.png)
Relative difficulty: Easy? Medium? Let's split the difference: Easy-Medium
The "pipe" answers:
- FIREF/LOWER (82D: With 31-Down, power-up that lets this puzzle's subject throw flames)
- MUSH/ROOM (87D: With 30-Down, power-up that supersizes this puzzle's subject)
Mystery Block contents:
- COIN (4D: Collectible item from the box below)
- VINE (7D: Green transport from the box below)
- ONE-UP (64D: "Extra life" item from the box below)
Other related answers:
Word of the Day: Jupiter HAMMON (40D: Jupiter ___, first African American poet published in North America) —
- PRINCESS PEACH (24A: Whom this puzzle's subject must save!)
- BOWSER'S CASTLE (110A: Enemy lair where 24-Across is held captive)
- WARIO (88A: Antagonist of this puzzle's subject)
- YOSHI (38A: Green friend of this puzzle's subject)
- LUIGI (122A: Brother of this puzzle's subject)
- "MAMMA MIA!" (86D: Catchphrase of this puzzle's subject)
- NES (71A: Platform with a "Super" popular character, in brief?)
- "IT'S-A-ME, MARIO!" (41D: Catchphrase of this puzzle's subject)
Jupiter Hammon (October 17, 1711 – c. 1806) was an American writer who is known as a founder of African-American literature, as his poem published in 1761 in New York was the first by an African American man in North America. He subsequently published both poetry and prose. In addition, he was a preacher and a commercial clerk on Long Island, New York.Born into slavery at the Lloyd Manor on Long Island, Hammon learned to read and write. In 1761, at nearly 50, Hammon published his first poem, "An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries". He was the first African-American poet published in North America. Also a well-known and well-respected preacher and clerk-bookkeeper, he gained wide circulation for his poems about slavery. As a devoted Christian evangelist, Hammon used his biblical foundation to criticize the institution of slavery. (wikipedia)
• • •
 |
| [120A: Striking feature of Jessica Rabbit] |
Outside the theme, the puzzle felt average to slightly below average. HOE CAKES will always make me laugh, though (5D: Fried cornbread concoctions). I know they're real—I first learned about them from the 1987 movie Hollywood Shuffle. I forget why they were featured in that movie, but they were. Ah, here we go:
Anyway, the name is inherently funny. Beyond that, there wasn't a lot that spoke to me today. VINYASA is a nice, original answer (22A: Yoga style in which each movement is synchronized with a breath). But stuff like A DAY AGO and AS A JOKE are kind of tepid, and ODORED ... well, the less said about that, the better. I have no idea what a POTATO GUN is (83A: Classic kids' toy weapon). The puzzle tells me it's "classic," but ... what, you make a gun out of a potato? We had cap guns, but I don't know anything about POTATO GUNs. Oh, looks like the potatoes are the ammo. The gun is more like a cannon, and it launches potatoes. To what end, I don't know.
A potato cannon, also known as a potato gun or potato launcher, is a pipe-based cannon that uses air pressure (pneumatic), or combustion of a flammable gas (aerosol, propane, etc.), to fire projectiles, usually potatoes. A simple design consists of a pipe sealed on one end, with a reducer on the other end to lower the diameter of the pipe, which has the corresponding lower-diameter pipe attached to it, called the barrel. Generally, the operator loads the projectile into the barrel, then utilizes a fuel or air pressure (or sometimes both) to propel the projectile out of the cannon. (wikipedia)
That just doesn't sound like a "toy," exactly. But I guess if young people "play" with them, then it's in the general category. But POTATO GUN was just one more thing that meant nothing to me today. See also ENTHALPY (69A: Total heat content of a thermodynamic system), a word that seems to be screaming "you've made a typo," but somehow, no. That is, in fact, the spelling. Happy NYTXW debut to ENTHALPY! I think I left this puzzle's wavelength immediately after I got 1A: "Joanie Loves ___" ("Happy Days" spinoff) ("CHACHI"). Total gimme. After that, almost nothing up my alley. Puzzle was still pretty easy, but again and again I ran into things that either fell out of or never entered my memory. Mount ELBERT? (99D: Mount ___, highest peak in the Rockies). PEEP TOE shoe? (89A: Shoe style with a small opening in the front). And LOL that clue on DEREK (34A: Hough of "Dancing With the Stars" fame). Who? The phrase "'Dancing With the Stars' fame" is killing me. That is not a thing. You've already buried me in Mario stuff, couldn't you at least just give me a normal, famous DEREK. Jeter, or Bo? ___ and the Dominoes? Come on. Be a pal.
