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Son of Hanna-Barbera's Doggie Daddy / SUN 9-7-25 / Andean stimulant / Intoxicating Asian plant whose name sounds like an insect / Sarastro in Mozart's "The Magic Flute," e.g. / White wine named for a region in France / Like a naughty Beetle Bailey, in brief / Intoxicating Asian plant whose name sounds like an insect / Buddy who portrayed TV's Jed Clampett / Charles or Ray who lent their name to a kind of chair / International shoe brand originating in England
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Constructor: Derrick Niederman
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
Sundays are often weak—hard to sustain a theme, even a good theme, over that much real estate—but I'm slightly astonished at how weak this one felt. Random names clued as random words in very random sentences??? There's no unifying principle at all, no cohesive factor, no ... just no. Maybe if all the names had been complete sentences (like BILL WITHERS) or been composed of regular words (like BILL WITHERS), you'd have some sense of focus, direction, purpose. But no such luck. Can't you do this with lots of names? If you're willing to write a clue ridiculous enough, I think you can. [A crazed fan was removed from the set of "The Six Million Dollar Man" after she threatened to ___ Majors' drink]. [Poughkeepsie MetalFest is sure gonna ___ Valley!] [Why should a God-fearing ___ cotton when we have machines that can do that now?]. Are these good? No, they're awful. I made them up on the spot. But I don't see how they're much more awful than what we get here. Peeping TOM WAITS for Lady Godiva to appear? Ew. (that is the origin of the phrase "peeping Tom," though—fun fact I just learned). The dollar BILL WITHERS?? You'd say the dollar, but not the dollar bill. How in the world do you get away with leaving the "S" out of ULYSSES GRANT? "EDEN on Earth"!?!? What the hell kind of expression is that? It's "heaven on earth." EDEN was on Earth!! The whole thing is baffling. A contrived mess. It certainly goes very, very wacky, and I have to kind of admire that part of it. But no, the clues aren't actually apt or funny most of the time. Just extremely forced. And the title doesn't help at all. "The Name Is the Game?"" What game? How is this a game? I want there to be some underlying "game" theme, but ... I'm not seeing it. I suppose it's possible I'm missing some element of this theme that makes it masterful. If so, I pre-apologize. But as of now, I'm genuinely surprised this puzzle was accepted.
- BILL WITHERS (23A: As the British pound rises in value, the dollar ___)
- TONY ORLANDO (34A: After spending the afternoon at Epcot, we had dinner at a ___ bistro)
- ULYSSES GRANT (51A: Did Joyce write courtesy of a ___?)
- MARK CUBAN (68A: An increase in ham prices forced the deli to ___ sandwiches higher)
- IRVING BERLIN (85A: To Washington, ___ Germany, seemed far from Tarrytown, N.Y.)
- BARBARA EDEN (102A: Some Californians consider Santa ___ on Earth)
- ELLE FANNING (116A: The supermodel was holding a copy of ___ herself on the beach)
- TOM WAITS (50D: Peeping ___ for Lady Godiva to appear)
- DON LEMON (45D: Why do none of the Fruit of the Loom characters ___-colored underwear?)
Sauternes (French pronunciation: [sotɛʁn]) is a French sweet wine from the region of the same name in the Graves section in Bordeaux. Sauternes wine is made from Sémillon, sauvignon blanc, and muscadelle grapes that have been affected by Botrytis cinerea, also known as noble rot. This causes the grapes to become partially raisined, resulting in concentrated and distinctively flavored wines. Due to its climate, Sauternes is one of the few wine regions where infection with noble rot is a frequent occurrence. Even so, production is a hit-or-miss proposition, with widely varying harvests from vintage to vintage. Wines from Sauternes, especially the Premier Cru Supérieur estate Château d'Yquem, can be very expensive, largely due to the very high cost of production. Barsac lies within Sauternes and is entitled to use either name. Somewhat similar but less expensive and typically less-distinguished wines are produced in the neighboring regions of Monbazillac, Cérons, Loupiac and Cadillac. In the United States, there is a semi-generic label for sweet white dessert wines known as sauterne without the "s" at the end and uncapitalized. (wikipedia) // In the 1860's, Californians believed that the best white wine from Bordeaux came from the French region called Sauternes, and "Sauterne" or "Haut Sauterne" later became standard generic labels on bottles of dry or sweet wine in California. (Winegrapes of UC Davis)
• • •
 |
| [92A: EAMES] |
The fill on this puzzle was also on the poor side. I pretty much noped out on this puzzle right here, at the middle initial-free ULYSSES GRANT:
The one consolation for me, as someone who did not care for this puzzle much at all, is that it was over quickly. I knew every name in the grid (including the damn Afghani airline and SAUTERNE), and so there really wasn't any resistance to be found, anywhere. I didn't use the convoluted theme clues to get the theme answers. I just let crosses do their magic, and as soon as something looked like a name, I would write it in. Maybe I checked it quickly against the clue from time to time, just to make sure, but mostly I didn't have to. I made a couple typos today because I was going too fast, but no missteps, no errors. No, wait. I did write in DEICE before DEFOG, so there was that (106D: Clear, in a way, as a windshield). And I had this moment of doubt about which nasalized consonant went in the middle of BA-FF (111A: Canada's first national park, founded in 1885). All I know about BANFF is that my dad went on a ski vacation there once. Only reason I know the name. But somehow BAMFF seemed plausible. And while I guess someone might call [Immaturity] a GREEN MESS, I was pretty sure GREENNESS was what they were going for. I can't see any real trouble spots, or even many things that require explaining. But let's do a lightning round anyway...
