Relative difficulty: Depends on how long it takes you to get the gimmick—after that, Easy
THEME: STUFFED CRUST pizza! (41A: Feature of a deluxe pie ... and of this puzzle?) — grid is shaped (roughly) like a pizza, and the boxes on the edge (or "crust") of it are all "stuffed" with two letters instead of the usual one. The black squares in the puzzle are supposed to represent PIZZA TOPPINGs (26A: Pepperoni, mushroom or green pepper ... or what each cluster of black squares represents in this puzzle)
The all-crust answers (clockwise from the top):
- CASTILLO (1A: Château : France :: ___ : Spain)
- ALPACA (5A: Llama relative with prized wool)
- KEEP TABS (21D: Closely monitor, with "on")
- STINKY (46D: Foul)
- REINDEER (66A: Vixen, e.g.)
- ONE-UPS (65A: Outdoes)
- MURALIST (36D: Artist whose work has a wide reach?)
- WHOOPI (18D: "Sister Act" star, familiarly)
Stuffed crust pizza is pizza with cheese (typically mozzarella) or other ingredients added into the outer edge of the crust. The stuffed crust pizza was popularized by Pizza Hut, which debuted this style of pizza in 1995. // Pizza Hut introduced stuffed crust pizza, created by Patty Scheibmeir, and launched it on March 25, 1995. It was marketed in a commercial with Donald Trump. // Pizza Hut was sued by the family of Anthony Mongiello for $1 billion, over claims that Pizza Hut's stuffed crust infringed on Mongiello's 1987 patent (US4661361A) on making stuffed pizza shells. Pizza Hut was found to have not infringed on the Patent in 1999, the court stating "...[the] plaintiff does not have a product patent, and its method patent is not infringed simply because some examples of defendant's completed product approximate plaintiff's product." // DiGiorno began offering a cheese stuffed crust pizza in grocery stores in 2001. [...] Pizza Hut New Zealand has sold Marmite stuffed crust pizza, and Pizza Hut Japan introduced a pizza with a crust of pockets stuffed with, alternately, Camembert, shrimp, sausage, and mozzarella. Pizza Hut Japan offered a crust stuffed with shrimp and mayonnaise, and Pizza Hut Germany offered a "German King" with a sausage, bacon, and cheese-stuffed crust. Pizza Hut Japan and South Korea have sold pizza with shrimp and cheese-stuffed crust, and Pizza Hut Hong Kong made abalone sauce "Cheesy Lava"-stuffed crust pizza. Pizza Hut Australia made a pizza with a crust stuffed with miniature meat pies. (wikipedia) (dang, I've been to NZ five times and no one ever offered this to me! I feel cheated)
• • •
The difficulty today is getting started. If you're like me (maybe??) you probably wrote in CASA at 1A: Château : France :: ___ : Spain and then quickly ground to a halt. Maybe you got mad that certain words you knew had to be right just wouldn't fit ("I know it's Steve CARELL ... or is it CARREL? Or CARRELL? Those don't fit either. Wait, is it CAREL? That ... looks wrong"). The secret to getting started on this one, for me, was Get Away From The Edge. "Step away from the crust, sir." God bless you, TORI Amos. Once I finally found an answer that I *knew* and that *fit*, I felt like I had some kind of chance. The puzzle bloomed out from TORI to IPO and ORSO. Then I looked at that long answer, which turned out to be the first themer. The answer seemed to be "PIZZA TOPPING" *and* I had some letters to confirm it, so I inched my way west via crosses, filling in PIZZA TOPPING backwards as I went. PINTA, ODISTS, APT ... And then, I was like "OK, so we're gonna run out of room here real quick. We're ... one letter short. So ... is it ... is it just a two letters / one square trick!!??! (puts in the "PI" and then checks 18D: "Sister Act" star, familiarly) Yes, that's it! OMG, it's a STUFFED CRUST pizza!!!!" I actually mentally shouted the revealer before I ever even got to the revealer itself. I just knew instantly that that's what was up. I had the pizza part and then the "PI" went in and whooooosh the whole theme came to me in a rush.
Of course I still had to finish, and it seemed like the stuffed squares could potentially get perilous at points. I definitely tiptoed my way to CASTILLO (totally unknown to me), and struggled to make something ending in "-US" from 12A: Parting words ("CALL US!"?) (I like my ADIEUX to end with a proper "X" thank you very much).
But mostly the crust didn't give me any flak. If anything, the crust was easy to get because every time you punched a cross through it, you got two letters to work from instead of just one. When crosses are giving you two letters, well, that's twice as much info they're providing. So the crust actually helped more than hurt, I think. My only complaint with the theme is the cluing on STUFFED CRUST (41A: Feature of a deluxe pie...). I have had many "deluxe" pies in my life and precisely zero of them have had STUFFED CRUST (if a pizza is actually *good* then the crust is good and I don't want any gunk in it, thanks). "Deluxe" has to do with toppings, not crust (just google if you don't believe me). Also, there are *plenty* of STUFFED CRUST options that are not "deluxe" at all. Just plain-ass pepperoni or whatever. If you really think there's some connection between STUFFED CRUST and the concept of "deluxe," at least put a qualifier in there ([Feature of some deluxe pies...]). Probably better off finding another clue entirely. A "Deluxe"-free clue.
Deluxe answers:
- 9A: ___ Inn, "flowery" setting for a Nancy Drew mystery (LILAC) — seems like a tough clue, but I had the "AC" from ACERB (a word I've still only ever seen in crosswords ... irl we say "acerbic," I think).
- 19A: Potential goal for a unicorn, in brief (IPO) — I forget the specific corporate meaning of "unicorn," but I've picked up enough dumb bizspeak from crosswords that I saw right through this and went straight to the crosswordesey IPO, no problem. (Here's the def of "unicorn" if you're interested) (IPO = initial public offering)
- 50A: Rough houses? (STUCCOS) — I know stucco as a house-coating material. I did not know you called the whole damn house a "stucco." Still, I knew what stucco was, and that it was rough, and found on houses, so no trouble.
- 3D: College team whose name is its home state minus two letters (ILLINI) — The Fighting ILLINI! (just two letters short of their home state, ILLINIDO)
- 11D: Uruguayan soccer star Luis (SUAREZ) — now that I see his name, I have actually heard of him. I feel like he gets thrown out of games a lot, is that right? Oh, I see. He bites. And says racist stuff. Fun! (Here's a huge article him from the NYT last year) ("banned on three separate occasions for biting opponents during matches")
- 17D: One of two heard in "This Kiss" (SHORT "I") — a "letteral" clue. I misread this as "The Kiss," as in the Klimt painting. "How am I supposed to hear a painting!?"
- 28D: Mixed bag? (TEA) — the tea ... is mixed ... inside the TEA bag ... I guess?
- 36D: Artist whose work has a wide reach? (MURALIST) — Is this because murals are (often) big (i.e. "wide") or because murals are so often outdoors, in public view, and thus available to a "wide" audience (wider than a painting in a museum would have)? Both? Neither? Shrug.
- 43D: Material for some trifold display boards (FOAMCORE) — been 40+ years since my last science fair project, and if I ever knew the name of this stuff I forgot it. Still, not hard to infer.
- 58D: Duane ___ (pharmacy chain) (READE) — obvious to New Yorkers, a lot less obvious (I think) to the rest of the world. I have never seen a Duane READE outside NYC.
- 33A: "That one's mine!" ("I GOT DIBS!") — one of the delightful answers that made this puzzle a pleasure to solve even beyond the theme reveal. See also RUMOR MILLS, MUD STAIN, GO BROKE, LOLLIPOP, etc.