Bullets:
- 86A: Bialik of "The Big Bang Theory" (MAYIM) — glad I could remember her name (and how to spell it) today because she crossed both "pipe" answers and I wasn't entirely sure about either (esp. FIREF/LOWER). Side note—seems like a flaw in the execution that FIREF stands alone. LOWER is a real word, as are MUSH and ROOM, but FIREF??? Weird anomaly.
- 111D: "?!?!?!?!" ("WHAT?") — my sentiments exactly (I actually wrote in "WHA-?" here and left the last square blank because I thought there might be some colloquial spelling happening here, like "WHAA?" or something like that).
- 17A: Encase in protection (COCOON) — I had a crazy hard time parsing this. Stared at C-C-ON like "WHAA?" Finally got HOUR (2D: Short hand?) (tough one!) and that got me over the COCOON hump. Just in case it's unclear, on a watch, the "short hand" shows the HOUR while the long hand shows the minutes.
- 100A: ___ Davis, actor and eulogist for Malcolm X (OSSIE) — back-to-back days for OSSIE. Just one appearance in all of 2025, one appearance in all of 2024, no appearances in 2023 ... and here we are. In just two days, he's appeared as much as he has in nearly four years! Crosswordese can go through some real boom/bust cycles.
- 7A: Peddles (VENDS) — has anyone ever said "VENDS." The only way I've ever heard "VENDS" irl is in the terms "vendors" and "vending machine." VENDS as a straightforward synonym for "peddles"—never. And yet I recognize it as a real word. Some "real" words exist only in captivity (i.e. in crosswords). Just ask ODORED.
That's all for today. See you next time.
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As a seventy something who never played Super Mario and doesn’t know a thing about it, the theme answers were an impossible slog. This is a puzzle made for someone a lot younger than I am. Is this a form of ageism? Perhaps.
ReplyDeleteMario came out in 1981 when you were in your late 20s or early 30s. It’s been around for 45 years via countless games, shows, movies.
DeletePure ageism. It’s not unreasonable to clue for the proper noun “Mario” as an example of common knowledge, but for that large segment of the population that doesn’t play video games at all, much less this particular one, people who for instance prefer… crossword puzzles, it’s a bit of a baffler. That said, I hope crossover players enjoyed it!
DeleteI'm with you on that. Also a puzzle for people who play this game, most of whom probably don't do crosswords. A waste of time, but I had to finish in order to maintain my status.
DeleteBarry, this made me chuckle. As a “younger” solver (mid-40s) and a woman who’s been doing crosswords since my teens, it’s been just within the last five years that I’ve encountered puzzles that felt tailored to my demographic. This puzzle wasn’t one of those, since I have never been into video games, but between the easy crosses and the way that Nintendo has entered pop culture over the past thirty years, nothing felt unfair to me.
DeleteIt's a puzzle made ONLY for people who play Super Mario---REGARDLESS OF THEIR AGES. All the weird names cannot be inferred, because they mean nothing outside the Mario universe. This was a horrible choice of themes.
DeleteI don’t play video games but it was still easy. Crossworders encounter Mario stuff all the time. Cmon now re. Ageism. Is it not ageism when it skews old as many swords do?
DeleteAgree with anonymous. I know nothing of Mario. Frankly don’t care to. That eliminates me as a potential puzzle solver. Themes that eliminate entire categories of people should not be allowed.
DeleteHow closed minded to assume that someone who played one of the most popular video game franchises of all time might also be into crosswords.
DeleteAs someone in my early 40s with a son who is getting very into Mario, this was a delight. I’m sorry the theme was beneath some of you.
Also never played the game, but I was happy to see “enthalpy”, and smiled from learning that in a thermodynamics class.
DeleteTotally hated this. I hated that the whole puzzle depended on arcana. Yes,I’m old but really…how in the h*LL would I intuit any of these answers. Trash stuff like this or send it over to the generation that can relate to this. Not me big time.