Lightning Round:
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
Lightning Round:
- 39A: Like a naughty Beetle Bailey, in brief (AWOL) — "naughty" felt tonally wrong here. Is it just "naughty" to AWOL. Like, aw shucks, I've been a bad widdle boy? Kind of an infantilizing adjective.
- 105D: Intoxicating Asian plant whose name sounds like an insect (BETEL) — it's pronounced "beetle"??? I've been pronouncing it "bettle," like "kettle." I wonder if Beetle Bailey ever experimented with BETEL. Would definitely read "BETEL Bailey." Sounds "naughty."
- 124A: Set of pull-ups? (ARMS) — uh ... not sure I get it. Is it because ARMS are the "set" (of limbs?) that you use to do pull-ups???
- 11D: Buddy who portrayed TV's Jed Clampett (EBSEN) — keeping things current, I see. Jed Clampett was the patriarch on The Beverly Hillbillies, which was big around the same time that "Beetle Bailey" was big. Seriously, after "Blondie," "Beetle Bailey" was the biggest comic strip in America in 1968, which was right in the middle of The Beverly Hillbillies' 1962-71 run. I think BARBARA EDEN was probably at peak fame right about then as well. Yep, I Dream of Jeannie ran 1965-70. What a time to be alive. (I was not alive in 1968). Oh, and what about Doggie Daddy and AUGIE? They feel real 1968 to me ... damn, off by a decade (1958-61). P.S. the son's full name is AUGIE Doggie. AUGIE got top billing. AUGIE Doggie and Doggie Daddy originally aired on the Quick Draw McGraw Show. I'm much happier remembering cartoons than I am thinking about this puzzle any longer.
P.S. reader Jason Tulp sent me a link to a word game he created, which you might enjoy. It's called Infixion. Here's his explanation:
I recently launched a bite-sized daily word game that delivers a fresh take on the Wordle formula. Each day, players are given a specific "infix" like -on- and challenged to find the four highest-scoring words that include it, for example on-ly or b-on-us. The twist is that points are based on Scrabble values, and repeated letters lose value with each use, encouraging variety and strategy.
You can try it out here.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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144 comments:
I usually skip Sundays because they get tedious for me, just don't have the time. This one, at least, was over fairly quickly. The name game didn't make things interesting. Took me a while to get the gimmick, so working around the themers provided a source of interest, and then kind of a mental shrug when I did get them, as the cleverness seemed forced.
Well I liked it more than Rex
Didn't know some of the names , in fact didn't know who most were, but as the letters filled in from crosses they became familiar enough sounding for me to finish them. Had to google a few like Mark Cuban to see if they were people.
I did see a game here. And a rather fun one, fitting names into sentences to mean something else.
Agreed tht Eden doesn't really work for reason Rex gave. But I had no trouble with the middle initial being left off Grant's name. Took me a minute to even get what Rex meant.
Pretty easy. I ambled through this one with out really needing to seriously pause. All the theme names were familiar even AUGIE Doggie (yes, I know he was not a theme answers).
Breezy and amusing, liked it quite a bit more than @Rex did, plus I’m not sure I understand his “I made them up on the spot” clues. That said, it’s late….
Easy, but I needed easy after a long day. Liked it a bit more than @Rex did.
Not much in the way of overwrites or WOEs. I resisted GREENNESS (82D) because it's a terrible word. Also EOLIAN (99D) because as something of a player piano buff I'm more familiar with it with a leading A, Aeolian. I was comfortable with the pronunciation of BETEL (102D) because of the song "Bloody Mary" from South Pacific.
I'm simply astonished at how much this puzzle sucked. The theme was whatever- novel if not exciting- but the fill was absolutely atrocious. ILED crossing EOLIAN is one of the biggest naticks I've seen in a long time. There's UNHARNESS and UNABLE and UNTO and UPDO and UPTODATE and USEDUP. There's MALAYA, which is not what the peninsula is called, and YALEMAN, which is unbelievably lazy fill, and both BASSO and BASSHORN. I could and gladly would go on. This honestly might be one of the worst Sundays I've ever seen.
Couldn't disagree more with Rex about the cleverness of the puzzle (though I do agree it was easy). The theme worked for me, because in places the famous name created the fill, e.g., ULYSSESGRANT (beginning U-L-Y, who else could it possibly be?), while in other places the clue led to the name, e.g. BILLWITHERS. Very creative, IMHO.
While Steve Jobs was in the _____ has it, he invented the iPhone.
JOHN LEGEND
This is actually an (untrue) story widely circulated in the late-2000s, early 2010s.
I thought it was cute. Giggled at many of the theme answers.
Barbara Eden, Buddy Ebsen, Bill Withers, Augie, Beetle Bailey, Irving Berlin, Tony Orlando – wow, way to bring in new, young solvers. And not a single clever phrase in there.
Not UP TO DATE in the slightest.
I found these theme answers delightful. They were fun to guess at with as few crosses as possible and when the answer hit, it brought a happy ping. I loved the clues crafted out of thin air for DON LEMON and IRVING BERLIN.
The buoyant mood was bolstered by fun answers to say – GOGAGA, BASSO, EOLIAN, NINNY, AUGIE, BANFF, and HOBNOB (which is crossed by NAVE-SHAVE).
Not to mention a dook (ILED), UPDO appropriately in the top row, and an alternative answer to DOLLS for [Tiny house occupants] – the nearby ANTS.
I’m glad I did this, Derrick, and grateful that you made it. Thank you!
I also can’t stand how comic strips seem to make little jokes out of everything.
Hard puzzle today. Never heard of SUMATRA, SNL, or HAVANA, found ATEIN distasteful.
