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"The Jeffersons" or "The Simpsons," notably / SAT 4-18-26 / Team with the mascot Big Al, familiarly / Blitzed / Still waffling / "Hey, no backing out now!" / Texter's affectionate sign-off / It's not fit for human consumption
Saturday, April 18, 2026
Constructor: Jesse Cohn
Relative difficulty: Easy/Medium
THEME: None
Word of the Day: HASSOCKS (27D: Relatives of ottomans) —
An ottoman is a piece of furniture.[1] Generally, ottomans have neither backs nor arms. They may be an upholstered low couch or a smaller cushioned seat used as a table, stool or footstool. The seat may have hinges and a lid for the inside hollow, which can be used for storing linen, magazines, or other items, making it a form of storage furniture.[2][3] The smaller version is usually placed near to an armchair or sofa as part of living room decor, or may be used as a fireside seat.[4]
Ottoman footstools are often sold as coordinating furniture with armchairs, sofas, or gliders. Other names for this piece of furniture include footstool,[5] hassock,[6] and pouf[fe].[7][8]
• • •
Hi friends -- Rafa here as your Rexplacement! Hope you enjoyed Eli yesterday, but today you're stuck with me. (*shameless plug alert* I also hope you enjoyed my DOWN TO A T puzzle earlier this week. It was so much work to make, and it was lovely to see it out in the world *end shameless plug alert*)Anyways, it's the weekend, the weather is nice (where I live, at least!), and there are no themes in sight -- life is good! This was the kind of puzzle that I didn't love at the start, but grew on me so so so much during the solve and I was totally obsessed by the end. To be fair, the first two entries I put in were ATONERS and ARLES, which are arguably the weakest entries in the whole grid. So it really was all uphill from there. And wow, did we go uphill. CROCODILE TEARS and ROOKIE MISTAKE make an incredible stack, and there's so much delightful stuff woven in: POISON DART, FRIED EGG, WE HAD A DEAL, HANG TIGHT, BAREFOOT, SAFEWORD, I'M FOR IT, PET FOOD etc. etc. It felt like I was uncovering goodies everywhere I looked.
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| It's ELSA! |
Looking for something to nitpick ... but struggling to find anything to mention other than the two entries I talked about. (Okay, maybe I also don't love GEOS) I was very into the fresh angles for some stale pieces of fill. ORR as the Catch-22 character was particularly delightful, as I just read that relatively recently. I was always always always prefer a literature reference over a sports reference!!! ROI as return on investment was also great, but maybe I'm biased by living in Silicon Valley and being around people who use that term in conversation all the time. Oh, also, I realize I am very pro airport code as fill. DFW! Good! More airport codes please! Why do we only see LGA and ORD? Let's branch out!
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| It's a FRIED EGG! |
Let's talk about clues. Some clever clues here. [Cutting stuff] for satire felt very satisfying to figure out. I love clues where words change part of speech. (In this case the default interpretation is "cutting" as a verb, but the clue is actually using it as an adjective.) [Cause of amusement to a vet, maybe] was also cool because the correct "vet" interpretation was the third one that came to my mind (first army veteran, then veterinarian, and only then person with experience).
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| It's a RAMROD |
So, yeah, I really liked this. Just super solid stuff all-around, and fun vibes oozing out the grid. Could maybe have used a handful more clever clues, and this would have really been elevated. Oh, it also felt a tad too easy for a Saturday. I'd have appreciated a bit more resistance. Hope to be back soon!
Bullets:
- 18A MOD [New outfit or accessory for a character, in video game lingo] — I've been obsessively playing the beta version of Slay the Spire 2. Anyone else? Always fun to see video game lingo in a puzzle.
- 18D MALTESE [Silky-haired toy] — Took me a while to realize this meant a toy dog, and not a toy for kids to play with
- 38A MATS [Routine surfaces] — This is about gymnastics routines
- 8D BAREFOOT [How people get into a swimming pool, typically] — Such a weirdly specific clue for this ... it kinda made me giggle
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16 comments:
What is a SAFEWORD (21 Across)? Can someone please explain it and give me an example with context?
Easy-Medium. Enjoyed it.
* * * * _
Overwrites:
At 4D, I thought zinc might be the fifth-most abundant element before it turned out to be crossword standard NEON
My 17A treat was the noun DOg TOy before it was the verb DOCTOR
cOOKIE Monster before ROOKIE MISTAKE at 46A, before reading the clue (one of my all-time favorite errors).
WOEs:
I never heard of LAT pull-downs (13D)
MOD as clued at 18A
Did not find this easy, but figured it all out in the end.
That misdirect on BAREFOOT is terrific.
Felt more like a Friday but really enjoyed this one. That vet clue got an audible ohhh from me
Clue for MOD is insanely incorrect. Please, Mr. Shortz, if you're going to try to update the clues for a modern audience, at least have someone modern on the editorial team.
Search engines exist! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeword
During rough sex play ("in the bedroom") the safe word means I'm not comfortable and to stop now
Your TO A T offering was fantastic Rafa - you went a little easy on this one today as it was easier than your Thursday puzzle. It’s a nice puzzle but just not for Saturday. Purely on the editing - we’ve seen this quite often lately.
