Temporary price reduction to drive sales / MON 9-18-23 / Actor Danny or Stubby of old Hollywood / Utah city that shares its name with a biblical kingdom / Rapper with a Harvard hip-hop fellowship named in his honor

Constructor: Kevin Christian and Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium (solving Downs-only)

THEME: COLOR COMMENTARY (62A: Broadcast booth analysis ... or a hint to 17-, 27- and 47-Across) — theme answers are verb phrases that describe a kind of speech (or "commentary") and that also contain a color:

Theme answers:

• TALK A BLUE STREAK (17A: Blabber continuously)
• TELL A WHITE LIE (27A: Harmlessly deceive)
• RAISE A RED FLAG (47A: Be cause for serious concern, say)

Word of the Day: "WHOSE Line Is It Anyway?" (28D: "___ Line Is It Anyway?") —

 

Whose Line Is It Anyway? is a short-form improvisational comedy show originating as a British radio programme, before moving to British television in 1988. Following the conclusion of the British run in 1999, ABC began airing an American version, which ran until 2007 and was later revived by The CW in 2013.

Each version of the show consists of a panel of four performers who create characters, scenes, and songs on the spot, in the style of short-form improvisation games, many taken from theatresports. Topics for the games are based on either audience suggestions or predetermined prompts from the host. The show ostensibly takes the form of a game show, with the host arbitrarily assigning points and likewise choosing a winner at the end of each episode. (wikipedia)

• • •

This theme has one thing going for it, and that's the parallel rhythms / structures of all the theme answers. Yes, they all have colors, but more impressively, they all follow a strict "[VERB] A [COLOR] [NOUN]" pattern. This gives the set a thematic coherence that transcends the mere presence of colors. The one major problem I have with the theme set is that the first two themers are very much about speaking, whereas neither the clue on 47A: Be cause for serious concern, say, nor the answer (RAISE A RED FLAG), are necessarily speech-related, so the "commentary" connection there feels particularly tenuous. Behavior raises red flags. Maybe that behavior is speech, maybe it isn't. Frequently it isn't. And nothing in the clue points toward a spoken context, so that themer really feels like an outlier. Just doesn't have the obvious emphatic spokenness that the theme seems to require. But I think this is one of those horseshoes/hand grenades situations, where meh, it's fine, good enough, and as I said at the outset, the structural consistency on this set of phrases elevates the theme, making any infelicities much more forgivable. 

As for the Downs-only solve, there were four troublesome answers, but only one was truly daunting:

That was how much of the grid I had in place before I (finally!) got ROLLBACK (6D: Temporary price reduction to drive sales). Before that, yeesh. Wasn't til I got to the crosses at the bottom half of the answer that I was able to put something together that allowed me to parse the word. I needed MOA- (which was an obvious "B"), and LE-H (which, here, was an obvious "C"), before the back end of the answer (fittingly, BACK) became clear, which then allowed me to imagine ROLLBACK. The clue on that ROLLBACK just did nothing for me. I kept wanting the answer to be some kind of "sale," but "sales" was in the clue, so I knew that was out. But from there, where to go? At sea, I was, for ... well, you can see. Something close to half the puzzle. 

Before that, I had trouble with "MAKE ME!," which is horribly clued (4D: "What are you gonna do about it?!"). Make me what? I guess you are supposed to infer that the clue / answer is in response to a very specific demand, i.e. "Stop it!" But the "it" is ambiguous and what the taunter wants you to "make" him do is also ambiguous and it just didn't play right. The other two trouble spots were minor, and were not the puzzle's fault. I could Not think of a word for [Ordinary] in five letters (it was PLAIN), and I couldn't figure out what [Many] could be with nothing in place, so I went to the SE corner to get WANE / ARCS / NYET, which was great, except ... --WAN made me think "Oh, it's ASWAN, like the dam." Only no. No. It's IOWAN, like the state. Sigh. That took a little doing / undoing / redoing. Then at the end I just couldn't come up with BUSY WORK for far too long—for many seconds after I actually had the WORK part in place (which came only after I'd changed CAMAY (!?) to CAMRY). Brain just wouldn't offer it up. Oh, and I would not commit to nearby GALA because its clue (33D: Inaugural celebration) did not seem quite accurate. It's called the Inaugural BALL. Yes, I'm sure it is a GALA event, and the answer kind of had to be GALA given the terminal "A" I had firmly in place. But still, I was not sure. Not sure sure. So I waited. Then committed after ALEUT became obvious. Then got BUSY. The end.

See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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