Liked TONYORLANDO, it reminded me of some random music video and that made me feel good.
102A "EDEN on Earth" is redundant. In the book of Genesis, it is, by definition, paradise on Earth. The "on Earth" designation is not arbitrary; it is inherent both in EDEN's identity and as a theological concept.
Cute and breezy. I align more with @jae than Rex on this one. Did this puzzle elicit a "Wow, what a construction!"? -- no. Was it fun while working this weekend? Yes.
(I knew Augie Doggie because I watched a ton of TV in my youth...)
For the life of me I can’t figure out what a “Tony Orlando” bistro is.
The rest of the answers can be read correctly with the full name, but a “Tony” bistro? Is it supposed to be misread as “Tiny”, thus being the only answer where the name has to be read aloud to make sense?
I’m open to any suggestions on what this answer was supposed to mean. :/
The puzzle title is an apt revealer for this highly dense theme. I count nine - including those two oddball down themers. A couple are cute but tend to agree with the big guy that the protocol is so broad and rambling that the lacking cohesion ultimately dooms this one.
Isn’t this a Lovely Day
Easy enough that I filled it in with no hitches. The short stuff is gluey but highly basic. I liked LEIT MOTIFF and always love to see the wonderful BANFF. Learned BETEL.
Baby, Baby make me mambo
This one needed to be tighter in theme and fill - but seeing how it’s pouring and feels like March a pleasant enough Sunday morning solve.
Dream away your grey skies too
Fancy, in Orlando, FL
@Anonymous 6:56 AM: "tony" as in chic and pricey.
Tony can mean posh or upscale.
Perhaps a bit easy, but entertaining in a way most recent Sundays have not been. For that, I’m grateful to the constructor!
So easy I didn't mind the awkward themes. I do it on paper and it went as quickly as I could write. A challenging Sunday would be nice one of these days.
Extremely disliked this puzzle. And Tony Orlando had to be the worst of them all. I feel like there's just a major word like Cafe or restaurant missing at the end of that answer
Leitmotif? Isn’t this the most difficult wording of the puzzle?
Tony means fancy
Me as well. Maddening.
As I native of Poughkeepsie whose first concert was Rush at the Civic Center in 1980, I like Rex's second one. But what's the answer to the third, on cotton?
One can only imagine how few and weak the Sunday submissions are if this is the quality Shortz is compelled to accept. Perhaps it's time to raise the payout because this was dire.
Oh. Got it now. That didn't Dawn on me at first.
I was pretty sure Rex would come down on the negative side, but I enjoyed this a lot — it felt like the groany but clever pun-filled Sundays of the 70s and 80s. Yeah, there are nits one can pick — the missing middle initial S in ULYSSES GRANT for one — but that and many others got a smile out of me so I can cut the puzzle a lot of slack. The rest of it was super-easy with some eyebrow-raising clues or answers, but the themers made it fun for me. And I’ve seen Rex be much, much more negative about puzzles. This was one of the more enjoyable Sundays I’ve done for awhile.
Not a wine drinker so I tried SAUCERNE and SAUDERNE before giving up.
Also not an American. Can someone explain what TWPS stands for?
Google says "Tactical Water Purification System."
The best thing about this puzzle is that I completed it in just 3 minutes longer than my personal best. It really skewed kind of old. I was a little kid in the 60s so was familiar with a bunch of answers but, I can see this as being really hard for a lot of people under 50.
How is "the product of the first three primes" thirty? 1x2x3=6 not 30. This is making me crazy!
EAMES ? EOLIAN ? Another boring French math test ? Omg, what a boring slogfest.
Personally, I’ve never understood why constructors and editors continue to embrace popular culture (or in today’s case - unpopular culture) when we all seem to hated it.
I don’t get Rex’s examples: ‘…she threatened to ____ Majors drink…?’ Isn’t the answer ‘Lee’? Can someone please explain the others, too? Thanks!
You’ve never heard of SNL, Havana, or Sumatra? A show that’s been airing for 50 years, one of the closest world capitals to the US, and one of the largest islands in the world?
I don't like a lot of Sunday puzzles, and I almost never like proper name-based Sunday puzzles, but I liked this one. Knowing 89% of the names definitely helped.
Don't grok the ARMS clue at 124A.
Constructor did not want to use James Worthy as a themer, thinking it might be too obscure, then uses DON LEMON????
Agree with Rex that "Eden on earth" is ridiculous.
Rex has been on fire with his video selections this week. From Blondie to Talking Heads to Abba, air kiss.
EAMES ? EOLIAN ? Another French math test ? OMG, what a boring slogfest.
Personally, I’ve never understood why constructors and editors continue to embrace popular culture (or in today’s case, unpopular culture) when we all seem to hate it. Well, if you enjoy that type of thing - today’s your day, so have fun with it.
I think there was a missed opportunity as well - this grid really should have had YUK in it somewhere.
spike lee
Vaya, lo siento por haber preguntado. Trata de relajarte, ¿vale?
A crazy outing with two -- TWO -- typos. One is the constructor's fault. SAUTERNE crossing TWPS. Awful. TWPS, bah! The other, EOLIAN crossing STONED, is partially on me because STOKED kinda fit the clue and EOLIAN is a series of random letters, but I should never underestimate the NYTXW team's obsession with juvenalia. STONED, tee-hee.
I felt like I was being shaken in a paint mixer with this puzzle. Just a crazy up and down all over the place solve. I don't think I know ELLE FANNING, so the clue was helpful, but all the other names seemed like I'd heard them somewhere before.
