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Question after "Well, well, well ..." / THU 4-2-26 / "Family Guy" character with a nasal voice / Object in Pixar's logo / Part of a Batman costume / Airer of the game show "Wipeout" / One side in a "Holy War" rivalry in college football / Gas company with a triangular logo / Instrument once known as a "toy trumpet" / Made in a nonmechanized way, as food products
Thursday, April 2, 2026
Constructor: Joe Marquez
Relative difficulty: Medium
 |
| [9A: Sci-fi warrior (JEDI)] |
Theme answers:
- "W | T | VE WE HERE?" (16A: Question after "Well, well, well ...")
- "T | T SHIP | S SAILED" (22A: "Too late to do anything about it now")
- W | LE S | RKS (36A: Marine creatures that can grow to the size of double-decker buses)
- "T | NKS BUT NO T | NKS" (50A: Sarcastic response to an unwanted offer)
The whale shark (Rhincodon typus) is a slow-moving, filter-feeding carpet shark and the largest known extant fish species. An individual with a length of 18.8 m (61.7 ft) has been considered the largest reliably recorded. The whale shark holds many records for size in the animal kingdom, most notably being by far the most massive living non-cetacean animal. It is the only living species of the genus Rhincodon and the only extant member of the family Rhincodontidae, which belongs to the subclass Elasmobranchii in the class Chondrichthyes. [...] Whale sharks inhabit the open waters of all tropical oceans. They are rarely found in water below 21 °C (70 °F) The lifespan of a whale shark is estimated to be between 80 and 130 years, based on studies of their vertebral growth bands and the growth rates of free-swimming sharks.
The species was distinguished in April 1828 after the harpooning of a 4.6 m (15 ft) specimen in Table Bay, South Africa. Andrew Smith, a military doctor associated with British troops stationed in Cape Town, described it the following year. The name "whale shark" refers to the animal's appearance and large size; it is a fish, not a mammal, and, like all sharks, is not closely related to whales. (wikipedia)
• • •
Had a weird amount of trouble getting started because of CULTS / COWL (1A: Fanatical groups / 1D: Part of a Batman costume). Just couldn't see either of them. I wanted Batman to be wearing a HOOD (I had the first "O" from OPERA in place (13A: One of 22 works by Mozart, but just one work by Beethoven)), and I couldn't get SECTS out of my head for the [Fanatical groups]. The fact that that same section had two of the dark lines in it made getting started even harder. Maybe not "hard," just slow. I forgot LOIS had a "nasal" voice—I really haven't thought about Family Guy at all since the '90s unless I'm forced to, so that also prevented me from getting out of the blocks too fast. I also wanted that first themer to be something like "WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?" or "LOOK WHAT WE HAVE HERE?" so the "HA" trick was not clear at that point. I picked it up a little later, with the next themer. While the puzzle felt very choppy, it wasn't particularly hard after I pocketed the gimmick. Some of the clues on the short stuff felt maybe a little tougher than usual, but I wouldn't be surprised if this played easier than usual for some people, since the gimmick today isn't particularly complicated, in the end.
Bullets:
- 6A: Dish often topped with lime and cilantro (PHO) — had the "P," wrote in POI. Total reflex.
- 44A: Gas company with a triangular logo (CITGO) — oh boy, two gas companies today, that's fun. No, not fun ... what's the opposite of "fun"? (27D: The first letter in this gas brand's logo resembles a backward 3 = ESSO)
- 12D: Teed off (IRKED) — had IRATE here at first. Also had CEO instead of COO because why would you clue a perfectly good word like that—with a cruddy business initialism? (20A: Exec who manages a company's day-to-day affairs). Boo. (COO = C.O.O. = Chief Operating Officer)
- 46A: One side in a "Holy War" rivalry in college football (UTES) — lol what? Since when has anyone (outside Utah) cared what Utah did in sports? I know all colleges and universities have rivalries that are meaningful to them, but ... the UTES? I was unaware they had a rivalry at all, let alone one worthy of the name "Holy War"—I hope it's vs. Notre Dame, because otherwise the name seems awfully hyperbolic. Oh, it's BYU. OK, yeah, that's like the Notre Dame of Utah, that'll do. Still, if I had to list all the college sports rivalries I was aware of ... well, clearly I would not have listed this one.