- 59D: Noted name with an Oscar? (MAYER) — as in "wiener." Some STUFFED CRUST pizzas are stuffed with wieners. Wouldn't want that in my crust any more than I'd want REINDEER, ALPACA, or WHOOPI Goldberg in there. Let crust be crust and toppings be toppings! These are my conservative pizza views! Unstuff your crusts, people! The fact that I loved a puzzle based on a food abomination is a real Christmas miracle. This puzzle has powers. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Excellent puzzle! But I misspelled MAYER as MeYER (as did Rex above, lol) and couldn't find my error. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteWhoops! Thanks for catching that 🙏 ~RP
DeleteNo, it’s Louis B. Mayer.
Delete@Anon 6:15AM: Thanks to this clue, I went to sleep last night with “My bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R / My bologna has a second name, it’s M-A-Y-E-R” in my head and woke up with the same ear worm this morning. Surprised I didn’t have bologna-stuffed pizza dreams.
DeleteI also think it’s referring to Louis B. Mayer
DeleteAnd now it has been my nonstop earworm. I would say thanks for sharing but that would be sarcasm which is the poorest form of wit. Ouch this hurts. Fun puzzle for me except that just too many times on the iPhone I needed to shift screens and head to the rebus.
Delete
ReplyDeleteDibs on the last slice!
I agree with @Rex--enjoyed the puzzle, sussed out the theme by filling in non-crust answers until the crust conceit became obvious. My one annonyance was having to hit the button so many times--I expect this would have been a lot more satisfying solving on paper, as I eventually found the stuffed squares more annoying than anything. But otherwise I liked the puzzle. At first I thought the toppings would have something to do with the theme--letters that spelled various PIZZA TOPPINGs disappearing into the black squares--but once I got the STUFFED CRUST it wasn't nearly as tricky. A very nice Thursday (and the second day in a row with a woman constructor--I'm surprised @Rex didn't mention it).
ReplyDeleteBut on paper there’s no color. That would have been pretty fun!
DeleteThis one ended my yearlong solving streak - though I’m endlessly happy for YOU finding this easy, Rex! :-) Anyone else in my boat?
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle, Fun and inventive.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, stuffing the crust of a pizza is a mortal sin.
Is there a shortcut for filling a rebus square that doesn't require clicking on the the rebus button, which can become tedious?
ReplyDeleteThe ESC key works on Windows browsers...
DeleteI almost always just use the first letter of the rebus for the app and it works.
DeleteLoved this! BRAVO! —SoCal CP
ReplyDeleteLiterally canceled my NYT puzzled subscription after solving that. Horrid.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see I'm not the only one (although I didn't cancel, I share your sentiment.)
DeleteI agree completely. Hated it.
DeleteMe too. Hated it.
DeleteFor the life of me, I can't see why anyone would like this puzzle. Once you understood that every single square on the edge would have to be filled with two letters and that it would take you forever to do those squares online, what was left? A Monday-level puzzle and a mediocre one at that. So you end up with a very high solve time and zero satisfaction. And then the NYT gives you a lame color graphic.
ReplyDeleteOh, PLEASE! And I like rebuses, but not so many that I spend all my time clicking and typing instead of thinking. Feeling sorry for the rebus haters.
Here's an idea: Start a daily puzzle for kids that's loaded with cutesie graphics and gimmicks up the wazoo, and give the grownups an actual puzzle, stimulating and free of junk.
Strongly agree! My thumbs hurt from having to navigate to “rebus” so often - especially once you get the gimmick, all you’re doing is filling in the obvious answers.
DeleteDitto. Almost walked away when I got the theme.
DeleteSolving on paper made it go much faster.
DeleteI needed to put my right thumb in a splint.
DeleteI almost gave up as not worth the trouble—then I saw it was a Pablo Pasco. His clues are always great and it was much easier than some of The Atlantic mini crosswords he does.
DeleteDitto, knew what so many answers were but didn’t want to bother with all the rebuses and walked away.
DeleteAgree totally and was looking for the rebus to at least spell out some toppings, nothing there
DeleteI got stuck at leaky/stinky and I entered leaks/stinks. I think both are correct. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteNope. Different parts of speech. Clue is adjective, answer gotta be adjective
DeleteTotally agree with those who gave 👎👎 to this monstrosity. Like OFL, I wrote CASA at 1A and got frustrated. I was thinking “What the …?” Gave up. Broke my years-long streak, and don’t care. Bah, humbug!
ReplyDeleteWhat in God’s name has happened to Rex? Two glowing reviews in a row. Absolutely stellar reviews, not just above average. What a crazy two days it’s been.
ReplyDeleteI’m with those who found having to constantly reach for the rebus button annoying. I disagree with Rex’s review and the puzzle’s assertion as well. A STUFFED CRUST pizza is not “deluxe”, it is a gimmick - the same way that this puzzle is a gimmick, and a pretty tedious one at that.
The experience might be a little more smooth for a solver of Rex’s capacity who can cruise through and pick up the answers pretty quickly. I found it to be a much more herky-jerky slog. So I’m two thumbs down myself, but do respect the effort and the architecture must have been tortuous (is that a word?). Oh well, hopefully we will be back in more familiar territory tomorrow.
From Oberon the Third:
ReplyDelete"An alpaca, an alpaca, my kingdom for an alpaca!"
Hey, you Ural muralists, keep your mudstained stuccos off my castillo!
Sorry I uXurped it, but I had called Dibs on the last Whoopi slice..
ReplyDeleteMy solving experience was similar to OFL's, including the casa at 1A (in my case crossing cook at 1D). I got the theme in the NE (sorry, the upper right slice) and the solve went very quickly after that.
I confidently filled in MAY[ER] at 59D, thinking that "Veep" might have been made into a movie and won an Academy Award. Oops!
@Anon 6:29: Try using the INSERT key to enter a rebus. Works in most software/apps
First it was: WTF? Once it became clear, a lot of fun!
ReplyDeleteProbably the slowest start to a puzzle ever, then one of the quickest finishes ever. I was in the sixth row without having filled in a single square, thinking, “Is this Thursday trickery going to be so tricky I will not be able to get even one answer?” Then I got OR SO, and like Rex, I decided to just try to get some words that had no shaded squares. (Yes to “Step away from the edge, sir!”) I got TORI, SNIFF and GOGGLE. I dared to look at the clue for the long answer in Row 7, immediately thought PIZZA TOPPING, looked at the crosses where the Zs would go, and could not see a three-letter word for apropos that begins with Z. Sigh. The next clue was “Jazz singer James” and of course I knew that was crossword queen ETTA. I entered it with the TA squeezed into the shaded square and thought, “Could all of the shaded squares be two letters?” So I went back to the top, looked at the downs, saw CARVE, STEER and ILLINI, realized the chateau was CASTILLO and then the whole pizza practically baked itself. For the bottom half, I tried to get the fully shaded edge answers without looking at any of the crosses and got most of them easily. (An edges-only solve?) The only slight hesitation was around SHORT I and I GOT DIBS. But that didn’t take long.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Rex that it was a remarkable feat of construction but still fun to solve. And makes me hungry. Wish I had some breakfast pizza.
I was with a work colleague in Uruguay for my first post-pandemic international travel in May of 2021. Her daughter is a soccer fanatic, we were in a gift shop, and she asked me if I knew any Uruguayan players. I had vaguely heard of Luis SUAREZ, though I couldn’t remember why. I took his jersey off the shelf, told her “This guy’s a famous Uruguayan player,” she thanked me and bought it. Oops. She told me her daughter took one look at it, said “You got me a jersey of the BITER?!?!” and threw it in the trash. I said, “Oh yeah, now I remember why I’ve heard of him!” We still laugh about it.