DeleteWhat puzzling comments! I’m in my mid-40s and played this video game a LOT as a kid, but it’s been a while, so I didn’t remember ANY of the theme answers (other than Mario and Luigi). I think I count as someone in the middle, age-wise, and also as someone who knows a little bit about both worlds. It took me a while to figure out most of these answers, but obviously the crosses did most of the work. Elbert and enthalpy were WAY harder for me!
DeleteEchoing the sentiments of an earlier commenter—I’m also in my mid-40s and have been doing crosswords for decades. I’ve learned tons of pop culture references from eras that I did not live through. Not a nintendo player (though my husband played when he was younger.) Neither of us had any issues finishing the puzzle—and I was actually faster. Maybe the most ageist sentiment expressed here is to expect pop culture to always reflect your personal generation.
DeleteIt seems odd to call this ageism when the NYTXW contains Star Wars references all the time and the first Star Wars movie came out less than 10 years before the first Mario game. Mario is popular enough and enough a part of the zeitgeist after 40+ years that it’s fair game to treat as a generalist trivia topic. Plus, it’s Sunday (so you should expect a tricky theme sometimes) and the crosses were easy enough to help you out if you’re truly completely unfamiliar with the Mario universe. I’m a woman in my 30s and constantly encounter crossword clues about topics that I only know about as a trivia buff and not because of firsthand interest or experience. It’s mind-blowing to me to read this complaint when the NYTXW has skewed so plainly towards the interests and knowledge base of white men over 50 forever. And on the SINGLE occasion when the theme is more accessible to slightly younger people (and only slightly - plenty of current 50+ year olds were playing Mario back in 1985), you shout ageism? If anything, this puzzle represents a refreshing expansion of the very very narrow cultural lens that typically limits the NYTXW clues to domains of knowledge mastered primarily by white boomers.
DeleteEven if it was out of the wheelhouse of some people, it is hardly an unreasonable theme for a puzzle. Variations on the game are still being released regularly as top sellers and there literally was a blockbuster film adaptation that made over $1 billion dollars just a few months ago.
DeleteI liked it!! It was so cute!! I’ve never played the game but I have watched friends play it and I did get stoned and watch those awful Mario movies. I guess some of yall are too old to get it.
ReplyDeleteThe live action super Mario bros movie is AMAZING in its strangeness
DeleteRex Sunday 7/26/2026
ReplyDeleteVery Easy. I played Donkey Kong when the arcade game first came out but I haven’t touched it or its progeny since. Still easy. And a slog.
* * _ _ _
Overwrites:
pIpE before VINE for the 7D green transport.
At 18D I wanted TickeT for the expensive Super Bowl purchase, but I had too many solid crosses. Then ad SPOT before TV SPOT.
com before EDU for the dot follower at 37D, fixed when I got the real COM at 97A.
My big truck name was gmc before RAM (103A).
WOEs:
VINYASA yoga at 22A.
DEREK Hough of Dancing with the Stars (34A).
Jupiter HAMMON at 40D.
PEEPTOE shoe (89A).
Mt. ELBERT at 99D. Seems like the highest peak in the Rockies would be more familiar.
I know YOSHI (38A) and WARIO (88A) only from crosswords. I’m not sure how I picked up the other Mario arcana.
Stupid ridiculous piece of trivia junk. Thanks for ruining my Sunday morning.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree! Sunday puzzle should be fun for ALL. Even those of us who have bought this thing for 50+ years of Sundays.
DeleteI agree. No 🎈for me.
DeleteIf you're familiar with Super Mario, the puzzle is easy. If you aren't, it's next to impossible. Really, really stupid choice of themes.
DeleteAbsolutely right.
DeleteHow sensitive are you that a puzzle based around pop culture that has been popular for 40 years ruins you morning?
DeleteRead the comments and explanation. Still don't get it! Not fun at all.
DeleteDecorous does not equal staid
DeleteAnonymous 3:23 pm
DeleteThe extended definitions of decorous and have some of the same words. Decorum has a staid quality about it after all. Remember, crosswords are not dictionaries but puzzles with clues to hint at the answer. A former commenter here came up with the expression, close enough for crosswords, and that is the case here vb
I really liked this but I'm biased... I just wish the "?" blocks did something more interesting. I flew through the grid since I knew all the theme stuff, but there were bits of trivia all over that served as small speed bumps (and yes, I noticed all the fill issues that Rex pointed out).
