"Oh. Come. On!" / TUES 9-30-25 / Card game that involves shouting its name / Befitting a king or queen / Move like the Blob

Hi, everyone, it’s Clare back for the last Tuesday of September. Hope the month treated everyone alright! My September was pretty packed with work and taking my puppy on hikes and becoming more obsessed with reality TV cooking shows. I even got to meet my all-time favorite from “Top Chef,” Melissa King, when she was in D.C. for a book signing. I went to a music festival last weekend, and it was incredible (Kesha performed my favorite new song of hers, “Red Flag,” and Doechii blew the whole place down), but now I feel like I need to catch up on sleep for this whole week. Sports have been just OK — Liverpool lost :( but are still top of the table, and the Steelers (who I’m sort of maybe rooting for despite Aaron Rodgers) have done pretty well. At least I’ve had the WNBA playoffs to watch — even if the teams I’ve wanted to win… haven’t. 

Anywho, onto the puzzle…

Constructor: Justin Werfel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: IT’S A DE LIGHT (59A: "I love this!" ... or, phonetically, remark about the answer to each of the starred clues) — Each theme answer has a dropped “d,” so it’s one “d” light

Theme answers:

• CROW CONTROL (17A: *What a straw man in a cornfield is for?) 
• GARBAGE UMP (28A: *Ref who makes a ruling against your favored team?) 
• ON KEY KONG (35A: *Primate with perfect pitch?) 
• CAR CATALOG (47A: *Kelley Blue Book?)

Word of the Day: NUNAVUT (11D: Largest and most northern Canadian territory) —

Nunavut is the largest and northernmost territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the Nunavut Act and the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement Act, which provided this territory to the Inuit for self-government. The boundaries had been drawn in 1993. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canada's political map in half a century since the province of Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) was admitted in 1949. Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada and most of the Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, as well as North America's second-largest (after Greenland). (Wiki)

• • •

For some reason, I wasn’t totally feeling this puzzle. Some of that can be attributed to some stilted clues/answers, but I think the main reason was that I didn’t connect much with the theme. Each of the theme answers didn’t make much sense to me without the “d” (even if they match up with what the clue is describing). Nobody would ever use the phrases CROW CONTROL (17A) or ON KEY KONG (35A) in real life. I suppose GARBAGE UMP (28A) is at least plausible, but…. What would be more common is saying the “ref” is GARBAGE. [See: recent refereeing in the WBNA playoffs, literally any game of the English Premier League, and probably the NFL any time we need to figure out what a catch is... As a Liverpool fan, I of course know the refs are GARBAGE and out to get my team on every occasion possible (my sister would say the same about Arsenal, but we know better, right?)]. CAR CATALOG (47A) is probably the only one of the four theme answers you might actually run across in real life. For that matter, when is the last time you heard someone say, “IT’S A DELIGHT” (59A)? “It’s delightful,” sure. But “IT’S A DELIGHT”? 

I realize the answers are supposed to be funny, not real life. I guess I just didn’t laugh. I do think the idea of being a “d” light is pretty cute, and ON KEY KONG (35A) is quite an image. But the other answers never clicked for me, and, to channel my inner Rex, I think the dropping the “d” theme would’ve worked better if the “d” was being removed from the same part of the word or phrase each time. As it is, the deletions just look random. 

The southwest corner tripped me up for a long while and made this puzzle much harder for me. I didn’t know Jack LALANNE (40D: Fitness guru Jack). I’d only vaguely heard of FRANK OZ (41D: Puppeteer with "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show"). And ACACIAS (39D: Some pod-bearing trees) aren’t an especially common type of tree (at least, I wasn't familiar). I also had to rack my brain to come up with ALF (39A: Puppet alien of TV). I know now that it was a popular TV show, but it went off the air 35 years ago, so it was hard for me to get. Then, there was my biggest annoyance in the puzzle… SEZ (67A: Declares, informally)?! That may have been a thing in 1950s detective novels, but it’s just not part of any even semi-modern slang I know. That, combined with ALAS NO (52A: "Unfortunately that's wrong") and CAN IT (55A: "Shush!") (which could have been “zip it” or, just going off the T, “quiet”), caused me real problems. 

There were too many “ ” clues today for me (I counted nine). I find that they’re usually overbroad and should be used sparingly. GET A LIFE (38D: "Oh. Come. On!") was my favorite of them, but the others — CAN IT (55A), ALAS NO (52A), IT’S A DELIGHT (59A), DONE IT (20A: "Already accomplished!"), I’M FULL (56A: "No more for me, thanks"), HOW’D IT GO (4D: "Was your performance a success?"), I FEAR (66A: "Unfortunately ..."), and GEE (61D: "Golly!") — were mostly meh. 

I did think 37D: H for Homer was a clever clue to get to ETA. 57D: Planet whose name is also a candy company as MARS was also good. And I really liked ON A DIME (12D: One way to stop). The long downs of ALLERGENS (10D: Pollen, cat hair, etc.) and INFANTILE 32D: Babyish) were nice. And I learned about the region NUNAVUT (11D) today, which I’m finding out is vast and also really rolls off the tongue in a fun way.

I don’t mean to rag on the puzzle! It just wasn’t on my wavelength. And I’m tired. Maybe you liked it more. I hope you liked it more! But I’m ready for tomorrow’s puzzle now.

Misc:

• You might think that, as a rock climber, I would know that a 25D: Crag is TOR (a Google search isn’t telling me if you say it as just “tor” or “a tor” or what). You would be wrong. Maybe that’s because I only climb indoors. Or maybe it’s a relatively old-fashioned term. I would’ve clued that as related to the TOR anonymous web browser. 
• I also would’ve clued FLEABAG (53A: Sleazy hotel) differently to refer to the amazing two-season British show created by Phoebe Waller Bridge that’s one of the greatest shows of all time. It only has two seasons, and the second one in particular is probably the most brilliant season of a show I’ve ever seen. I can’t recommend that show highly enough! 
• When I saw EPCOT (5D: Disney park with Spaceship Earth), my first thought was about an episode of the TV show “The Americans” called “Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow.” That’s another amazing TV show that I’d highly recommend! It’s six seasons, so it’s a real time investment, but it’s fascinating throughout, and I’ve never seen a series stick the landing so well. 
• I think the best film from Frank CAPRA (6A: Frank who directed "It's a Wonderful Life") was “It Happened One Night.” Fight me. 
• My sister got my puppy a BOK Choy (30D) toy! Please now enjoy a picture of her with this toy — and also allow me to bombard you with a couple more pictures because I’m a proud puppy parent :)

And with that, I’ve run out of things to say (but never out of pictures of Red to show off). Hope everyone has a great (and spooky) October!

Signed, Clare Carroll, who's [d]one with the puzzle

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