- 63A: School with a larger-than-life bronze statue of Henry VI (ETON) — I'm assuming the statue exists because Henry VI founded the damn place. The timeline feels right, I know the school dates from 14-something ... yep, founded 1440 by Henry VI. Henry (the last monarch of the House of Lancaster) eventually died in the Tower, during the War of the Roses, possibly bludgeoned to death on the orders of Edward IV (House of York).
- 7D: "Let ___ Go" (2012 Passenger hit) ("HER") — Passenger? OK. No idea who that is. Also, no idea what Wipeout is, and couldn't tell you a single show currently airing on TBS (47D: Airer of the game show "Wipeout"). Looks like "Let HER Go" was a massive international hit (No. 5 on the U.S. charts) and then ... no other hits. A few singles, but nothing at all that charted in the U.S. I'm listening to "Let HER Go" right now and it is totally unfamiliar. Also, to my ears ... let's say, not interesting. So forget "Let HER Go," I'm gonna play the Zombies instead.
That's all. See you next time.
[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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89 comments:
12:03 for me today, which I think is medium for a Thursday. I struggled with the 1st themer, couldn’t figure out whether 4 down was TRuSses or TRESTLE…. I knew there were some missing letters, so I was trying to figure out what the rebus spelled…. Almost rebused “HATHA” in there and figured it was a yoga rebus? But then as I worked my way down, by the time you got to WLESRKS you saw you were just missing the letters “HA” twice in each themer where the dark lines were. Then I skipped down to the revealer to see how it was going to be presented—HA HA, LAUGH LINES! OK, that’s pretty good! Long downs were good—LEVITATED and ARTISANAL. And any puzzle that starts with CULTS and ends with my favorite word I learned in Jr. High, AGLET, is OK in my book! @Roomonster, don’t be too disappointed… after all, there is an “F” sound in the revealer, right????? Thanks, Joe, for an interesting and new way to do Thursday trickery! : )
Easy-Medium. Got the gimmick right away at 16A.
* * * _ _
Overwrites:
My 1A fanatical groups were @Rex secTS before they were CULTS
xEna before lEia before JEDI for the 9A warrior
One WOE: I didn't know actor IAN Somerhalder, but I had it filled in before I read the clue.
Former Utahn here. Took me way too long to write in "utes." Not because I didn't recall that BYU vs U of U football rivalry is called the Holy War, but because I thought that would be so obscure it wouldn't be in the NYT crossword! One of the few fun moments for me today, unfortunately (and I'm in the very specific target audience for that clue).
Once I got the revealer, I smiled, adding my own laugh lines! I enjoyed the initial struggle and found the payoff worth it.
Got the trick quickly, filled in all the squares accurately, but no music sounded... because I made rebuses out of the "ha(s)." A better revealer might have included the word "disappearing," or some hint to the fact that the laughter syllables are unseen in the completed grid (which looks silly, IMHO).
Fantastic - suitably tricky for the day and in general well filled. The revealer was fun - I jumped to it pretty quickly and the game became a little clearer.
ECHO
Agree with the big guy - not overly challenging - but things like LEVITATED, ARTISANAL, JOY RIDE kept it interesting. Learned some KAZOO trivia.
The only Passenger I know
Highly enjoyable Thursday morning solve. I’ll take one like this every week.
Won't you get hip to this timely tip
When you make that California trip
Liked it more than Rex did. It was nicely tricky, although my bewilderment over the theme answers (rebus or no rebus?) gave way as soon as I got the revealer.
I had Batman in a cape before a COWL (doesn’t he wear a cape too?)
Quite happy to learn about the WHALESHARK, and I love the phrase THATSHIPHASSAILED.
What you might say about paintings with an insane attention to detail: ARTISANAL
Yesterday's clue for DOG TOY was exactly what I complained to my orthopedist about: Bone that squeaks.
Speaking of sports rivalries, it's been a long time since I've been up to Fenway, but everyone there is very familiar with the big CITGO sign standing alone in plain view from the stands. And those folks are eyeing that YANK at 18A suspiciously today.
