Club member in a hit 1985 adventure comedy / SAT 10-14-23 / Fried turnovers from southern Italy / Residence for a parson / Animal with fused toes on each hind paw, used for grooming its coat / Slangy treatment for a disturbing visual / 1972 Gilbert O'Sullivan hit with the lyric "Left standing in the lurch at a church" / Analogue of aloha and shalom / 1980s sitcom puppet

Constructor: Byron Walden

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: MID-AUGHTS (60A: Part of the George W. Bush era ... or a hint to part of 18-, 26-, 38- and 46-Across) — words meaning "aught" (as in "nothing," "zilch," "0") appear "mid-"answer four times:

Theme answers:

• MARZIPANS (18A: Almond confections)
• PANZEROTTI (26A: Fried turnovers from southern Italy)
• EASTERN ILLINOIS (38A: Champaign region)
• GEENA DAVIS (46A: Oscar winner for "The Accidental Tourist" (1988))

Word of the Day: "The GOONIEs" (24D: "Club" member in a hit 1985 adventure comedy) —

The Goonies is a 1985 American adventure comedy film coproduced and directed by Richard Donnerfrom a screenplay by Chris Columbus based on a story by Steven Spielberg and starring Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Jeff Cohen, Corey Feldman, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton, and Ke Huy Quan, with supporting roles done by John Matuszak, Anne Ramsey, Robert Davi, Joe Pantoliano, and Mary Ellen Trainor. In the film, a group of kids who live in the "Goon Docks" neighborhood of Astoria, Oregon, attempt to save their homes from foreclosure and, in doing so, they discover an old treasure map that takes them on an adventure to unearth the long-lost fortune of One-Eyed Willy, a legendary 17th-century pirate. During the adventure, they are chased by a family of criminals who want the treasure for themselves.

The film was produced by Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, and released by Warner Bros. theatrically on June 7, 1985, in the United States. The film grossed $125 million worldwide on a budget of $19 million and has since become a cult film. In 2017, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". (wikipedia)

• • •

This one got a genuine "oh my god" out of me at the end, as the revealer revealed to me not just the nature of the theme, but the Fact That There Was A Theme At All. Double surprise! Here I was, just thinking this was a loopy, free-flowing, amazing Saturday puzzle. At 72 words, its word count is low enough to pass for a weekend themeless, so that's what I thought it was. Yes, there were some odd answers, but they just seemed like the kind of stuff Byron might put in any puzzle, just for fun. I didn't know the Italian turnovers, but foreign foods don't make me blink any more—didn't feel like a themer. EASTERN ILLINOIS made me laugh out loud—who would think that region worthy of a marquee answer!? But it's so outlandish that I enjoyed it. I accepted it as the wild kind of stuff you might find in a themeless puzzle where the constructor is experienced and truly just trying to be surprising and original. BUZZKILL PIZZA HUT MARZIPANS, this all just seemed like zippy (!) themeless fare. I had so much fun filling this one in (GOOD VS. EVIL! EYE BLEACH!) and then ... [needle scratch]! I see that post-ellipsis "... or a hint to part of 18-, 26-, 38- and 46-Across" and, well, we're back to me saying "oh my god" (see sentence one, above). I actually wrote in THE AUGHTS at first, but no, MID-! MID-! And all those "aught" words are, in fact, sitting right in the "mid"dle of their respective answers. To understand how great I think this puzzle is, you have to understand (and if you've been reading me for any length of time, you probably do understand) how much I *hate* themes on Friday and Saturday. I want my weekends themeless! I don't need some cutesy theme gunking up what should otherwise be a free-wheeling, wide-open grid. I'm *sooooooo* glad I didn't see that revealer clue until the very end, because by then the puzzle had me firmly in the "Hell Yes" column. The revealer was basically like "tricked ya, you just solved a puzzle with a theme!" And on top of that, the theme was so solid that I just had to say "you win, puzzle." Even the horrid E-MARKETER couldn't derail this train! An undeniable stunner. 

MANSE SULU MAKEUP KOALA up front had me feeling like I was gonna have a pretty good day today. Gave me a good grip early, and I happily rode the maudlin musical masterpiece "ALONE AGAIN" down into the middle of the grid (2D: 1972 Gilbert O'Sullivan hit with the lyric "Left standing in the lurch at a church"). 

But then came PANZEROTTI, and here is my one quibble with this theme. Not with the answer itself—I've never heard of it, but I've never heard of lots of things, as you know. No, my quibble was with the clue on the "Z" cross: 27D: Minor blemish (ZIT). Now, I had NIT, which is admittedly more "minor complaint about a blemish" than "minor blemish," but since PANNEROTTI seemed absolutely plausible (the PANNE- part inferred from that other, more famous Italian dish, PANNA COTTA), I thought the "N" was solid and that NIT was close enough to the clue to be justified. Only after the theme was revealed did I see the "N" had to be a "Z" (to make "ZERO" in the middle of the answer). Make your foreign food crosses fair! Especially if said food is not exactly standard ... fare in the U.S. I'm mostly mad at myself here for not seeing that NIT was *slightly* off, but I still think that that's a bad clue for ZIT. "Minor"!??? Tell that to the kid who's about to go on a date or get their photo taken. We've all had ZITs that were anything but "minor." Boo to that word in this clue.

My favorite AHA moment of the grid was finally parsing GOOD VS. EVIL correctly (31D: The ultimate struggle). I had GOOD- and GOOD FIGHT (?) (as in "to fight the GOOD FIGHT") wouldn't fit. Then I got the first "V" and thought "VIBES? No, that's way off." Then I got the second "V" and was very lost. Weirdly, bizarrely, improbably, it was a run-of-the-mill three-letter direction clue that ended up breaking the answer open. I could see it had to be an "S" or "N" following that first "V": Me: "... but nothing goes 'GOODVN' or 'GOODVS' .... waaaaaaaait a minute ... GOOD VS. ...  it's GOOD VS EVIL!" This puzzle had it all, from the bucolic beauty of BIRDCALLS to the manic desperation of someone who douses their eyes with EYE BLEACH before hitting THE SAUCE. It's even got one of the goofiest and most hilarious cross-referenced answers of all times: A split SHA / NA NA! (61D: With 65-Across, "Born to Hand Jive" group). "SHA ... wait for it ... NA NA!" Something about just sawing that group in two seems risky, perhaps ill-advised, but also brilliant. I genuinely laughed, which means this puzzle made me genuinely exclaim or otherwise make noise, in some fashion, at least three times. Most puzzles don't do that even once, and those exclamations are usually in the "ugh" or "EWW" family (38D: [Gag]). A puzzle that could pass as a sparkling themeless but that also has a theme? And a tight one!? Jeez louise. An unexpected delight. One of my favorite puzzles of the year.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. Happy birthday to my beautiful wife, who solves every morning, on paper, and then tells me all about it. Invaluable perspective. Plus she eventually reads my write-up and texts me about my many unfortunate typos. Every day. True love.

P. P. S. A commenter suggests that the clue for ZIT ([Minor blemish]) should be understood as “blemish one might find on a minor, i.e. a teen.” I think this is a good interpretation, but holy hell that makes this PANZEROTTI cross even harder—if ever a clue cried out for a “?”! I have a ZIT on my temple right now and I am, uh, not a minor.

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