MARTIN’s Song
Flowing grid layout gives access to pretty much everything. I’m looking for some late week massive stacks - the short stuff here provides the Wednesday vibe. I liked CROCODILE TEARS and REST EASY.
She just wanted to ride in a Delahaye 135
She just wanted to ride in a HUDSON Commodore
No need to worry anymore
FRIED EGGS, CALIFORNIA ROLL, ROOKIE MISTAKE - all pedestrian. SAUCED is cute I guess for blitzed? WREAKS and HASSOCKS are pretty neat but the plural on ATONERS is unfortunate.
ABC
A nice clean themeless - I just need a little more bite to Saturday morning solve. Ben Zimmer’s Stumper today brings slightly more heat.
OCMS
Yeah, as clued it was SKIN not MOD.
I'd have to rate this as EASY. As in, REST EASY, pay no attention to the blurb "Jesse Cohn delivers a coldblooded killer of a Saturday puzzle". Even had some relatively rare Saturday whoosh; for example, CALIFORNIA ROLL. Also really liked CROCODILE TEARS (zoom!) and ROOKIE MISTAKE (not as zoom/whoosh, but very fine in its cluing). Honestly, all the long acrosses were to my liking.
Let's not forget the longer downs! HASSOCKS is not a word you see all that much, I don't think, but luckily I was right on that wavelength. I liked POISON DART, UNDECIDED, WE HAD A DEAL, FRIED EGGS, and BAREFOOT. I'm also FOND OF fondue, and of MELTED cheese in general.
Ooh, the NYTXW getting a little risque with the bedroom play (SAFE WORD). Pineapple!
I agree with Rafa that ATONERS was something of a lowlight. But not that ARLES was also. What is wrong with that?
Will the people who had trouble with TAO the other day also have trouble with MARTIN? Hard to say. Gardner's long-running column in Scientific American, Mathematical Games I think it was called, was one of the most popular items of that era, but that era is getting a little long in the tooth by now (I think Douglas Hofstadter took over sometime in the early 80's; he titled his series by anagramming the earlier title into Metamagical Themas, something only a word nerd could love).
So this was fun! Looking forward to reading others' reactions.
Let me say up front that I really enjoyed this puzzle. I guess it was relatively easy, but some great long answers, and lots of places I was fooled: DEicing before DETENTE, irON before NEON, RApier before RAMROD (totally forgetting that "musketeers" were soldiers armed with muskets!). Two car models was one too many (at least HUDSON was clued as the valley, not the car.--and why was it so much harder to think of the valley than it would have been if the clue was "New York river?")
It was neat seeing DWADE adjacent to MARTIN Gardner. The latter was easy for me, the former completely unknown. And it didn't look like a name, so I had to get all the crosses. I'm thinking there was a big group for whom it was the other way around--knew the basketball player but not the math writer.
As for HASSOCKS, that's what we called them in our family, only we pronounced the word "hossick." But I learned that proper spelling from literature sometime in my 30s.
@Rafa, I did indeed enjoy your Thursday puzzle!
Easier than yesterday for me. My dad was a fan of Gardner, so I got that one. Tao I had never heard of
Hey All !
You forgot to exclude Rex's signoff! ROOKIE MISTAKE. 🤣🤪
Nice SatPuz. Made the ole brain sit up and take notice. North half tougher for me than the South half. Did love the plethora of F's in the North half, though!
Timer says 27 minutes, so this falls at the edge of the easy side, trying to jut into medium territory. Not too shabby for me on a puz I got stuck at in a few places.
Lots of good @Gary Uniclue opportunities. Such as: Dog treats with gravy?
SAUCED PET FOOD
I'll leave the rest up to the professionals!
Good job, Jesse. IM FOR IT!
Got a nice ROO boggle bundle in SW. Not taking any points for it, but fun to see. 😁
Hope y'all have a great Saturday!
Seven F's - FOND OF that!
RooMonster
DarrinV
Great write-up today, Rafa. You described this puzzle TO A T. Sounds like our solving experiences were similar, except I had some trouble getting a foothold in the top half (maybe because I wasn’t BAREFOOT), then whooshed through the bottom half, then came back up and found the top half much easier the second time around. Unusual for me, and kinda fun. Yes, a bit on the easy side, but so many colorful clues and answers, so no complaints here. Thanks, Jesse Cohn!
A staccato of happy pings throughout. Entertainment in the box today:
• It came from words and phrases I love, such as ROOKIE MISTAKE, WREAKS, HANG TIGHT.
• Also from misdirects and vagueness in cluing, so that when the answer came, it came with a “Hah!” Clues like [Thawing] for DÉTENTE, [Treat] for DOCTOR, and [Silky-haired toy] for MALTESE.
• More happiness when I laughed at myself after confidently throwing in ALLIGATOR TEARS.
• My heart melted when I uncovered HASSOCKS, a word my great-grandma Annie – who I revered – often used. Then another happy ping from seeing it as HAS SOCKS, and now I can’t un-see it.
• A wow and a bow at [It takes two hands to show] for TEN, a delightful clue I’d never seen before, and one that made a common answer special. (A post-solve search confirmed it was indeed original.)
You created more than a puzzle, Jesse. You created a generous helping of feel-good, and that is a gift. Thank you!
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