But I was down at Camden Yards to see the Birds beat up Texas yesterday. Critics of baseball complain how little action there is most of the time. So I enjoyed overhearing a little girl attending her first game behind me. Nimmo was leading off for Texas in the top of the first, and the count was 1 and 2 on him. "Mommy," she asked. "When is it starting?"
My Batman was initially wearing a Cape, which worked just dandy with CULTS.
No dark bars in my grid, which maybe made things harder. But not a ton harder. The rest of the NW corner was very easy, so it became clear that WHAT HAVE WE HERE had something funny going on. Initially, it looked like that something might be a rebus on HATHA (hi, Rick Sacra), but only in the across answer for some reason.
But that ship sailed when I got to THAT SHIP HAS SAILED, and then I knew to look for missing HA HAs.
High props for originality here. I don’t ever remember seeing this gimmick before (and please correct me, someone, if I’m wrong) – these thick black vertical lines, which act as rebuses.
You know those rebuses that work one direction but not the other, and cause confusion simply because they only work one way? Today’s thick black rebus lines can ONLY work across.
I bow down to Joe, coming up with something new in Crosslandia. Bravo, sir.
I also love the theme answers – all colorful, worthy, and all NYT answer debuts. When they turned out to be so beautiful, it added to my appreciation.
Speaking of beauty: INKLING! ATISINAL! JOYRIDE! KAZOO!
One more thing. I often report on my attempts to guess the revealer after filling in the theme answers, which are mostly failures. But today, my friends, I popped it right in without a single cross. If you tell me that task was easy today, I will not hear you, as I am cocooned in my joy.
So tHAt HAppened. A lovely cap to a lovely outing. Thank you Joe!
That was supposed to be fun? I guess the joke is on us.
I know we need to have a stunt or gimmick today, but this sure seems like it’s reaching way down to the bottom of the barrel to come up with something. It would have been better as a rebus, perhaps with the circles to clue everyone in. At least the finished grid wouldn’t look as though it had been completed by a random letter generator.
I still differentiate between a theme (even a very tricky one) and a stunt so convoluted that the grid ends up filled with gibberish. I probably should blow off Thursdays completely, which is too bad since I underwent a brief renaissance recently where I was actually able to discern a few of the gimmicks and find these types of grids mildly enjoyable.
A lovely theme answer, combining the double-rebus HA, and its suggestion of laughter, would be:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
C/rlie C/plin
The best part today was revisiting the Zombies. Thank you, Rex. Man, music was changing fast around 1964!
When I figured out the letters in the rebus, I thought for a moment that the bars were the sunken fences known in landscape design as HA-HAs.
A puzzle is supposed to keep a mind sharp and to enjoy. This one did it for me.🎈🎈🎊🎊
I solved this online, and didn't get credit because I put in rebus squares; but I'm pretending I solved it on paper, so everything is OK.
The UTES/TBS crossing almost killed me. I finally decided that UTES looked more plausible than UcES or UpES, but man, that was tough.
I did like the idea of JEDI battling ORCS.
Had to run the alphabet on the UTES/TBS cross to get the happy music. Thought the rest was fine. Got the gimmick pretty quickly.
Holy war seemed pretty obscure to me too. My first try was UTEP.
W/T the PHO?
Victor Borge, while suavely tinkling the ivories, succinctly observed that all ARTISANAL. He sounded so erudite and debonair that it gave me PIANIST envy.
I was looking at some GNATS in the mirror when they stang me. And they didn't even have mirror symmetry.
Our English friend's toilet is broken so he placed a bucket to be used in LIEU.
Isn't LAUGHLINES another name for cocaine?
Clever theme. Those arguing for circles and/or rebusoids don't seem clear on the double entendre of the revealer. T/nks HEAPS, Joe Marquez.
Other than WHALESHARKS, all the other themers are sort of laugh lines in themselves, voiced sarcastically - adding to the design.
Baffled to the point I gave up after ten minutes. You WIN, Mr Marquez!
I saw the thick lines, went straight to the revealer and plugged in LAUGHLINES. The rest was pretty much fill in the blanks for me. I was disappointed that the laughs were all the same. No resistance anywhere, but I probably would have had a more difficult time had I done the puzzle from the top down.
