Make two dos, say? / TUE 3-4-25 / Green-and-white sidekick of video games / Start of many souvenir slogans / Feature of a cockatoo / Fast-food pork sandwich with its own locator website

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium 

THEME: "I'M SHOOK" (65A: "This news has got me rattled!" ... or a hint to 1-, 20-, 37- and 54-Across) — things you shake:

Theme answers:

• POMPOMS (1A: Cheerleaders' accessories)
• SPRAY PAINT (20A: Graffiti artist's supply)
• POLAROID PICTURE (37A: It develops in front of your eyes)
• TAMBOURINE (54A: Hand-held instrument that jingles)

Word of the Day: GNR (14D: "Welcome to the Jungle" band, in brief) —

Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1985, as the result of a merger between local bands L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose. When they signed to Geffen Records in 1986, the band's "classic" line-up consisted of vocalist Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Steven Adler. The current line-up consists of Rose, Slash, McKagan, guitarist Richard Fortus, drummer Frank Ferrer, and keyboardists Dizzy Reed and Melissa Reese.

Guns N' Roses heavily toured the West Coast club circuit during their early years. Their debut album Appetite for Destruction (1987), supported by the eponymous tour, failed to gain traction, debuting at number 182 on the Billboard 200, until a year after its release when a grassroots campaign for the "Welcome to the Jungle" music video brought the band mainstream popularity. "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City" both became top 10 singles, with "Sweet Child o' Mine" becoming the band's only single to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album has sold approximately 30 million copies worldwide, including 18 million units in the United States, making it the country's best-selling debut album and eleventh-best-selling album. With their stylistic mix of punk rock, blues rock and heavy metal, the band helped move mainstream rock away from the glam metal era of the mid-late 1980s. In addition, they are credited with revitalizing power ballads in rock.

• • •

This one was definitely saved by the revealer. Before that, all I really noticed was distracting little details, like two long "-ING" words on top of each other (I’M COMING, CARESSING) and, more jarringly, two crossing "OH" phrases (literally crossing at the "OH") ("OH, YOU!" / "OH, HI!"). The grid seemed built weird (why the longer answers in the NW?), such that I thought there were just three themers (the paint, the picture, the TAMBOURINE). This is all to say that there was nothing very pleasant going on until I hit the SE corner. The puzzle seemed fine, but definitely BLAH, with some awkwardnesses. But then I got "I'M SHOOK," which managed to be both the freshest answer in the grid and the thing that made all the seemingly unrelated longer answers seem, well, related. The revealer revealed. It did its job. Nicely. And just like that, my feelings went from Neutral-Negative to Neutral-Positive. Where the positive vibes were concerned, the puzzle had an assist in that SE corner from TRANSLATE—well, not from TRANSLATE itself, which is just OK as an answer, but from the clue on TRANSLATE, which was lovely (and which got me ... in the since that I had to think about it for a bit) (60A: Make two dos, say?). I could see it was going to be TRANSLATE but couldn't figure out why. If you make two "dos" then ... you just have one "do" ,.. and then another "do" ... how is that translation!? Imagine a several-second pause at this point where you can hear the hamster wheel in my brain turning and rattling. And then it drops: "two" is English, but if you TRANSLATE "two" to Spanish, it's "dos." So when you "make two dos," you TRANSLATE. Nice. You've also got EGOMANIA PHENOM and UNAGI down in that corner, so like I say, it's not just the revealer that's doing god's work in that corner. Lots of lively fill there. Above average Tuesday!

The grid *is* weirdly built, though. When the theme answers run Across (i.e. most of the time), you don't usually see long Across answers that *aren't* themers. It creates a kind of visual confusion. And here we've got not two but four Across answers  of 8+-letter length (that is, standard themer length) that have nothing to do with the theme—that are, in fact, longer than two of the themers themselves (POMPOMS and the revealer). Usually, with Across-answer themes (i.e. most themes), you get your longer non-theme answers in the Downs. Today, no long Downs at all. Nothing over six letters. All this architectural weirdness must've snowballed from the placement of POMPOMS. If you put it at 1-Across (to match "I'M SHOOK!" at the bottom right), then it has to sit on two answers of at least seven letters in length. For every answer you put on the edge of the grid, there have to be at least two more adjacent answers of equal length moving inward, because any black squares in there would create one- or two-letter answers in the crosses, and those are not allowed. So I’M COMING CARESSING TRANSLATE EGOMANIA end up running with the flow of themers rather than perpendicular to that flow (as would be typical for longer answers in a conventional themed puzzle). If the puzzle seemed a little odd, structurally, well, now you know why (if you didn't already).

Three slightly stumpery parts for me today. One, I already covered (TRANSLATE!). The first such answer was the first Down I looked at: 1D: Draft selections (PICKS). I had the "P" from POMPOMS and could not think of a beer that fit. You see where I went wrong there. "PILS...S"? I now realize I dodged a bullet there, as PINTS would've fit, and then who knows what mess I'd've gotten into. The other answer I struggled with was I HEART (39D: Start of many souvenir slogans). Just a godawful standalone answer. A partial t-shirt phrase? And you're representing a visual (💗) with a word? Even the phrase "souvenir slogans" made no sense to me. That answer was in the thick of the "OH" v. "OH" collision. Needless to say, not my favorite part of the puzzle.

Bullets:

• 31A: Feature of a cockatoo (CREST) — they're notoriously proud of their aristocratic heritage, so they always wear little jackets featuring their family CREST. Weird little birds.
• 50A: Syllables of hesitation (UHS) — who doesn't love a "syllable of hesitation!" [raises hand]. Always an opportunity to make a mistake. Mine, today: UMS.
• 3D: Fast-food pork sandwich with its own locator website (MCRIB) — no one loves a MCRIB more than the crossword. This is its 10th appearance. Though it appears with reasonable frequency now, it actually took 30 years (!) for the MCRIB to find its way into the grid. It debuted in 1981 (!?), but back then, the editor (Maleska) was not (at all) inclined to put brand names in the puzzle. It's not that there were none, probably, but there were few, and probably very few from the fast-food category. But even after Shortz comes to power, it takes the better part of two decades for MCRIB to show up (2011). Once it got into constructors' wordlists, though, it ... I wouldn't say "took off," but persisted, for sure. Bet you didn't expect a MCRIB lesson today, did you? You are welcome.
• 21D: Green-and-white sidekick of video games (YOSHI) —

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]