This is so bizarre to read Rex gushing over such an awful puzzle. This was garbage in the same way stuffed crust pizza is garbage. It was tedious to complete online without having any interesting fill to make it worthwhile. Despite painfully filling in all the excess rebuses (and I usually love rebuses), I still finished well below my average Thursday time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I want to know what people are doing electronically to get color and animation in their puzzles. I use the NYT Android app and the puzzle remained a sad black and white blob of sick after finishing.
On a positive note, yesterday when I solved this I happened to be wearing a shirt from CASTILLO San Felipe del Morro, so that was an nice word to find right away.
I thought the puzzle became way too easy after figuring out the rebus gimmick, though I'll admit to tripping over not knowing CASTILLO (I too fell into the CASA**** trap)/how CARELL is spelled.
ReplyDeleteI had an almost identical experience to Rex, including a mini gasp at the end. A puzzle that inspired pure joy!
ReplyDeleteSorry, haters! The trick here was consistent and infertile.
ReplyDeleteI'm Patting myself on the back because my solving experience mirrored OFL's. CASA, followed by head scratching on Steve Carrel, then TORI and then working on the interior clues. The clues on most of the answers that included a border are (too?) easy.
Fun solve.
I’m not usually one to notice such things, but isn’t it bad form to include an answer in another clue. Seeing the clue for 48A (Flavoring in purple bubble tea) had me questioning the answer for 28D (TEA).
ReplyDeleteThat aside, I enjoyed the puzzle more than I expected to on seeing the unusually shaped grid.
This is the second time that’s happened recently. Strange, because it’s an easy thing to check for.
DeleteFilling 40 rebusses (rebii?) is a cruel start to the day.
ReplyDeleteThe clues: easy. Hitting rebus over and over: super annoying. It was like eating a tasty soup that you have to pick flies out of on every bite. Why bother?
ReplyDeleteAll the haters mad for tech reasons. Embarrassing. “Filling in rebus squares is so hard” Boo hoo grow up
ReplyDeleteHard agree. Such over-the-top whining over something so trivial.
DeleteBrilliant puzzle. Amazing how polarizing the responses are (“I literally cancelled my subscription “.) Which, to me, is further proof of its brilliance.
ReplyDeleteMy solve was basically the same as Rex: CASA, then WTH with CARELL (CAREL?), then middle, then boom - flying.
ReplyDeleteFYI - if you're solving on the computer, you can just hit the "Insert" key to go into "Rebus mode". Made this puzzle MUCH easier.
I've been reading here for many years and have always laughed at the consternation expressed when the app is down, not working right, or, in this case, when little fingers hurt by pushing a rebus key over and over again. Just print the damn puzzle out every night and sit with a glass of wine, good music, and a reading light. Pick up your No. 2 pencil (or pen, if you are arrogant) and solve, as God intended. You'll all be much less stressed!
ReplyDeleteGreat puzzle today!
But then we wouldn’t see the finished puzzle turn into a pizza!
Delete@Anonymous 7:46 Inaccurate. Not tech reasons at all. Dreary repetitive entry motions required AND ridiculously easy and unsatisfying fill.
ReplyDeleteAnonymi 7:43 (both of you): Amen.
ReplyDeleteFor people who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing those people will like.
Good news: solving on paper, it's pretty easy to put two letters in a square. Bad news: when you finish, your paper doesn't light up or do tricks or give you happy music. I still prefer paper.
ReplyDeleteKnew something was up right away because CASTILLO wouldn't fit which would have easily led to CARVE but that wouldn't fit either. (I sympathize with those of you who wanted CASA, but it really doesn't make sense, unless you think a man's CASA is his CASTILLO). Did the OFL thing starting in the middle, saw that the ST of STUFFEDCRUST had to bd in one square-- the gimmick!-- and pretty much flew through the rest of it. A snag at the bottom when READE was a WTF and my Oscar person was MERLE, but fixed that and done I was.
This has to rank way up there on the Stunt Puzzle Hit List, a very impressive feat of construction indeed. Some amusing answers and clues but became too easy for a Thursday. Anyway, a very nice Pizza Party if Soon Solved, PP and SS. Thanks for all the fun.
In awe of the construction! Two "wow" puzzles in a row.
ReplyDeleteTo the haters : it's not about your "time" , it's about " the puzzle". It's Thursday, expect some twists that will affect the time
In retrospect, the fill was only average. But just like pizza, the specialness is in the outer crust!
How to rebus: Esc button. Put in letters, press enter.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle ANNIHILATED me, though I still ended up enjoying it. I don't have a NYT subscription, and on Down for a Cross there are no shaded squares. I actually got STUFFED CRUST pretty quickly, but I misinterpreted it thinking that answers touching the edge would sort of "overflow" off the grid (stuff that we've certainly seen in crosswords before), so for instance I had STUFFEDCRUS picturing the T outside the grid. The thing is, this works fine in the NW... except for the answers that are ON the edge itself, since I had no clue that those would be twice as long as they appeared to be. (I thought they would just drop one letter "off the edge". By the way, instead of a non-square grid, I had a regular grid where the "rounded off" corners were filled with black squares, but I still managed to understand that the "edge" included some diagonal bits.
ReplyDeleteI thought I had no hope of finishing at all because of the SE (FOAM-something that I didn't know and three adjacent names, one of them with a "?" clue).
The penny dropped while I was finagling in the NE trying to make SHORT I, CRUSH and USURPED work in a way that would make sense.
TL;DR: I got the gimmick somewhat quickly but I saw it as removed letters instead of rebused letters, and that made the puzzle way beyond Saturday-hard for me until I saw what was going on.
Hate these type of puzzle. First of all cuz it’s more a trivia test than a crossword, second cuz of the cut-off word solving…even tho I saw what was going on after @20 mins, I declined to go further. HATE these. Ruined my morning.
ReplyDelete"Stupid good"? No, just stupid. Such a slog doing it on a computer; it would've been quicker by hand.
ReplyDeleteLEAKs/STINKs instead of LEAKY/STINKY :(
ReplyDeleteMe too - killed my streak.
DeleteOh no! Not your streak! How will you recover?! 🙄
DeleteBrilliant Thursday gimmick, an instant all-time favourite.
ReplyDeleteI haven't liked a Thursday this much since the roller coaster one.
YES!
DeleteRoller Coaster puzzle? I'm intrigued...
DeleteI'm in the camp of those amazed Rex liked it so much - I thought, what did I miss? I got the gimmick almost immediately and the whole thing felt to me like the kind of variety puzzle I used to find in the Dell Pencil Puzzles and Word Games magazines I got as a kid. (Which I loved. But not for the crossword puzzles.) I didn't find it fun to solve, just easy and kind of dumb - and on a par with the new word-search game the NYT Games app has rolled out. So I came here specifically to read Rex roast it, and now I feel we solved different puzzles.
ReplyDeleteQuite liked it! Pressing the rebus button so many times was a little tedious but nothing major. Shame the crust isn't fully stuffed though...
ReplyDeletefun puzzle, but entering all those rebuses was tedious and took away from the funness of the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteNYT puzz app on iPad did not turn to color after solve. Wahh! And this was minutes after "updating"it. Wooncha think the proprietary app could manage that??? I also checked on the phone; still only gray tone.
ReplyDeleteLoved the concept and solve, although the wealth of rebuses became ponderous.
Hey All !
