUMERAL!!!! The clue works, as written, on both levels (with "for one" meaning either "for the number 'one'" or "for example"). So ... I just never got exactly what the puzzle wanted me to get. The concept simply doesn't snap into place. It's all executed very awkwardly. 

[ALANA]

I did find the fill enjoyable in many places. I particularly liked the UPBEAT SW corner. "YE GODS! They're doing the DOUGIE! In the STUDY! They're going to knock over my E.A. POE statue! Hooligans! Get back in your LOVE BUG and drive away!" To be clear, EAPOE is dreadful fill, but if I make it part of a little narrative, it suddenly gets much better. I wonder how many solvers were like "who is this DOUGIE character!!?!?" Seems like that one could stump a lot of the NYTXW's solver base. The song / lyric "Teach me how to DOUGIE" is just background noise in my head—not sure how it got in there, but it's in there. But Doug E. Fresh, after whom the DOUGIE is named, is a legendary rapper and beatboxer who collaborated with Slick Rick on two early hip-hop classics, "La Di Da Di" and "The Show." Good memories of being in the car with my friend Malcolm and having those songs on the tape deck.

Toughest part of the grid for me today was in the SEVEN LETTERS region, right in the middle there. Could not get to SLATES from [Tickets] and always thought a [Fracas] was a TO-DO, not an ADO, and ... well I had GONER before I had TOAST at 51D: Dead meat, so to speak. Lots of confusion there, but the rest of the puzzle was so easy that it hardly affected my overall solving time. There's maybe too much short junk in this grid: SANDL WAH ODIST SOU, and then the NENA ETNA TSAR crosswordese trifecta there in the SE. Counselor TROI even came out of retirement to make an appearance. I don't mind TROI, but there was a lot of (over-)familiar stuff. Hope this theme resonated with you more than it did with me. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. a mini(skirt) "displays" your KNEE (55D: Mini display?); the party who leases is a "letter" so a MALL is a [Chain letter?] in that malls lease space to (store) chains (e.g. The Gap or Orange Julius or Hot Topic or whatever)

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