After years of coaching high school debate, I feel qualified to say most ORATORS give painfully cringey bad talking-tos.
SUMATRA is the birthplace of my favorite coffee beans.
❤️ MOSTEST. GO GAGA.
People: 7
(Theme people): 9
Places: 8
Products: 5
Partials: 12
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge (not counting theme material): 36 of X (26%) But if you include the theme 45 of 140 {32%) {Counting Sundays is wearisome.}
Funny Factor: 4 😕
Tee-Hee: [Area with pews]. [Space balls].
Uniclues:
1 Women's organization sounds a warning.
2 Clear up an old-school philosophical nit.
1 NOW THRUSTS ALARM
2 DEFOG SOCRATIC PEEVE
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Most likely place to find yellow pedallers. MINION BIKE LANE.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
TWPS stands for townships
1 is not a prime bc it only has one factor
Hey All !
I liked this "use names as fill ins for wacky phrases" Theme. I lightbulbed it at ELLE FANNING. Aha!, said I, you use the full name of someone to fill in the blank. Know all the names except DON LEMON.
Played tougher-than-time-says today, as it felt like it took longer to solve, with getting stuck in a few spots. Finished error free with no lookups, so YAY ME!
Did have a few writeovers, BASSoOns-BASSHORN, TwenTY-THIRTY, cry-SOB, and probably one or two more that aren't jumping out at me post solve.
No complaints from me today. Neat concept, Theme clues weren't terrible, a FunSunPuz.
Way to recover the F use in the South, after the dearth of them throughout puz. 😁
Have a great Sunday, and a fun first full day of Football!
Four F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers.
I normally align w Rex but i liked it. “A Tony Orlando bistro” made me lol. 🤷🏻♀️
1 is not prime. 2 is the first prime number. 2x3x5=30
Township
Apparently TWPS stands for "Townships." Thanks I hate it
Fun theme for an enjoyable Sunday puzzle. Have to disagree with Rex on this one- the theme answers alternated between clever and punny. I was looking forward to each upcoming themers as I zipped (not slogged) through the fill.
Derrick, if you're not a boomer, you're retro! Although Elle Fanning is relevant and so is boomer Mark Cuban. Look forward to some more themers from you
No comments about Yesman and Yaleman? I was convinced one had to be wrong as it’s too dupe-y for me.
Townships
Oh, I'm sure he rejects plenty of better Sundays
Regarding ULYSSESGRANT...if the answer had been HARRYTRUMAN, would anyone have complained about a missing middle initial? For the record, Grant's "S" stands for Simpson, his mother's maiden surname. Grant adopted it for a middle initial; he was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, but didn't like the name "Hiram." Harry Truman also falsified his name; the "S' stands for nothing, so "Harry Truman" would be accurate. This is a tempest in a teapot.
Sorry Southside but your comment seems uncharacteristically snobbish today. Congratulations Derek on a really good one! Thank you.
So after what feels like eons of fruitless complaining in vain about too many names in the NYT puzzle, here comes a puzzle with a theme consisting entirely of names and I say "what fun!"
As he promises, Derrick has made a game out of them. I love games. All these names rang a bell, even if I didn't know exactly who many of the people were or exactly what they did. And the clues were SO fair. It seems a long time since we've had clues that really played fair. But when you insert the names into the clue, you get a sentence that makes complete sense. It's very well done.
One of the best parts of the puzzle was what I didn't have to do. I didn't have to identify any sitcom character names or any Netflix movies or any rock band members or any action heroes. I'm sure ELLE FANNING is known for something, but I'm damned if I have any idea what it is. Here it doesn't matter; her name rang a bell, sort of. Same with BILL WITHERS.
Derrick seems to have no agenda other than to amuse us. He certainly wasn't trying to "win" -- i.e. stump us with crisscrossing trivia. Yes, it was a very easy puzzle , but it also was very enjoyable and whooshy. Bravo, I say!
He was ULYSSES GRANT to his friends.
Christian Bale?
I enjoyed the geographical overlap of Washington IRVING BERLIN. Loved Rex’s observation that “EDEN was on Earth.” And I agree that leaving the middle initial out of Grant’s name is a sin on the order of leaving out the E in OCTAVIA E. BUTLER.
BASS HORN sent me down an interesting rabbit hole of reading about early 19th-century brass instruments. Now I’m ready for a puzzle to throw me OPHICLEIDE, or CIMBASSO, or maybe HIBERNICON. Also a new definition for SERPENT, not to mention the RUSSIAN BASSOON, which is not a bassoon. All are types of BASS HORN.
Second is Rock Hudson but I don't get the third.
@Rex is right that you can make a bunch up quickly. Here are a few, with answers below:
Although he loved sweets, his need to urinate made him decide, "First the _____, _____ later."
Although it was only May, she was so hot hat she had to _________ ___________ dress.
He knew where the space bar, the backspace and the return were, but when it came to preset indents, he was still a hopeless _____ _____?
As a river protects its fish, so a ____ _____ its minnows.
Any polyglots notice the THIRTY/TRENTE dupe/copie?
Mrs. Egs recently had to undo and redo her UPDO as she'd left her drivers license inside it.
A venomous lizard at a Jewish wedding in Cuba is a HAVANA Gila.
The name thing did get a little tedious by the end, so I was relieved when there was NOTATE.
I thought this was fun stuff. I'd also suggest that @Rex and guest hosts simply note that some fill answers were less than 5 letters rather than listing them as if a good constructor would have come up with previously unused short words. Anyway, thanks, Derrick Niederman.