ReplyDeleteHaven't read through the comments yet, but I'm betting a majority either hated it, or had trouble with all the Multi-Letter-Squares. Me personally, kinda liked it, I know that it was probably a bear to construct. Like that the Blockers (minus the straight groups of three on the edges) are representations of pepperoni (squares[Red]), mushroom (T-shaped[White]) and Green pepper (diagonal[green]). Neat.
The downside is, if you imagine all the missing squares are there, they would all be Blockers, so you end up with a staggering Blocker count of 80! (Where 38 is usually max.)
Still, it was on a ThursPuz level of difficulty for me. It may have took a little less time than a typical ThursRebus, but it is missing a shed load of fillable space. YMMV. 😁
So, a definite different kind of puz. If it wasn't 6AM here, I'd be hungry now for a STUFFED CRUST PIZZA. As it is, regular old granola bar. Har.
(Isn't WHIRRS spelt thusly?)
Happy Thursday!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
This was a slog for me! I usually really like rebuses. But I solve in the NYT app on a tablet with an s-pen, and the app won't recognize an s-pen on the rebus button. No big deal to switch to my finger five or six times; very tedious to do it forty-something times. I was too busy concentrating on mechanical dexterity to feel any whoosh.
ReplyDeletePossibly the most polarizing puzzle we've seen in the comments. I am strongly in the loved it camp. I puzzle at work with a full keyboard (and my second coffee) so I use the escape key to enter rebuses with minimal delay. It sounds like a lot of the haters were solving on phones or tablets.
ReplyDeleteLoved. It. Testify!
DeleteHere's what I had to understand before I could solve:
ReplyDelete1) There will be exactly two letters placed in every gray square.
2) When read in order -- either clockwise or counterclockwise -- around the grid, the letters will add up to complete gibberish.
3) But they WILL add up to a real word in the four clued sections!
4) You will know what letters to put in there from the crossing words -- some of them Acrosses and some of them Downs.
I LOVED THIS PUZZLE!!! All rebus all the time -- and very tricky.
The hardest thing for me was to see what I was writing/had written in the tiny gray squares. So tiny. So gray. Worse, my two letters blocked out what I could see of the numbers in the grid -- already challenging for me in a normal puzzle. But I soldiered on.
Thought I'd have to Google CARELL; SUAREZ and LILAC -- and was thoroughly prepared to do so. But I managed to finish without Googling anything.
Is it ridiculous to have that LILAC clue based on a "setting" in a kid's book from almost a century ago? Yes, it's ridiculous. Evidently I devoured all of the Nancy Drew canon by the time I was 6 or 7 (I was an early reader) and yet today I wouldn't know LILAC if I fell over it. But "biting" had to be ACERB (and if not ACERB then ACRID.) Either way, the ending -AC at 9A in a "flowery" clue gave me LILAC.
A wonderfully challenging and stimulating puzzle that really engrossed me and that I enjoyed to the hilt. As for all you rebus-haters out there -- I'm sure you'll find a lot to hate today. My sympathies are with you.
I loved this puzzle! It was so different and fun. I figured out pretty quickly that the darker edge squares were rebuses. I knew Steve of The Office had to be Carell, and even though I couldn't remember if it was "Carell" or "Carrel," I knew it was six letters. But I also knew right away the Nancy Drew mystery at Lilac Inn, because I read the old Nancy Drew books many times as a child (I had my mom's childhood collection). I knew it had to be "Lilac," so as soon as I put that rebus in at the end I figured all the edge squares were rebuses. Then it was pretty smooth sailing from there.
ReplyDeleteI love Whoopi Goldberg, so it was nice to see her in the puzzle. I also love alpacas, and was happy to see that that answer really was alpaca after my first reading before I figured out the rebus trick and was angry there could possibly be an answer that wasn't alpaca.
I also put "casa" in first, but deleted it seconds later once I figured out the rebus trick. I know the word "castillo," but for some reason that was hard to fully get.
Fun enough theme, but throw your marvel movie clues in a ditch, please. Anything else would've been a fine clue for CHRIS, don't remind me of those terrible movies. Oh boy, a new marvel movie: "Captain America reads the Wal-Mart Circular Aloud." Barf.
ReplyDeleteI had pretty much the exact same solving experience as Rex! Once I figured out the rebus it was easy but the clues kept it enjoyable to solve. Had to be difficult to construct.
ReplyDeleteExcellent puzzle, excellent gimmick. This is how these types are done. The fact that I just binned a round-ish puzzle that I couldn’t get to work makes me all the more appreciative.
ReplyDeleteI’d go farther than Rex and note that if your crust is stuffed, it’s definitely not deluxe.
The comments amuse me. When people say that the Times is getting too easy, this is what they mean. This puzzle puts up the barest resistance to start (and barely for a proper Thursday), then almost none, with everything fairly crossed. But most people want precisely zero struggle, they just want a fill-in-the-blank word search.
To paraphrase Seymour Skinner: “Am I wrong? No, it’s the puzzle that must be terrible.”
Well this was just delightful!
ReplyDeleteLike OFL, i had a bunch of confusion when I was pretty sure there was either a rebus involved, or perhaps hidden letters inside the toppings black squares. So i had partial answers that made no sense as crossers all over the place. Despite problems, I plugged away, confident something would pop for me - that part was super fun, a real puzzle, if you will.
It wasn’t until I got a few solid answers in the middle, starting with TORI and IPO. When I saw REINDEER, I was away to the races. But I thought the edge letters might have some pattern? Then finally got STUFFEDCRUST, literally giggled, and had a ball finishing.
Masterful constructing effort that made for a fun solve. Impressive stuff!
I've been reading your blog for over a decade and often get disgusted when you call tough puzzles easy, like this one. I don't intend for you to publish this - but a word to the wise: If you want to drive away more readers, keep being as arrogant as you've always been. This was a well designed and challenging puzzle, I'll give you that. But far from easy even after the gimmick was sussed out.
ReplyDeleteBecause I always print my puzzle out in black-and-white, I couldn’t tell which squares were black, which left me with an impossible solve. Frustrating.
ReplyDeleteI only put in the 'R' in 'Reindeer' and it glitched and marked the puzzle as complete. Definitely a miss on their end.
ReplyDeleteMy computer is not allowing me to enter more than one letter into a box. Is there some kind of trick to getting it to work?
ReplyDeleteEasy as pie, filled the whole thing in as fast as I could hit the letters–and I'm not an especially fast solver. OK gimmick wasted on a Monday puzzle :(
ReplyDeleteSame, same, same rex. Casa, Carell, TORI to the rescue. I tried to solve the inner grid first as I knew something funky was going on at the edges. This was a great puzzle. And it did fall easily once I caught on to the trick, A little over my regular time, but it was nice to see what happened to the pizza once I finished . A+ from me.
ReplyDeleteRather than posting the rant I had planned, I’ll save us all some time and just reiterate what @pablo said at 8:13. Solving on paper, it's pretty easy to put two letters in a square but when you finish, your paper doesn't light up or do tricks or give you happy music. I still prefer paper. I GOT the trick I had to get in order to solve this puzzle but I didn’t get much else. I could see there was PIZZA involved but the “clusters of black squares” referenced in the revealer did not inspire TOPPINGS, no matter how long I stared at them.
ReplyDeleteThat said, this was a remarkably clever puzzle and deserving of all the accolades from those who had the full experience with it. And as one who chooses to use the old-school method of solving, I accept the fact I’m going to miss out on these things once in a while by not using the app. I just hope constructors/editors going forward will also keep in mind that not everyone does . . . and that the bells and whistles are not always going to have the impact that is intended.