I liked this a lot better after I was finished than I did at first, or at least until I got the trick. My frustration was building, andI couldn’t figure it out at all until the revealer. That center themer gave me fits, where I kept trying to fit some form of a walrus. Then a delightful aha moment and everything made sense. The only downside is that there’s gibberish in either direction, which is a likely point of contention. Despite that, I liked and enjoyed it. Thanks Joe, an easy yet fun Thursday.
It’s interesting that RP thought yesterday‘s puzzle was unfairly maligned while I felt he was overly critical of this one. Such is life in Crossworld I suppose.
From yesterday’s Supreme Court session, a declaration worth remembering: “It’s a new world. It’s the same Constitution.” - Chief Justice John Roberts
The Holy War is a wildly fun college football rivalry, and Utah has been a pretty damn solid football team for a while now. If you pay attention to college football, you know about Utah.
Did the same, should have got the 🎶
So the lines are the HAs and that's the trick. OK, I'll stop trying to jam the HAs into the squares and make a rebus,, and about time too.
Had this all filled in and stopped there, the gimmick was so literal that it SAILED right over my head. A lot of that going on lately. I blame the dismal start by the Red Sox,
Speaking of which, a player is said to have been sitting on the bench and watching a home run disappear of the Green Monster and say " See it go".
Today's stuff I didn't know and will forget ASAP--LOIS, IAN, and the TBS show. And while I'm nitting, why do we call things that are TINY "fun size"? They do this especially with candy bars like Butterfingers. If I want a "fun size" Butterfinger it's about a foot long.
Interesting enough trick, JM. My good old best friend and I are frequently in Joke Mode, and have taught our children the answer to "What do we live for?" which is, "We live for HA HA." Thanks for reminding me of that one.
Wow, I went three for four on shared overwrites with OFL: SECTS, CEO, and IRATE, but I escaped the dread POI trap.
LAUGH LINES could double as the theme for the War Hero's ramblings last night. Might have been more appropriately scheduled for Tuesday (April Fools Day). "Only" seven more months until Election Day. (Sigh)
The "HA" substitution for black LINES was ok, if a little uninspiring. I'm not by any means a constructor, but wondering whether, instead of three HA---HAs, he could have found a way to use HA---HA, HE---HE and HO---HO once each. That would have livened it up a bit.
As @liveprof mentioned above, the CITGO sign, visible from Fenway Park, is iconic (has its own Wikipedia page and Google calls it a Boston tourist attraction!?). But with the Red Sox atrocious start, even though the season is only six games along, fans are already contemplating scaling the sign and jumping.
There is a hidden "Natick" in 19A. In the famous Family Guy episode "Da Boom," the world is destroyed by a nuclear holocaust, though the Griffins survive. Hearing that Twinkies are the only food that can survive a nuclear holocaust, the family sets out from Rhode Island, first by car, then by foot, to the Continental Baking Company facility in Natick, Massachusetts (aka, the Twinkie Factory), which made Wonder Bread and Hostess products, including the Twinkie. Finding the factory destroyed by the holocaust, the family decided to settle there and rename Natick "New Quahog."
Fun fact: The actual Continental Baking Company Factory in Natick closed in early 1999. The Family Guy episode aired on December 26, 1999 in an apparent nod to the closing of the Twinkie Factory - the Griffin Family's equivalence of a nuclear holocaust.
How clever! Had that been the revealer this could have been a more interesting puzzle.
Sorry, @Liveprof. I just noticed that I re-used your joke regarding anal art. Great minds think alike and ours do sometimes as well.
I know! I was 9 in 1964 and it’s funny to me now to see “clean cut” bands in suits with names like The Zombies and The Kinks. The parents (most) thought they looked awful (with the “long” hair), then 4 years later things had changed even more.
Pretending is way okay in my book. :) I do it all the time.
I dunno. I pay attention to college football and know about Utah, but didn’t know that the Utah v BYU rivalry was called The Holy War.
I’m glad to see others tried to solve with a rebus. I just gave up and asked to see the answer. I was right in my answers but wrong to use the rebus function on my keyboard.
