Title role of 1966 and 2004 / WED 8-28-24 / Units of X-ray exposure / Chicken par_ ____ in fat / Onetime studio with a broadcast tower in its logo / Participants in a 140.6-mile race / Clay figure in Jewish folklore / Bronx politician with a noted 2018 upset, familiarly / Smoothie bar supply

Constructor: Jesse Goldberg

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging 

THEME: answers embedded in clues — theme clues are presented with consecutive letters missing: those letters, in each case, form the *answers* to the clues:

Theme answers:

• THIGH (1A: Chicken par_ ____ in fat) (Chicken part high in fat)
• OTHER (17A: Referring t_ ___ _est) (Referring to the rest)
• ORALS (9A: Hurdles for doct____ _tudents) (Hurdles for doctoral students)
• DEATH (19A: I___ __at terrifies thanatophobes) (Idea that terrifies thanatophobes)
• ATONED (32A: Made amends for wh__ ___ _id) (Made amends for what one did)
• SHOVERS (39A: They pu__ ____ _tuff) (They push over stuff)
• KLINGON (41A: "Star Tre_" ____ _ot heard on the original series) ("Star Trek" lingo not heard on the original series)
• RASCAL (48A: Another word fo_ _ ____awag) (Another word for a scalawag)
• DRAIN (61A: Street feature needed after a har_ ___) (Street feature needed after a hard rain)
• STAKE (69A: It'_ ____n on a vampire hunt) (It's taken on a vampire hunt)
• NINTH (65A: Pitcher's positio_ __ __e lineup, historically) (Pitcher's position in the lineup, historically)
• STORM (71A: Tempe__ __ _onsoon) ("Tempest or monsoon")

Word of the Day: ROENTGENS (10D: Units of X-ray exposure) —

The roentgen or röntgen (/ˈrɛntɡən, -dʒən, ˈrʌnt-/; symbol R) is a legacy unit of measurement for the exposure of X-rays and gamma rays, and is defined as the electric charge freed by such radiation in a specified volume of air divided by the mass of that air (statcoulomb per kilogram). In 1928, it was adopted as the first international measurement quantity for ionizing radiation to be defined for radiation protection, as it was then the most easily replicated method of measuring air ionization by using ion chambers. It is named after the German physicist Wilhelm Röntgen, who discovered X-rays and was awarded the first Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery. (wikipedia)

• • •

[ALFIE & Ida]

I have one word written at the top of my puzzle and that word is "painful." The concept here (undoubtedly clever) becomes tedious and contrived when stretched out over so many clues and answers. Further, the theme is entirely in the clues, not the grid, which always feels ... backward to me. You've got a fairly boring grid, and then clues that are made tortured and inscrutable just for the sake of this theme. And five-letter themers? Who wants that, over and over and over, all the small corners choked with *two* of these absurd missing-letter clues. And that's another thing: you've got So Much Theme. Twelve theme answers? Twelve times I have to do this!?!? I would much (much much) prefer a theme concept that's interesting x 4 than a theme concept that's clunky and awkward x 12 (12?!). More is not better. More is slower, though—the themers frequently slowed me down because who would ever speak or write this way? Who would call "Klingon" a "lingo" (It's A Language) and who would call *anything* SHOVERS? SHOVERS? A total non-word—and in the plural?! SMH. So I was noticeably slower today than I would normally be on a Wednesday, if only because the small corners—areas that would normally take the least amount of time to blow through—were thickly laden with theme gunk. Also, I completely forgot the word ROENTGENS. The entire front end, just ... nothing. Had to work every cross. My Father Was A Radiologist. SMH. Unpleasant *and* slow—never a great combo. 

The longer answers have nothing thematic to do, so they just ... hang out there. In a puzzle like this, with almost all the thematic interest in the short(er) stuff, those longer answers have a kind of moral obligation to be dazzling, but (perhaps because there are So Many Themers clogging up the grid), they are just average. Not bad, not great. ROENTGENS may be the most interesting of the lot. On the whole, it's a very plain, average-to-below-average grid. I want to complain about HOR ISON ACER AMNIO and other overfamiliar short stuff, but honestly there's not more of that in this puzzle than there is in your typical NYTXW puzzle. This grid isn't bad, it's blah. Well, it's bad in that it's urine-soaked—it's got both PEE *and* a pee-allusive clue on JOHNS (66A: Going places?) (i.e. places for going, i.e. places for going to the bathroom). The fact that PEE is (cryptically) clued as a letter (44A: Snap back?, i.e. the "back"–or last letter—of the word "snap"), doesn't remove the PEE stain. When you're looking at a grid and see PEE in there, you're not thinking "ooh, the letter 'P'"; you're thinking "great, urine, just what I wanted in the middle of my puzzle." Again, if the JOHNS clue hadn't steered directly into the bathroom, then PEE would've been more innocuous. But the JOHNS clue couldn't lay off the toilet "joke," and so now the two answers seem like a subtheme. A very unfortunate subtheme.

[Glynis JOHNS]

The only real difficulty came from putting the themers together, but as I said, there was so much putting themers together that the whole puzzle became (relatively) slow. This puzzle lost me on the first themer, which came *immediately* at 1-Across. I have never thought of chicken thighs in terms of their fat content. Also, I saw "Chicken par-" and thought for sure that the answer was going to have something to do with "chicken parm." Alas, no. Hardest part of the grid for me to get into was the west, as I couldn't get AT HOME from -ME (35A: Comfortable) and couldn't get SHOVERS at all because there's no such thing as SHOVERS what the hell? Also, "shoving" and "pushing over" are different things, the latter being way more extreme than mere "shoving." My god that answer is bad on every level. Outside the theme, there was just my blanking on the ROEN- part of ROENTGENS and then ... I dunno, STIR? (59D: Energize). That clue was weird. Not sure I know how STIR = "energize." If I STIR ... something, I don't energize it, really. If I STIR someone, I move them, maybe, emotionally, but "energize?" I guess the act of stirring does involve the addition of energy (in some basic sense) to the mix, but that clue was opaque to me. Nothing else terribly tricky going on here today. Getting through that theme is enough of a challenge.

[ALFIE, age 2 mos., 2020]

Notes:

• 15A: Bronx politician with a noted 2018 upset, familiarly (AOC) — she's such an established figure now that I totally forgot that her initial victory was an "upset." 
• 16A: Clay figure in Jewish folklore (GOLEM) — you should watch Alex Edelman's comedy special Just For Us (on Max). It's not about GOLEMs or folklore at all, but it is very much Jewish, and very much hilarious. I watched it yesterday after hearing Edelman on Conan's podcast ("Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend"), and ... well, if I explain it too much, I'll ruin it. Basically ... Jewish guy goes to a white nationalist get-together and lives to do a comedy special about it—that's the premise. I cackled alone on my couch for an hour+. Good stuff.

• 67A: Smoothie bar supply (ICE) — lose the "Smoothie" part. Like, "Smoothies" does not really evoke ICE and you don't even need that word in the clue. It's totally, utterly, completely superfluous. Like a fly in your soup. Look: [Bar supply] = ICE. See how nice that is. So clean, so pleasant, so direct. Tidy. Elegant. I can't believe "smoothie bar" is still a thing. I can barely bring myself to say "smoothie." The only bar I want to have anything to do with serves cocktails, and if I want a thick, sweet drink, I'll order a shake or a malt like a normal person.

Good day! See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]