So VERY creative - a fine, funny and FUN Thursday!
ReplyDeleteFred Allen said he knows television is a Medium because it’s Rare when it’s Well Done. Well, Thursdays must also be a Medium with the same logic. Congrats Paolo and Sarah!
Couple of asides with my dish:
With the NYTXW app on my ipad, I never had to hit REBUS - just type in the first letter. I had the autocheck on (the bowling bumper rails I use Th-Sat) so it may not work for those solving normally (tediously and laboriously, I might add), so YMMV.
There were only three toppings listed but there are two types of green images in the big reveal. Both green peppers or did they add scallions - which I did NOT order and should be taken off my bill!
(The NYTXW subscription is now half off for new subscriptions, according to my FB feed. Not eligible for existing subs, so kind of taunting me by posting it. But if anyone is thinking like Dorothy Gale - of leaving the sepia world of a physical Grey Lady to the magic of Oz-like technicolor digital delight’s, now’s a good time!)
I really didn’t expect Rex to like this so much. I thought it was fine but cutesy, and thought Rex would hate the gimmick. But happy Rex is always nice. I thought the “clusters of black squares” referred to the corners, and that there was something going on there that wasn’t visible on Across Lite — which, of course, had no colors.
ReplyDeletePut CASA in immediately and knew Steve CARELL and then figured out CARVE, so assumed it was one shared CA rebus. The only sticking point before I grocked the theme was which square was the rebus in all the answers that I 100% knew that didn’t fit. My son is a huge soccer fan so I knew SUAREZ, we live in NY so I knew READE… had the same “whoosh” moment as RP when the stuffed crust gambit revealed itself.
ReplyDeleteLoved that the clues were mostly easy enough to find a way into the puzzle but still challenging until you got the theme. Loved IGOTDIBS as much as any recent answer I can remember. Feels like a proper Thursday at last!
The puzzle was perfectly fine and easy, but I audibly winced once I realized the entire margin of the puzzle would require using the clunky rebus function on the crossword app.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure these double-letters along the edge were more enjoyable for pen(cil)-and-paper solvers, but my God, what an unpleasant experience on the app.
My time was 40% longer than usual, solely because of all the painful rebusing.
Are those anchovies? And if so, why are they encroaching on the crust?!
ReplyDeleteI get the "Go large or go home" praise=worthiness of this offering, but I have to side with team tedious on the solving experience. So many described their solve to be just like Rex, because (I'd say) that's the whole deal of this puzzle--you have to grok the two letters per outside edge fill and to do that, you are likely to have to first get some of the answers that don't touch the outside edge. Very crafty of the constructor to use a less common term, CASTILLO, at 1A.
I would suggest "novelty" over "deluxe."
There is on Hidden Diagonal Word (HDW) in the "crust"--starting with the ED in 64A, OKAYED and reading it backwards to the SW, you get DE ER, DEER, duplicating the back end of a REIN-DEER.
And there is a 5 letter HDW in the grid, that would be the correct answer for the clue, "Result of a disastrous drive?"
And the answer is ...
RETEE (begins with the R in 25A, PREP, and moves to the SW--it's what a golfer is required to do if her drive goes out of bounds. And if that happens, her opponent might well go ONE UP.)
ADIEU, ADIEU, ADIEU--trois ADIEUS
I have never agreed so much with every word you wrote, Rex! My experience was almost exactly the same. Except that after getting ___TOPPINGS and still trying to figure out how to fit pizza in there, I kept working through the middle and came upon the revealer pretty soon thereafter. Major aha moment and from then on I was absolutely in love with the puzzle.
ReplyDeleteSo much fun! I didn't want it to end.
I opened my puzzle, just like Rex… Casa and cook… When I figured out the stuffed crust I did feel sorry for those who weren’t solving on paper as I do. Lots Of rebus stuffing… But I enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI am in the pro column on this puzzle. Could not for the life of me figure out what was going on until I saw the "stuffed crust" clue and then was off to the races. At first I thought the answers dog-legged into other answers (DR RUTH, which I knew was correct, dog-legged perfectly into THROB) until I couldn't replicate that anywhere else. I have to say the bitching about filling in the rebus squares is the epitome of first-world whining. It's not that hard.
ReplyDeleteI too thought of Louis B. Mayer instead of the hot dog.
Loved it. More like this please.
An absolute delight! Whimsical! Merriment! It made me smile a bunch, and not just for the nostalgia factor of 90s era Pizza Hut.
ReplyDeleteI like my pizza with a STUFFEDCRUST and a FOAMCORE. Oh, and please add some SEACRAB and TARO to the toppings.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle has proven so divisive that I hear that Dana Bash is planning on asking about it in tonight's debate. Personally, I thought the concept was great and the execution was as good as one could expect, given the concept. Thanks, Paolo Pasco and Sarah Sinclair. And thanks also to Joel Fagliano for continuing to green light some pretty off-beat constructions.
This was a very good puzzle, though I had a Natick at ERIN/STINKY. - I first put ERic/STicKY, which looked fine, but sticky didn't really match "Foul", I suppose.
ReplyDeletei enjoyed nothing about this puzzle. garish graphics; look-at-my-construction gimmick; wednesday-level clueing. i see one commenter cancelled their nytxw subscription. it’s puzzles like this what make me consider doing the same. unrelated to the horrible solving experience, i had ROADE/CROAKED and assumed i had a hidden rebus error.
ReplyDelete@Roo re: The downside is, if you imagine all the missing squares are there, they would all be Blockers, so you end up with a staggering Blocker count of 80! (Where 38 is usually max.)
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, 40 squares have two letters each, so they completely make up for the 40 squares that are missing from the 16x16 grid. Those squares have been stuffed into the crust! So in the end, I think it's a pretty good letter count.
This is my favorite puzzle ever. It is non-stop hilarious, it makes a pizza, and it says, "So rebus day, huh? Hold my beer." Every moment felt like a legit word puzzle with a curious sense of humor and I am gobsmacked by its charm.
ReplyDeleteThe constructor notes are also cute and amazing. Rewriting the compiler software to make it work. And wearing mustaches.
Now, a bit of a tragedy: I accidentally put a space in between the IL in CASTILLO and you can't see the space on the grid. "Keep trying!" my encouraging robot says. I finally weigh losing my multi-year streak and autocheck. Yes, this puzzle is worth it as it will forever be marked with a blue box amid an ocean of yellow boxes. Pizza puzzle is Grid #1 in the new streak.
Perusing the comments this morning makes for entertaining reading. The arms-folded harumphers have been smoked out of their lairs. One dude claims he quit the NYTXW over this. (Hilarious, and he'll be back.) Many crying over pushing the rebus button so many times. What level of privilege are you living in where pushing buttons on your phone in your La-Z-Boy is too much work? Sorry you're fatigued. And it's Thursday by the way. And there's always pencil and paper, peeps.
Took me a looooong time to figure out the gimmick, longer still to grapple with the proper nouns, and then the search for my mistake leading to the aforementioned tragedy. All is forgiven.
❤️: [Rough houses?] [Is this still good?] [Artist whose work has a wide reach?] [Noted name with an Oscar?]
Propers: 13 (ack)
Places: 4
Products: 1
Partials: 4
Foreignisms: 6
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 28 (37%)
Funnyisms: One zillion 🤣
Tee-Hee: The Rex Parker commentariat. You've outdone yourselves already this morning.