Well, I REALLY liked yesterday’s puzzle and I also got a kick out of figuring out what the theme was today. According to my personal times, it must have been somewhere between easy and medium. I will say that I had a feeling that Rex would NOT like it that much. I can never really pinpoint WHY I get the feeling but it turns out I was right.
I only had one answer that kind of gave me pause and that was TINY being “fun size.” I had INY already and thought for a brief moment I had always spelled PORGY wrong because to me, “fun size” refers to candy bars and are usually called mINi. Or…did I miss some other reference?
Me, too. Spent 3-4 minutes checking all my answers and then just un-rebused everything and got the music. Boo.
Funny, I would call this the definition of a good theme: “It took me a longish (and unpleasantish) time to figure out what all the black bars were doing. Then when I realized those "lines" were "HA"s I just ... plugged the "HA"s in wherever relevant and the puzzle got much easier.”
Figured out the rebus quality of the dark lines right away but kept drawing blanks on the fill, especially in the NE. JEDI should have been easy but for some reason tried to work with xEna or hEro. After finishing the puzzle my first intention after checking the blog was to look up whale sharks and was pleased to find that Rex had made this the word of the day. Had heard of them but never knew how really large they are.
Put me in the "Well done Joe" camp. Got a little chuckle when I figured out the "Ha".
lol that’s a big if!
In answer to yesterdays' suspected hallucination...
Yes, she did, It was written for her. And she sang it every week all or in part on the Dinah Shore Chevy Show, which ran on NBC from 1956 to 1963. So unless there was mass hallucination for 7 years, your memory is accurate.
I live in Salt Lake City and took forever to write in UTES. SMH
Since it's Thursday I thought "Ok - rebus day" & was actually relieved that it wasn't (HA HA). WOES = ARTISANAL, IAN, & always anything having to do with Star Wars (JEDI) which I should (or maybe don't want to) know by now.
Thanks for the fun, Joe :)
@jberg While I can't exist without my Games Subscription, I do miss doing the puzzle on paper :(
Although I was patting myself on the back for figuring out the HA's at 16A, I actually didn't. I thought 16A's answer was W[HA]T'VE WE HERE? and missed that the second "line" was a second HA and I should've lost the apostrophe and thought of HAVE. WHAT HAVE WE HERE? is the one phrase I might expect someone to actually say "Oho!" before it. Maybe in a Victorian novel?
The NE gave me the toughest challenge of the day. "Ball" is a vague clue, EMAIL is well misdirected by "resume" in the clue. OMAR Epps gave me the in up there.
"Had an uplifting experience" clue for LEVITATED is my favorite of the day though "Followers of articles" = NOUNS is pretty good also.
Joe Marquez, I liked your puzzle, thanks!
Not very funny. No laughter here.
Also the same. Interpreted laugh lines as first a laugh (ha) then the dark line. Worked it out eventually but the themer was not helpful
Very clever, using grid LINES, instead of having us write in the missing HAs. Medium for me, and fun to figure out - it took me the first two theme answers to get there. Loved the solid colloquial phrases. In trying to think ahead to the reveal, all I could come up with was "suppressed laughter'' - which was too long in any case, and ignored the significance of the LINES.
I liked LEVITATED, with SUSPEND hanging from it and enjoyed writing in INKLING, ARTISANAL, JOY RIDE. A happy crossword Thursday.
Easy- medium only because I needed to pause to figure out the missing HA theme, otherwise easy.
WOE - IAN
Costly erasure -Me too for Irate before IRKED
Pretty good Nelson Muntz puzzle, liked it slightly more than @Rex did.
As a BYU fan who grew up deeply entrenched in The Holy War, it's a bit rough to see the Utes getting so much love in crosswords just because their letter have more utility :(
No apology necessary! I appreciate the compliment. I had the feeling whichever of us got up earlier would catch that one.
And rhymed Chevy with levee. Even my kid brain noticed that.
What @Beezer said.
Puztheme was clearly good for some laughs. Clever revealer.
Caught on to the theme mcguffin pretty early on, at W[HA]T[HA]VEWEHERE. Sooo ... made for a fairly easy ThursPuz theme solve.
staff weeject pick: COO, the pigeon exec.
honrable mention to SAC and its cartoned-up ?-marker clue.
some fave stuff: LEVITATED & its clue. JOYRIDE. INKLING. REALTOR clue. PIANIST clue.