JOHN CANDY
DONNA SUMMER
TAB HUNTER
BROOK SHIELDS
I’m with Lewis et al. I found it easy but cute and FUN. I don’t get as worked up over imperfect puzzles as OFL does. I guess my standards are lower than some folks’.
FWIW, the answers I have for Rex's inventions are Spike Lee, Rock Hudson, and Christian Bale.
Sorry, what’s distasteful about ATE IN?
Raising hand as someone who likes pop culture clues, though I do realize of the demographic that reads this blog I’m in the minority. I do agree this leaned too heavily on it though. It’s one thing if you specifically build a puzzle around, say, Star Trek characters or something (won’t be for everyone but at least there’s a link and specificity there), and something like this where it’s just a bunch of random mostly outdated names.
Christian Bale, I believe.
It's understandable that if you want your puzzle to be accessible to a broad audience, then you'd look for some common denominator of knowledge, and pop culture fits that role about as well as anything, like it or not. (Besides, I'm not sure about this "we".)
The main thing that stands out in this case is that the pop culture is no longer "pop" -- it's stuck in the past.
I did not have a problem leaving the S out of the Ulysses Grant answer, in the same way that I wouldn’t object to using Dwight Eisenhower or John Kennedy to identify those two presidents. We know who they are without their middle initials. It’s actually more interesting to me that the S in Grant’s name was a clerical error from his West Point application and not, in fact, his legal birth name, which was Hiram Ulysses Grant.
NGL. This was a pretty unpleasant solving experience.
Surprised Rex didn't call out YALEMAN and YESMAN as dupes.
Christian Bale
On Rex's note about Jason Tulp's infix word game, one of his examples doesn't work. A prefix comes before a word and a suffix comes after. An INFIX has to come BETWEEN the parts of a word. Even BONUS is incorrect, because ON is not functioning as an infix. When I was teaching college Linguistics years ago, my students loved the lecture on Infixes, because the only real one I could find in American English was f**k, as in unF**kingbelievable or outF**kingrageous, etc.
Agreed: it was relatively easy. Liked it a bit better than Rex did, while acknowledging he has some legit points. The best themed answer was ELLE FANNING, by a country mile. I think BILL WITHERS had some potential if only it were clued differently: the good thing about that is that both the first and last names are ordinary English words, whereas all the others lean on the name-like property of one of the two halves, e.g., ORLANDO is the name of the beach.
TIL that all of Shakespeare's plays have five acts. Who knew? I also learned that BETEL is pronounced like "beetle" -- all these years I've been thinking it was more like "Bay-tel".
The flow of the grid felt unusual, for example, you have to dig down a ways before you can tunnel your way from the NW to the NE. Full of little nooks and crannies.
Banff is a beautiful place; we stayed at the Banff Springs Hotel on our honeymoon many years ago! Had the honeymoon suite, which had, yes, a heart-shaped bed. Lovely memory.
I liked the names and places in this puzzle so didn't find fault with it.
Had BUG OUT instead of GO GAGA for "Get crazy over," but that was the only hitch.
@Twangster: Christian Bale.
No, there are some names which are always pronounced with the middle initial included; they sound really off otherwise. No one says "John Reilly" when they mean John C. Reilly. No one says "William Macy" when they mean William H. Macy. But I can easily find examples where people just say "Harry Truman".
Did you misread the answer? You wouldn't put the word cafe or restaurant after the word bistro. The answer is clever and makes perfect sense—a tony [fancy] Orlando bistro.
Finally, a themed puzzle where you actually have to struggle with the theme answers to finish - at least I had to. I had a great time trying to figure out what name would work and didn't care that they were silly or uninspired. Had that great crossword puzzle experience where the answers weren't easy and yet were all getable with a little work.
Finished without the happy music and eventually discovered that COb didn't feel right (baby swan maybe but not baby anything else), and yet couldn't figure out what "spots you might go" in the UK, so ran the alphabet and voila. Probably would have figured out COW eventually but breakfast was ready. Pleasant way to spend 39:12 on a rainy Sunday.
Your arms are the things that allow you to perform pull-ups.
I can't believe it was accepted either. At this point, if utterly irredeemable messes like this are getting published, I want to see what in the world they're turning down.
Heh, there is a John Kennedy however, and he's a sitting US Senator representing Louisiana. The kindest thing I'll say about him is, "John Kennedy, you're no John F. Kennedy". (Funny, now that I refresh my memory, what Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle is, "you're no Jack Kennedy".)
Chuckled out loud… So that’s a win
I don't know - maybe it's just me - but I liked it a lot :). It was a very pleasant change from the usual Sundays where I spend too much time trying to figure out a constructor's ego trip in a huge grid & then wind up searching for a typo. I know it was easy - easier than most Sundays - but that's okay for a change. I thought it was a very pleasant experience & I thank you, Derrick, for it :)
Our honeymoon was at a resort hosting a urologist's convention. Our room had a kidney-shaped bed. Could have been worse. (Fill in your own joke.)
I will never understand the negativity…I ALWAYS enjoy quiet time with my coffee and magazine, sitting outside doing the Sunday , and no matter how hard or easy, it’s delightful. Eden on earth for me. This was cute and easy, and I like cute and easy.
I work at high school in a township and I still naticked here.
Easy except for Naticks at 67A and 114A. I've never heard of that wine, I didn't think of TWPS although I should have, never heard of LEIFMOTIF or BETEL. This one just wasn't for me.
I hated this puzzle, BUT the bright spot was knowing Rex would hate it just as much, and anticipating the grumpy writeup that perfectly echoed my complaints. "Keeping things current, I see." LOL.