Uniclues:
1 Peruvian fuzzbunny in the palace.
2 Steve's smelly bush.
3 Search for awkward plurals of convenience as you leave.
4 Bro you dig.
5 James with acne.
6 One with ugliest feet goes first.
7 Throw wet dirt on circus performer.
8 One with ice cream inside.
9 What happens when condominium dwellers suspect a special assessment is coming.
10 Grandma Suarez wrote in complaints about the pizza puzzle.
11 Has a red nose.
12 One embiggening Goldberg.
13 Result of sex therapist becoming undone.
14 Those big flatbed thingies like they have at Home Depot.
15 Poetry slam in the country.
16 ˈlälēˌpäp sayeth Google.
17 Command to under-showered barkeep.
1 CASTILLO ALPACA
2 CARELL LILAC
3 SURVEIL ADIEUS
4 FRATERNITY CRUSH
5 PIZZA TOPPING ETTA
6 I GOT DIBS PEDI (~)
7 MUDSTAIN FLEA
8 RARE STUFFED CRUST
9 RUMOR MILLS THROB (~)
10 ABUELA CREAKED
11 ONE UPS REINDEER
12 WHOOPI MURALIST
13 DR. RUTH FRIZZ (~)
14 APT COUCH CARTS
15 STEER ODISTS LIEU
16 URDU LOLLIPOP (~)
17 "KEEP TABS, STINKY"
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Cruise a bathhouse downtown. BLAZE URBAN SPA.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What a lovely attitude toward the tragedy of the mystery space streak destroyer! But I agree- hard to harrumph on such a charming puzzle.
DeleteDid it on paper so no color at the end, just black blotches. Doesn’t matter.
ReplyDeleteToo easy puzzle, too hard gimmick. Not happy.
Kudos to the constructors who I think must have started around 2022.
Often my main accessing this site is to see what nonsense Rex has to say. Didn’t disappoint. Our brains are different.
Hands up for “Castello” for CASTILLO which led to “Ellini
ReplyDeleteThis one took a while which should mean it was hard. Unfortunately, it wasn’t hard it was just annoying (sorry @Rex). ERIN, SUAREZ, LILAC, and FOAMCORE were WOEs and most of my erasures involved forgetting to hit the rebus button. I spent the first few minutes of this looking for the reveal clues. After that it was read a clue and enter a rebus. Plus, the app on my iPad did not give me the colored in pizza.
ReplyDeleteI didn’t like it as much as @Rex did.
Hands up for “Castello” instead of CASTILLO which led to “Ellini” instead of ILLINI. A near Natick. I mean, I do not know all those college team names and with 50 state names to deduct letters from.
ReplyDeleteThis was as delightful to read as the puzzle was to solve. I love when Rex is in a good mood. Perfect way to start my day. :)
ReplyDeleteI learned once that tyrants stay in power by being unpredictable, thus unreplaceable. Prime example today of Rex loving this puzzle that I was sure he would hate. “Power” in this case being remaining continually engaging.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar solving experience seeing that something was up with words being too long, then working from the inside out. Hands up also for being a little tired of hitting the rebus key over and over, more in the slowing me down than actual physical pain. 10 minutes slower than my Thursday average from time figuring out gimmick, then rebusing. Otherwise enjoyable and impressive feat of construction.
Out of all the sounds a crowd could make, WHIRS are not on my top ten.
While the French plural is ADIEUX, as in the “Les Adieux” Piano Sonata of Beethoven, adieu has been in English long enough that adieus is just fine and actually listed first in the first several sources I just checked. Rex found an Oxford dictionary - the Brits are a bit closer to the French and are more likely to use the French spellings and pronunciations.
@Burtonkd 11:18 AM
DeleteTyrannosaurus Rex? 🦖
Sooo … we're all in agreement on this solvequest experience, huh? har
ReplyDeleteM&A pretty much liked it, cuz …
1. Different. Like different.
2. Clever puztheme idea.
3. Pizza definitely passes the M&A breakfast [or any other meal] test. And thUmbswayUp for mushrooms.
4. Smoooth fillins. Not at all CRUSTy. Or STINKY.
5. Cool optical effect. Need to think of somethin to attribute them 3-long black line toppins to, tho. (M&A votes for: SAUSAGES.)
OK, so the M&A rodeo event kinda started out like this …
* 1-Down hasta be CARVE. But 1-Down is only 4 long. Somethin is definitely up, at the ThursPuz-level of gimmickness. Them gray squares are probably abettin the gimmick.
* 1-Across surely can't be CASA. Chateau(x/s) are fancier than snot, while CASAs are more like M&A's digs.
* Let's solve some of the middle stuff for a while, away from them highly-suspicious gray square deals.
Leadin, after several nanoseconds, to …
* Ahar! PIZZATOPPING! Assume we splatz a PI in that gray square, to make things fit? That'd be cool … PIZZA PI!
* Started to notice that splatzin two letters in the gray squares was workin out, all over the place. har2 … sure glad I'm solvin on paper.
staff weeject pick [of only 6 choices, unless U count them be-rebused 4-long ones, too]: TEA. Primo wacko clue, for TEA, sans clue-implied bag.
other fave stuff: Mosta the gray-squared rebusfests. Also that LOLLIPOP for dessert. Hafta pass on FOAMCORE-flavored ones, tho.
Thanx for gangin up on us, Pasco dude and Sinclair darlin. Heckuva pizzapuz. Luved yer photo opp, over at xwordinfo, btw.
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
Good puzzle! Had STINKS instead of STINKY, which worked for LEAKS / LEAKY too it seemed.
ReplyDeleteVery similar solving experience to Rex. Good fun.
ReplyDeleteReally annoying. Took forever to get the gimmick. Nice enough once you got it, but a pain in the ass to solve.
ReplyDeleteNot being a fan of rebuses (rebi?) this was ABSOLUTELY my worst nightmare. I'm sure it was very clever and fun for the constructors to put out there for all of us fanatics. And for those solvers here who enjoyed it. But I wasn't for me. I never bothered to finish which is something I never do. The reason?
ReplyDeleteI HATED IT.
I'm happy for all who enjoyed & congrats to those who solved it :)
Spent the first hour trying to get a paper copy printed from the iPad and gave up after visiting the HELPLINE which didn’t!! Finally gave up and took a slice out of the middle and chewed on that until the STUFFED CRUST cooled. Gotta agree with both those frustrated today and those who lauded the audacity of the construction. Fun solve, but …….
ReplyDeleteI detest the Thursday crossword. Gimmicks and tricks. Friday and Saturday, FTW!
ReplyDeleteMy solving experience channeled @Rex, @Nancy, and @Pablo in different ways. I knew casa was wrong, so I looked for other entries, and saw that OBERON was a gimme, but wouldn't fit. So I knew there was a rebus involved, but where? I finally did what I should have started with--stuck to the non-rebus answers, starting with TORI. Working from there I got PIZZA TOPPING, leading to another question: were we dealing with Greek letters? I'd just seen "rho" in a clue, which put the idea in my head. Finally I thought to check the all-shaded entries, saw WHOOPI, and was off and running.
ReplyDeleteI think the cluing had to be a little simpler or no one would have got the gimmick--but it hd some nice answers like FRATERNITY (as clued) and RUMOR MILLS, so I'm a fan.
Solving in the paper, I too became unable to read the numbers, but it was very easy to just write the rebuses outside the grid. But no colorizing.
The first Duane-Reade I ever saw was on the corner of Duane Street and Reade Street in lower Manhattan. I suppose that was the first one, but I had no idea it was a chain until years later.
@beckiwithani -- I remember the jingle, but wasn't it "baloney?"
I'm with Adam White and perhaps others above: I liked the puzzle and found it not unreasonably challenging, but all those rebuses killed my completion time. Ended up about 1:30 beyond my average Thursday. That feels like nitpicking now, though. Also, this puzzle made me hungry.