Thanx the funny two-liners, Mr. Marquez dude. Enjoyed it.
Masked & Anonymo5Us
p.s.
runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Best thing about the write up. I probably haven’t thought about the Zombies since 1964 or maybe 1966 when I spent six months in England and we had our own little pub at our campus, open once a week, that featured playing British rock tunes to accompany the beer that was served.
@Egs, Had to read the gnats line twice to get it. LOL the lieu/loo.
I don't remember any talk of a holy war with U of U during my years at BYU (56/60)
Rex, I found the instrumental sound of "Let Her Go a lot more interesting and appealing than the Zombies' over-amplified twanging, but the Zombie lead singer's voice was WAAY better.
Best thing gor BoSox fan.
@Mark. After having encountered the term numerous times in my wife's English gardening books, I finally saw one in real life while visiting an historic estate in Ireland. It's an ingenious design. From the house you have an uninterrupted view across a large pasture that slopes gently down to a lake. From the lake, looking back to the house, you see only a few low stone walls.
If anyone is interested, the Wikipedia Ha-ha page has a pretty good little illustration of how this works.
I thought it was kind of funny. ;-)
When I saw "Facial wrinkles..." in the clue for the reveal, I tried to figure out how CROWS FEET fit into the theme answers.
Oh look mommie! There's a naughty word hidden in ARTISANAL! Tee-hee.
Nice to see "Whisper..." in the clue for 58D PSST instead of the the usual "Hey you!" or "Over here!" shout.
Unfortunately, it's not as though Roberts and other justices have always kept that in mind.
Yikes @Pablo! Now I’m worried I’ve always said Chevy OR levee wrong…but wait! Didn’t Don McLean (sp?) take his “Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry”? Duh…that DID just occur to me.
I liked it and moved thorugh it smoothly but didn't get the happy music. That's because I spelled ARTISANAL as ARTISINAL, which meant it crossed LIMP instead of LAMP, which looked just fine to me. Sigh.
I had all the rebus squares filled in, then no Happy Pencil so I deleted them all while grumbling. And as Rex said the grid is pretty ugly with all that gibberish. Seems like it should have been a good theme idea but it fell a bit flat for me.
Hands up for Batman's CAPE before COWL, a word I actually couldn't define if you ask me. When I google it, I don't get it... isn't it just the top of his cape?
And I only know CITGO from the sign in Boston that @liveprof mentions. I think I could actually see it from my hotel room!
Henry, growing up in Framingham, we used to take an annual school field trip to the Continental Baking Company (claimed to be the largest bakery building in the world), which was in Natick but close to the Framingham line. Whenever one drove by the factory, the smell of baking goods (including Wonder Bread) permeated the air.
But as these things go, the building was demolished and there now stands upscale residences and shops.
And, unrelated, last Sunday was the last day of the iconic Framingham Baking Company, a 100+ year old family-owned bread-making business most famously known to its aficionados for its pizza. Gone but never-to-be-forgotten.
Hey @Les, today's word of the day in Lexulous is LACUNA!
Anonymous 10:29 AM
To be fair to the constructor, today’s puzzle was not designed as a rebus.puzzle. & most commenters did not complain about wasting time on a rebus.
I like that interpretation better than the "laugh lines" one!
Not much fun. Theme for across figured okay. But the inconsistency of the Down letters is whack. Has hat Hal?
HAr.
I can't believe nobody pushed back about Passenger. He is still going strong and I hear his 2020 "Sword from the Stone" on the Coffee House channel every day. He has an unusual voice which might turn off some but his lyrics are meaningful and catchy.
For dgd 2:23: It might not have been promoted as a rebus puzzle, but it was misleading in its presentation.
Crossword puzzle solvers have always placed letters (whether or not as part of a rebus) INSIDE OPEN SQUARES. This constructor said, "No. You place two letters (HA) on top of a line here." I'm 84 years old, have done crosswords for 75 years, and have never once done that.
Ese tren ya pasó.