I'm with @Nancy 9:18 on this one, enjoying the guessing game and the fun of seeing how the names fix into the syntax of the clues. GRANTed, I only know who three of the personages actually are, but the rest of the names were familiar enough. Like TONY ORLANDO, the first one I got, with a very happy light-bulb moment of understanding how the game worked.
Yeah, I'll stick with the heart-shaped bed! ;-D
If a puzzle was built around Star Trek characters as mentioned above, I wouldn't even bother & throw it against @Nancy's wall.
Ease up, Rex. I liked it
Started this one on line, left for my half hour drive to sing in a church choir, came back and finished it and although my PC paused the puzzle, I thought, it took me nearly three hours, according to the official timer. This is why I usually print them out.
OK if pretty easy Sunday. Caught on at BILLWITHERS, saw who was going in the blanks and thought I know I know I know, I know I know, I know I know I know, and so on.
I thought this was skewing on the older side, which is fine with me. Everyone was familiar except Ms. Fanning. How do you do?
Is "space balls" a funny clue for PLANETS? No, it is not. Also agree with those who found TWPS to be an act of desperation.
Not bad at all, DN. While this Did Nothing to change my opinion of Sunday puzzles it had a fair amount of fun, for which thanks.
1968. What time to be alive. We weren’t electing a sociopath pres—Oh wait. At least the Democratic Party wasn’t in complete disar—Um, hmm. BARBARA EDEN was cool, right?
But you’ve apparently never heard of sarcasm, so…
Thanks. That might be because the friends knew the "S" was artificial, added to make him sound more statesmanlike. A lot of people have been fooled.
I thought the theme was pretty hard, but I personally loved AUGIE because that was our doggo's name... I also knew how to say BETEL because they sing about it in South Pacific
I didn't dislike this puzzle. I think I figured out what was going on at ELLE FANNING (I solve randomly so that isn't surprising that I found myself down at the bottom early on). After that, I mostly quit reading the theme clues and just tried to get a person's name in, waiting to read the clues until after finishing. It was pretty easy - I only had 5 erasures - IRAS before ARIS, SAUtERNE, and I wanted aiMEs instead of EAMES.
Watching the Quick Draw McGraw clips that Rex posted was painful. I used to think that was funny? I can't imagine a kid today thinking it was amusing.
LEITMOTIF seems like a very fancy word to apply to the Jaws shark-warning notes.
Thanks, Derrick Niederman, for an interesting theme idea.
I liked the sometimes Friday-ish level of difficulty in spots. Some of the themers were spot on like DONLEMON . Others, not so much. Overall, pretty good.
A disaster occurred in 1912 because a ship's captain who was born in a small town in Germany thought his lieutenant was saying, "That's a nice berg." Sorry.
I use the app..and the world 'bistro' was not part of the clue.
I can think of some expressions that fit the description such as West By God Virginia.
What happened to Patrick Berry? It looks like he’s been replaced by somebody name Eric Berlin in the NY Times Sunday Magazine puzzle pages.
Kinda clever & funny & easy-ish SunPuztheme. That'll work, for m&e.
Anybody put Saint NICHOLAS in a CAGE, yet?
RIPTORN woulda been way too easy, I reckon.
Ditto for LADYGAGA, plus they already had a GOGAGA in their grid fill.
staff weeject pick: WCS. Nice plural abbreve meat and clue.
Thanx for the fun, Mr. Niederman dude. U kinda prefer makin the SunPuzs, I see. [15 Sundays, and no puzs for any other day.] OK by m&e, if U like to dabble in constructioneer suffrage. Certainly enjoyed yer results.
Masked & Anonymo12Us
... thars hars ahead ...
"Clues Just 4 Laughs" - 7x7 themed runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
@Pablo, I wouldn't call it desperate. I actually live in a TWPS, or at least that abbreviation appears on some of the packages that get stuffed in my mailbox. It's officially called the Township of Langley; at least that's what's printed on their stationery and the sides of their trucks. And while the word appears at the top of their website, all subsequent mentions of the place call it a municipality. Go figure.
I was confused by the spelling of Lao Tse. All my Google searches turned up Lao Tzu.
Disappointing that neither serpent nor ophicleide fit as the tuba ancestor. (Hi @Andy Freude!) I hopped down that brass rabbit hole too, and ran across the Bombardon, which I do not remember from music school. Looks like it is more closely related to the tuba since it has VALVES, not keys like the early ophicleide, serpent, and Russian bassoon (which is apparently Belgian).
“The bombardon and the ophicleide in German lands are historically related in a curious way: the sound of the French ophicleide was not much appreciated, though its name was welcomed. Conversely, the sound of the bombardon was widely admired, but not its name. Thus it transpired that the bombardon, specifically the type that was built in the shape of an ophicleide, was often called “ophicleide.” This ironic twist continues in the organological literature to this day to cause confusion when it comes to the question of the difference between the German ophicleide and the bombardon.” -Herbert Heyde, from an article at historicbrass.org. Sure enough, I found a couple of tuba nerds arguing about it on YouTube.
But I also found this lovely TRIO being played at the Ophicleide Summit in BERLIN. (The sound is nice enough but the video is wobbly - I enjoyed it more with my EYEs closed.)
More musical entries - NOTATE (for the 2nd time this week), TRIO, BASSO.
Speaking of TRIO, there was a LEITMOTIF of three Eat A Sandwich phrases: IN A ROW, UP TO DATE, ON A BET.
No TRUE complaints. I thought the puzzle Sundayed: decent idea for a theme plus some okay longer stuff like SOCRATIC, brought down by dull cluing and sub-optimal short fill. Still had fun.