ReplyDelete*NOT* a fan of rebuses -- not because of any tech issues (I solve on paper) but because I have no tolerance for gimmicks and snarky "GOTCHA!" games. And although I'm a Chicagoan, I'm a pizza purist who considers only NY-style pan pizza to be the real thing; any other abomination -- deep-dish, stuffed, artsy-fartsy/exoticized (tropical fruits et al.) -- would be the culinary equivalent of a rebus crossword (see initial comment).
ReplyDeleteFigured out the gimmick immediately, so I beat my Thursday average despite the timesuck that is filling in so many rebus squares. Those got a little frustrating, but I enjoyed this puzzle a lot anyway. DRRUTH crossing THROB kept me childishly amused long enough to deal with the next several rebuses.
ReplyDeleteA rebus-hater's worst nightmare. And I've never heard of a stuffed pizza. Bad day.
ReplyDeleteLike many others, I found this puzzle tedious and gimmicky in a way that didn't pay off in a clever way. Not only is entering a "crust's" worth of rebuses annoying (the rebus being a tool best used judiciously), there's nothing particularly challenging, *as a crossword*, once you realize the big trick is "every word on the edge has an extra letter." I'm one who REALLY doesn't care for the online gimmicks — oooh, color AND a song? — so this one just struck me as tedous.
ReplyDeleteLots of Spanish in recent puzzles. Thank goodness that's the language I'm currently studying in Duolingo. In fact, I first put in CASA as per Rex's suggestion, at 1A but was shaking my head that it should really be CASTILLO to match "chateau". That should have tipped me off to the nature of the trick but instead I had to do Rex's "step away from the crust" and fill in a bit of the middle before MUDSTAIN crossing DR. RUTH indicated the STUFFED CRUST.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to Prague in the fall so I've done a few Duolingo lessons in Czech. Those words are very unlikely to be in a crossword - nearly every word has some kind of accent mark.
I've had TARO chips before and didn't think they had enough flavor to be added to a bubble tea. Or that they were purple. What am I missing? Ube?
Nice clue, "Rough houses", for STUCCOS.
Thanks, Paolo and Sarah, nice Thursday solve!
Fun fact: The first Duane Reade was located between DUANE and READE streets in downtown Manhattan. So, it’s not named after some guy named Duane Reade. :)
ReplyDeletepretty uninteresting and annoying.
ReplyDeleteRepeating what appears to need repeating:
ReplyDeleteTo fill in a rebus square
1. Hit ESC
2. Fill the square
3. Hit enter
Easy-peasy. Works on my Mac; someone above says it works on Windows.
As someone who only does the crossword in print and has never done one online, although the puzzle was easy, I had no idea what was meant to be the final reveal because I had no idea that the online version would have color. So I wasted a lot of time, trying to figure out what people were talking about in terms of the black grid changing color. Annoying, they should indicate if there’s going to be some vast difference between completing in print and completing online.
ReplyDeleteNo. I didn’t enjoy that at all. Gimmicky and clever are close to each other. I found this to be gimmicky.
ReplyDeleteWell that was some Thursday! I'm always glad to see a rebus on this day, but man it got tedious hitting the Insert button about a hundred times.
ReplyDeleteNote the grid is 16 by 16 which more than makes up for the "missing" corners.
And, solving on Across Lite the corners are a pile of black squares which makes the puzzle look like an Insane Clown Pizza.
[Spelling Bee yd 0; streak 4.]
Whenever I hear the term, Hot Mess, I always think of when Britney Spears shaved her head and started hitting a car with an umbrella. Going forward, I’m going to think of this puzzle.
ReplyDeletePeamut 1:30.
ReplyDeleteI love little factoids like yours. Seriously, always assumed that was the dude’s name (not that I pondered the question obsessively).
Made me wonder if the pharmacy behemoth that acquired DR was named after the TINT/TINGE/TINCT of its walls. Nope, Walgreens was Charles Walgreen’s (who made a killing selling “prescription whiskey” during Prohibition)
Ceiling - Grays. Wall - Greens
Immediately knew we were dealing with rebuses since CASTILLO and CARELL were both gimmes (knew them both cold/super easy), but erroneously assumed the gimmick was that every rebus would be CA. That ended up not being the case obviously, and I kept looking for some connection between the rebuses, but still loved the puzzle. I don’t often like Thursdays, but this was clever and a fun solve. Weird to see so many boo-hooing over having to click an extra key to solve it in-app.
ReplyDeleteFor me this was more work, of a tedious sort, than actually making a PIZZA. I got the idea early on with LILAC (big Nancy Drew reader as a kid), ALPACA, and CALICO, but stuffing the crust with all those individual pieces tired me out. I'm going to go and lie down.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Oscar was for Louis Mayor.
ReplyDeleteOops, Mayer
ReplyDeleteAll you rebus-complainers are so dramatic! This was lots of fun, and it’s really not that hard to enter/type in the rebus letters. It’s Thursday, we know there’s a good chance of a rebus.
ReplyDeleteLike Rex, I couldn’t see how to put the rebus words in at first and realized that I needed to fill in the center where the words were non-rebuses. That got me going and when I realized that ALL the “crust” squares were rebuses, I enjoyed having to exercise my brain a bit to fill in those words.
I will say that I’m a thin-crust pizza person, always.
Hated it. The app solve with all those rebusses (rebusi? Rebi?) was the painful epitome of tedious. No fun to be had at all in the solve.
ReplyDeleteI’m so surprised Rex liked this one. Praised it as an “architectural marvel”, no less. I’m still marvelling over that response. I thought he’d PAN this clunky, misshapen PIZZA right out of the box.
ReplyDeleteDon’t rebus words usually comprise or contribute to a theme? Here, they have nothing to do with the theme. In fact, they detract:
FRSUCA, CASTILLO, ALPACA, ACUSSSH, KEEPTABS, STINKY.
WHOOPI, MURALIST, THABCH, ONEUPS, REINDEER, EDEDLS.
Anyone still feel like pizza after that?
@Ciclista21 4:33 PM
DeleteYou had me at ACUSSSH pizza with EDEDLS. Starving.
Isn't complaining about tricks and gimmicks on Thursday like being annoyed because the Sunday puzzle is too damn big?
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion for all the people who hate rebuses -- skip Thursdays. I find filling in too-easy puzzles very dull so I skip Mondays and Tuesdays. It's very simple! Really!
Solving on paper, the hint in 26A didn't make any sense to me. Once I finished, I felt like Peggy Lee. An OK Thursday but I don't get the gushing reactions.
ReplyDeleteI liked being stumped until I saw the double-stuffed solution, and then flying along filling it in.
ReplyDeleteFans WHIR, crowds roar.
@Wanderlust - Great SUAREZ jersey story!
Recently I read a teacher's comment on the change in students since cell phones/social media became ubiquitous- it seems many students have much lower frustration tolerance and demand immediate answers instead of being willing to ponder or puzzle over problems to find a solution. Maybe that's what we're seeing here with folks who prefer “fill in the blank” easy crosswords and hate tricky Thursday…
Delightful puzzle.
ReplyDeleteI loved it from the first look at the grid. Looked to me like an abstract art quilt (of which we have two hanging in our home)
When the revealer came thought Oh, good theme and thought all the words were interesting or at least not overly common and boring/
One of the slowest answers coming to me was Reindeer for vixen 66A. I was stuck on meanings of vixen. Did not think o the name and could not believe the letters getting filled in by downs until the last square. Then " OH,DUh. Good clue/answer."