HA. I am sitting on I-40 westbound approaching the I-25 interchange and the highway has come to a complete stop and normally that's because there's a fatality up ahead and there's only one possible escape route for six lanes of traffic to exit right now so basically I'm sitting here doing nothing and needed a laugh and this puzzle delivered.
{Update: Upside down SUV in the middle lane. Hope everyone was okay. Rough start to the morning.)}
My brain is running a tiny bit slow because I ate too many potato chips yesterday (the joys of old age are multifaceted, eh?) and it took me awhile to figure out what those lines were up to. In fact I got all the way to the reveal before I realized what was really going on. Very cute gimmick as @Southside likes to call them. Although he rarely calls them cute.
I thought [Fanatical groups] might be @Bob Mills Anonymous groupies who cannot get him out of their heads ... but it wouldn't fit.
Kinda sad, but it came to me as news that Beethoven composed an opera. Also sad we're cluing COO as a business initialism. And sadder still to clue HER as an unknown song by an unknown band, although I'm sure somebody knows the song and the band and probably has already commented on how great they are or it is.
Route 66 through Albuquerque is called Central and it's the main area of homelessness and drug problems in the city. A bunch of years back the city renamed it the "International District," but everyone who isn't on the city council still calls it the War Zone. It's not much of a JOY RIDE.
❤️ KAZOO.
People: 8
Places: 3
Products: 8
Partials: 5
Foreignisms: 0
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 24 of 78 (31%)
Funny Factor: 4 🙂
Tee-Hee: Punch in the face.
Uniclues:
1 Ominous thing to hear in Texas if you're from up north.
2 Native knocking out the notes.
3 Goal of the harumphers in this blog comment section.
4 Raised the rawk and roll.
1 WHAT HAVE WE HERE? YANK?
2 UTE'S PIANIST
3 RAZE LAUGH LINES
4 LEVITATED KAZOO
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: George Washington crossing the Delaware. (Sit down you silly buffoon.) APE CANOE ICON.
¯\_(ツ)_/
Okay, Okanaganer. Thanks for the heads-up, but what the hell is Lexulous?
Ditto
@DAVinHOP: I hope on you school trips you got to visit the thrift store at the bakery so you could stock up on bargain-priced Twinkies.
And, yes, sad about the Framingham Baking Company. Between them and La Cantina across the street, that little strip of Rt 135 has been a bona fide "destination" for decades.
I do hope that on those field trips they took you at least once to my little shoe shop in Natick a few miles east on Rt 135.
I don’t know how big the Venn diagram crossover of Rex reader / old punk that’s seen Flipper live is, but I’m right there in the middle.
Thanks Les for the reference about “” ha ha” Interesting origin of the word itself. As a retired lawyer I also think the British litigation resulting from people falling into them perfect for a law school class!
Just reviewing this puzzle late in the day and noticed 30A. Since when do carton and SAC equate? Yes they're both egg containers, but …
Or am I missing something?
@Les S. More. You aren't missing anything; it is a bad clue. I meant to gripe about it but forgot.
Les, Lexulous is pretty much like Scrabble or Words With Friends. My sister and her boyfriend introduced me to it. They liked it because it seemed to have better words. (Also there are ads at the start of each game but none after that if I keep the window open in Chrome browser.)
Was surprise [Corn whole?] stayed in as a clue with CORNDOGS in the grid…
Same, ugh. I like putting in the rebus and I hate when it doesn’t give you credit. Like obviously I got it!
No matter how many clues I re-enter, I can't get the puzzle to acknowledge I've finished.
Sorry. How is RENT TORE??
the lines are meant to be your smile lines on the right and left of you lips I assume? also tried to rebus it and it worked too - the laughter is 'strained' to be sure. just did wsj sat. puzzle Asleep at the Wheel a real beauty worth checking out TGiF
I only know of that Passenger song via one of the great tear-jerking Super Bowl Budweiser commercials about the friendship between a puppy and Clydesdale 😠https://youtu.be/ihRalneNRaQ?si=2qJlutxVgWIoQvOX
I only know about that Passenger song because it provides the soundtrack to one of the all-time tear-jerking Super bowl commercials featuring a puppy and Budweiser Clydesdale horse 😠https://youtu.be/ihRalneNRaQ?si=2qJlutxVgWIoQvOX
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