@Lewis 6:10 am: The story I heard was, the Apple bigwigs were in a meeting and Steve was frustrated with his phone. "What a piece of junk", he said. Then: "Hey, we should make a phone".
The theme was sorta okay. It could have been more consistent, as some of them repurpose a first or last name into a regular word (TONY, GRANT, MARK), or both(BILL WITHERS), but IRVING BERLIN leaves them both as names.
I'm surprised Rex doesn't know BANFF. Of all the places in Canada, I thought it was famous. It's certainly beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful: it's not, here... thick wildfire smoke in the Okanagan. Can't even see across the valley or tell where the sun is.
Thanks THT @ 9:51.
And Bravo Rex.
It was fun seeing the answers with Rex's clues. They were very clever.
It was past my bedtime when I read the blog last night so didn't even try to get the answers. Doubt that I could have, anyway, without crosses to jog my memory - for the past decade forgetting names has been my highest skill.
Agree with the commenter who wanted eolian to start with an A. But I love the word. The first time I heard it an artist was talking about making an aeolian harp and I thought he was saying "alien". No, he meant aeolian, a harp sculpted of metal and placed outdoors where it would sing in the wind. My husband and I almost commissioned one. Not sure why we didn't.
https://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/search?q=GLENN+CLOSED
This is the same theme idea but it's double-consistent, in that all the people are actors and all the last names are verbs (turned to past tense and wackified), and still Rex pointed out that there were so many options to pick from.
As a non-American who doesn't care much about pop culture, I didn't find this as easy as others did. I've learned about DON LEMON and ELLE FANNING from crosswords. ULYSSES GRANT was the only name that came to me immediately from the clue. But -RAEDEN looked so wrong even though the crosses were super solid. I don't remember seeing BARBARA EDEN in a clue for the ubiquitous EDEN, so that was a learning moment I'll have to keep in mind for future puzzles.
TWPS?! I had to run the alphabet at the T. I had SAUvERNE because I mixed it up with SAUVIGNON. VWP is a non-existent Volkswagen model, and it looks just as ridiculous as TWP. Not to mention that even when I knew I'd finished the puzzle correctly, I couldn't believe I was staring at STUY with my own two eyes.
First time I've encountered Leit Motif in my 72 years.
Easy yet fun -- but only if you recognized the names. I was lucky enough to recognize all of them except for ELLE FANNING, but that one still fell into place from the crosses. I thought, though, that "naughty" Beetle Bailey would be ONKP, not AWOL -- if he's AWOL, he's not just "naughty," he's basically committing a crime.
Hahahaha
Yes! I thought it was a themed and couldn’t get the name. Either way never heard that one
My biggest complaint is using “low-quality paper” as the clue for “rag”. Rag paper is the highest quality there is!
Yep, I've heard of townships, so "desperate" is probably overdoing it. I'll change seeing the letters TWPS together as "unlikely".
Actually loved the puzzles and the humor of the theme answers. It was a little too easy but so what? It’s nice to have a breezy Sunday puzzle - once in a while
@Les, there are several variations in BC for what I think of as "municipality". Bigger places are literally called "city", eg City of Penticton. Some are villages, eg Village of Lumby. Many suburban areas are called "district", but some are "township", eg Township of Spallumcheen. But Summerland, where I used to live and is not suburban at all, seems to be officially District of Summerland. Yeesh.
* Ronald has no artistic talent -- but look at the pictures NANCY DREW!
* The ten-year-old kid inherited a million dollars from his grandfather, so now he's a RICH LITTLE guy.
The DON LEMON clue was pretty edgy for NYTXW
Brooke Shields doesn't quite work (unless there is also a Brook Shields unknown to me - which would not be all that surprising given my pop culture knowledge).
I’ve never heard BANFF pronounced with a nasal n. BAN rhymes with CAN, then add an F sound. Although pronouncing to myself casually, I could see hearing it with an “M” in the middle. Also shocked Rex isn’t immediately familiar - wheelhouses work that way, I guess.
I’ll always remember the EAMES chair after hearing a partygoer loudly deciding whether to buy the really expensive original at the same party where many people were struggling financially.
@philip i see this has been answered but fwiw, i am american and have (had] no idea what TWPS means. never heard of it. and even after reading other's explanations (thanks!] it still doesn't really make sense as an abbreviation. (i believe it, it just looks...Not Good.] i'm also not a wine drinker so, solving on the web i just "cheated" by running the alphabet there and waiting for the music. i often say something like "all that aside i enjoyed the puzzle", but frankly...i didn't, lol.
(readers please excuse my nonstandard parentheses usage, my keyboard is on the way out - several keys no longer function so i have to make do.]
-stephanie.
LMTR...I liked more than Rex for the simple reason that I encountered no naticks in this one. As Gary has shown, the PPP count was reasonably low to boot. The theme was no great shakes, and included several names as answers totally unfamiliar to me, but in the end, a theme is just a LEITMOTIF to anchor the construction, so count me satisfied for a change....
My 1972 English language edition of the Tao Te Ching from Random House is authored by some impostor called Lao Tsu!
By the way, Rex's suspicion that it could be Bamff is sort of supportable cuz that's how it's pronounced.
it's referringh to newspapers, where the bottom feeder news publications are known as rags
Ah, but consider this: you and I probably represent about 50% of the people here who have ever purchased or, better yet, made their own rag paper. Also please consider that when I worked as a graphic artist/designer for our city's broadsheet newspaper - the, ahem, "paper of record" - we called the tabloid published next door "that rag". So the clue sorta works.
For not the first time, RHINO has been clued with no abbreviation in the wording: the NYTXW is usually pretty particular about that kind of stuff, so the inconsistency is a PEEVE of mine.