My initial reaction was wtf? Once I figured out the gimmick the puzzle was easy to solve.
ReplyDeleteAs far as clues go. I’ve never heard the term foamcore. I have always called it foam board. And that seems to be the preferred term amongst etailers.
The other one was “Mixed bag?”. I drink tea and for the most part teabags contain a single variety. Green, black, oolong… Even a flavored tea is still a single variety that has some sort of flavoring added but I believe it would be a stretch to call it a mix. And in the cases where more than one variety is used the term “blend” is always applied; not mix. Mix gives me the vision of several teas thrown randomly in a bag along with pencil shavings and grass clippings and called “Mick’s Tea Mix” with instructions to stir thoroughly while steeping.
To answer Rex’s question about stucco. It’s a last-century old-timey colloquialism. If there was a stucco house in your neighborhood where Bob lived and someone asked you which house was Bob’s you would reply, “It’s the stucco”. Of course, if there was more than one stucco house in your neighborhood then you might have to be more specific.
The detractors today sound silly. Anyone who has ever constructed a puzzle is looking at this puzzle going “damn, wish I’d thought of that,” I guarantee you. If you hate “gimmicks” what are you even doing here? Stop solving Thursdays and spare us your whining. God bless.
ReplyDeleteI only solve on paper and I LoVeD this puzzle! It started out as v challenging and ended up as fun!! I'll take fun any day.
ReplyDeleteI’m more upset that the pattern didn’t go all the way around the puzzle. If we’re omitting letters, for symmetry I’d rather it be all the ones touching the crust, or all the second from the edge of the crust. It was frustrating for the left and top to omit the second letters, but the right and bottom to omit the last letters. It was a fun Thursday puzzle, though! Always challenging!
ReplyDeleteFor all those wondering about the plural of Rebus, it was deemed by @Z, a former poster, to be Rebopodes.
ReplyDeleteNow you know.
😁
RooMonster It Was From The Great Octopus Plural Debate Guy
Is it a coincidence that the New York Times had a big article on Pizza’s a couple of days ago?
ReplyDeleteCDilly52 (still “anonymous”) happy as I can be that my Cubs beat thenGiants today! I treated the family to the game at Oracle Park for Fathers Day (not terribly late), and the weather was gorgeous, the game very exciting, and all four of us, including my granddaughter had a blast. 10 innings, too! The Giants (aided by a passed ball) tied it up 3-3 late in the game in very exciting fashion followed in the top of the 10th by a one-on not so hard hit home run that bounced on the top of the Center Field wallSorry Giants fans. Cubbies 5-3. And the Giants won the other three games of the series.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle also made me very happy. I wish the “crust” squares had not been grey because it became obvious to me that they would all be rebus squares. I had real trouble getting started because I could not remember Steve CARELL’s last name and had not yet gotten the rebus trick so CASTILLO didn’t dit even though I was certain of the word. So I moved over and things improved.
Just as with CASTILLO, and being a knitter and very fond of natural fibers, I knew that 5A must be ALPACA. Underneath the fuzzy animal, were a few easy downs sufficient to ALLAY my trepidation. I suspected PAID next to ALLAY and was thrilled to confirm it with CALICO - one of my cat, Pip’s genetic contributors to her lovely markings. After these answers fell, I had the gimmick but not the theme. It did make the solve easy thereafter.
As @Rex mentioned, this was a beautifully constructed and wonderfully entertaining puzzle. If we are to have colorful “grid art,” may it always be this good!!
If you guys knew this song -
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/VHrLPs3_1Fs?feature=shared
- you would have known Castillo.
Hated this gimmicky colored thing. Rebus rebus rebus, hate them anyway, & here they’re the whole shebang. I dread seeing a whole cascade now of cute novelty puzzle shapes. Have some self respect, NYT.
ReplyDelete@Rex et al: not only have I never been to New York, I'm not even American, yet I'd heard of Duane Reade.
ReplyDeleteI am losing my mind trying to figure out what ILLINIDO is. Zero Google search results. I understand ILLINI but... ILLINIDO? Someone please help!
ReplyDeleteFrom where are you getting "ILLINIDO"? The answer is "ILLINI", that being "Illinois" minus two letters (the "o" & the "s"): there's no "d".
DeleteRex said in his explanation that ILLINI is two letters short of their home state, ILLINIDO
DeleteAh, so he did. No idea what that's about: sorry.
DeleteVery creative and fun! Boo to the naysayers!
ReplyDeleteI agree with others here. While it was a fun puzzle in many ways, it always seems like drudgery to me when you have to hit the Rebus button so many times. Fairly easy once you figure it out.
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something? I know what ILLINI is (University of Illinois sports teams) but why did Rex say their home state is ILLINIDO?
ReplyDelete@rex can you tell me what Illinido is??
DeleteI loved this puzzle. Me and Rex finally agree on one ^_^
ReplyDeleteDidn’t have time to finish this yesterday so resumed it today. Am I the only one who wrote “sh-ef-ox-es” instead of “re-in-de-er”?
ReplyDeleteA wonderful, beautiful, amazing puzzle.
ReplyDeleteTough to get started, but once you get the trick not so bad. Surprisingly, the one thing I was absolutely certain of early on was SUAREZ, and crossing that with PIZZA (something) allowed things to get rolling.
So the most recent seventeen posters: ILLINIDO is Rex being funny.
@Burtonkd 11:18 (and three days ago so you likely will never see this: the WHIRS clue refers to fans, not crowds (as in the thing that spins to blow air around your room).
@jberg 12:33 (and three days ago so you likely will never see this: it was pronounced baloney but spelt bologna (continuation of the jingle is "coz oscar mayer has a way with b-o-l-o-g-n-a".
As someone else said, different is good. Sausage, mushrooms & onions for me, please. Didn't trust CASA when I noticed there were multiple answers that cried out for another square. Soon had the STUFFED CRUST gimmick, then sailed along nicely.
ReplyDeleteUntil hitting the shoals in the SE. No clue about the screenwriter, or the (New York only: I HATE when constructors do that!) pharmacy. Also never heard of FOAMCORE. That C was my last letter in, and it was a complete guess.
No color change for this paper solver; I had to come here to find out if I was right. I was (whew!). Birdie.
Wordle birdie.
Olympic golf under way; Xander looks poised to repeat. Go, young man; we need more gold medals.
APT WHOOPI
ReplyDeleteI KEEPTABS on him, that LOLLIPOP,
IGOTDIBS on CHRIS, OKAY?
I LIKED him SO this RARE CRUSH THROBS,
SO in SHORT, I’ll PREP ALLAY.
--- DR. ERIN CARELL
I wonder how many other solvers put the extra letter outside the grid like me? That was the wrong way to solve but once you went that route it was hard to go back.
ReplyDeleteugh
ReplyDeleted,liw
NOT a great birthday present!!!
For all the whiners out there today, this puzzle only had 40 rebus squares, the record is 79 rebus squares. Enjoy!!!
ReplyDeleteMy breakthrough moment was Wh oo pi! The aha of all ahas! I knew Rex would tear this puzzle into hundreds of tiny pieces. Wait!!! He loved it?!?!?! Who is this imposter, and what has he done with Rex?!?!?! Should we call the police???
ReplyDeleteOFL gushes. Naturally I disliked,
ReplyDeleteHappy B-day D, LIW!!!!!!!!!!
Wordle birdie
I almost didn't want to come to your site after solving this one, because I didn't want to read about why you hated it. I finally said to myself, "If Rex doesn't like this one, I'm never going back." You dodged a bullet there. :-)
ReplyDelete