@Les, you are exactly correct. It is "Bamf". "Banf" just sounds icky.
Anonymous 5:29 AM
Perhaps you are confusing the country, Malaysia, with the still current name of the peninsula, which extends into Thailand., but Wikipedia says the answer is accurate.
Once you get the other letters, what else makes sense for I_ED.? You might criticize the answer but the letter L is inferable. So definitely not a natick.
Yale man is an actual thing. It goes back to the time when Yale only admitted men, as when the 2 politicians went there.
About dupes Will Shortz has allowed dupes all the time. He has no rule against them. So if you do the Times puzzle you have to accept dupes (that’s why Rex only complains about “egregious “ ones).
Nothing wrong with not liking the puzzle. but be fair with the criticism
Bob Mills
I agree with you about the puzzle. The theme also helped me fill it in. Rex seems to look for a bigger overarching theme. I think a set of names is just fine.
Son Volt
A commenter mentioned it earlier (speaking of songs) but betel nut appears in a song in “South Pacific “. A musical I saw as a child and I played a recording endlessly It took me a second to remember it but pronunciation was not a problem! !
Mathgent
I agree with you. And I knew he would complain about the missing S. Didn’t bother me either!
Southside Johnny
About Eolian and Eames
Unclear what you are getting at. But I gather this time you are not criticizing pop culture clues but what you consider too obscure names? Well a lot of people don’t mind references to Greek mythology or mid century modern furniture Eames has been in the puzzle more than once. A bit of crosswordese maybe. But I don’t think many people complained about them. All Rex said was he was used to the older spelling of Aeolian
I think it is referring to a low-quality publication, which is often called a rag.
I’m in my 30’s (so not even particularly young), and this puzzle was such a slog.
@burtonkd. An Eames chair story. My wife used to shop online at the Hudson's Bay Company, Canada's oldest department store - 350 years in business - and they were going bankrupt and she noticed this chair on sale. A knock-off of a classic Eames chair from a respectable German manufacturer, originally priced at $2,700 ticketed at 50% off. I said I would go look at it. She'd always wanted one one, What could I do? So I sat in it in the showroom and it was lovely, but over a grand for one chair, maybe not. Don't even ask about the price of the originals. When I sat in it, I noticed it had an "improvement" on the original version; it had a lever under the right hand arm that was supposed to activate a recline function. But it didn't. When I brought that to his attention he looked like had no idea what to do. We flipped the chair over and had a look at the mechanism.I could see that it was fixable but he, with his limited knowledge and limited set of tools, was stymied. I'm not what you'd call a predatory shopper but I knew I had this harried guy, who had 3 other customers waiting, over the ropes. So I offered him $450 for the chair, "I'll try to fix it myself, and I'll take it right off the floor right now." He acquiesced. "But not without the footstool". "That's $450," he said. "No it's not," I said. "You don't have more than $100 invested in that thing and you need to move it out because you really can't sell it without the chair." Sold. Totally weird because I'm the guy who can't barter the price of carrots at the farmers' market. I feel simultaneously good and bad about that whole thing.
Everyone who visits wants to sit in that thing. It's the best chair ever and I still haven't fixed the reclining function.
God awful puzzle. Sheesh. Could not agree more with Rex.
I also use the app, and the word bistro was there.
For anyone reading this late, if we hadn’t already beat the township horse to death, I may be able to shed some light on the authenticity of the admittedly ugly and absolutely “wrong seeming” abbreviation.
Back when folks (especially in the land run and prairie parts of the country) purchased, or more often staked a claim and worked to “prove up” their ability to survive as homesteaders and receive their land grant certificates (called different things in different parts of the US), rough maps were drawn and kept in local Land Offices. These records identified who had registered a claim, its location as well as how many folks were residing on and working the claim. These maps and the types of information documented in the local records improved as more settlers arrived and became owners. Often, before enough folks were owners but were working the land and living in the area, as surveyors worked throughout the territory, rough lines were drawn in essence guessing where county and city seats of government might ultimately be. These roughed out places helped keep track of parcels and the growing population. Many times these areas were designated as townships. Since all the early maps were hand drawn, lots of abbreviations became standard in Land Offices. Among the most common was TWP for Township.
Once populations became large enough to establish formal county government, Land Offices and their meticulous ownership records eventually became the responsibility of the County Clerk. The Clerk is the local keeper of cherished history, and although almost all the records are now digitized, I love the big old red books, especially their unique “old book” smell. Working closely with County clerks was one of the most fascinating and rewarding parts of my daily lawyer life in Oklahoma for over four decades.
Occasionally, some detail is of such critical importance that the Clerk and whomever needs the information must see the original document, now kept in vaults off site. In the rural part of Central Oklahoma where I worked, these original books are now stored in underground vaults in the Hutchinson Salt Mines in Hutchinson, Kansas. Need for review of original records gave new meaning to “a trip to the salt mine.” This is but one of the trivial but useful for crosswords things I learned in a career as legal counsel to county governments.
Yes, betel nut is pronounced like the insect …. or member of greatest band ever (imho). 🪲🪲🪲🪲
AMEN re the band!
Aaahhh yes paper! Rag paper!! Writing with a juicy fountain pen or better yet an old school dip pen on rag paper is a very zen experience! My daughter, knowing my enthusiasm for what she called as a toddler “wet writing,” dived into paper making. Early on, as she learned, three blenders gave their lives. Two could be repaired as I detected the telltale aroma of an electric motor about to burn out.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia and can tell you it is in fact pronounced “bettle “ and not “beetle”. That one drove me crazy
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