ReplyDeleteTo answer Rex's questions about the theme:
- That style of blocks and green pipes has stayed pretty much the same across most Mario games. Look at a screenshot from Super Mario Bros. (1985) or Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023) and you'll see very similar blocks and pipes.
- COIN, VINE, ONEUP (1-up mushroom) are all items that can pop up from those "?" block when bumped from below by jumping. VINE is the hardest of these to know if you haven't played any Mario games, normally they're supposed to be well-hidden and lead to secrets.
- MUSHROOM and FIRE FLOWER go through the pipes exactly like Mario would in-game. You stand on a pipe and press "down", and you pop out of some other pipe.
That said, I can see the puzzle being hard and/or unenjoyable for those who don't know the subject matter. It always happens with tribute puzzles (speaking of which, this puzzle would've been more timely in 2025, the 40th anniversary of the original Super Mario Bros.)
Not much in the way of tricky cluing and like Rex, I was also quite puzzled by [Short hand?]. I wanted something like ASST.
I loved the Mario theme, definitely one of the most iconic global games and having the long answers helped me out with a good Sunday time
ReplyDeleteI had SELLS and AD SPOT rather than VENDS and TV SPOT which took a while to untangle but overall I liked it
Ugh!
ReplyDeleteUnlike Rex, I played a fair amount of Super Mario Brothers. Also unlike Rex, I thought this puzzle was a truly gruesome solve. The definition of a "slog." I suppose the two themers that enter and exit pipes were sort of a highlight. Otherwise this was completely joyless. A solid 1 star in my book.
ReplyDeleteSo, all I know about Super Mario is what I have learned and remembered from crosswords. I’ve never played the game, and thus, this puzzle became pretty much a Super Themeless, and hey, the toughness that resulted from the no-knows tickled my brain, which I could almost hear exclaiming, “It’s a me, happy brain!”
ReplyDeleteI actually did remember the catch phrase, and YOSHI, and after a while PRINCESS PEACH.
Three things stand out:
• The look of the grid, a cool way to dress up the box.
• ENTHALPY – Huh? What? Truly, I answered this correctly?
• The fact that Kim went through 77 versions of this puzzle, according to her notes, before landing on this final one. Oh. Well. Here is a person striving for excellence on top of wanting to entertain, which turns my thumbs up, and makes my soul happy, joining my brain.
Congratulations on your debut, Kim, and thank you for your enthusiasm, which bounced off the grid. Thank you, this was a hoot!
I guess the WARP PIPE trick was neat. Fill in the blanks easy - I know the game - but still hate tribute puzzles. First Rubik’s Cube then this - maybe next week Twister?
ReplyDeleteSIERRA Hull
At least I have played Twister!
DeleteSun Volt
DeleteI found the theme hard ( and I don’t like that game at all) but I liked the puzzle in the end. I guess the exact opposite reaction from you.
I never played Super Mario either or really much in the way of video games. But, this has been around awhile and I have seen most of the names in other crosswords, so that wasn't so bad. But, I was disappointed at the end as I was really expecting some kind of animation with the online version! Missed opportunity NYT!
ReplyDeleteWhat a cringe puzzle, if I may borrow a term from a demographic so hellbent on excluding me from this niche.exercise. Jeez, kids. Get your heads out of your screens and broaden your world. I can derive my way through one video-game clue per puzzle. An entire Sunday grid built entirely for devotees of a single game — and spare me the word “classic” please — is just sad.
ReplyDeleteI’m with you, Iris. A video game clue here or there is no problem. In fact, I enjoy encountering areas of expertise that are just a bit outside my comfort zone. That’s a big piece of the pleasure to be found in solving crossword puzzles. You learn new things. But building an entire puzzle—a Sunday, no less—around one very specific area of knowledge is a bad idea. I can think of all sorts of puzzle themes that would be a thrill for me but would be joyless slogs for most folks. Speaking of joyless slogs, today’s puzzle—ugh.
DeleteI disagree. Mario has been one of the most iconic and recognizable characters in the world for decades. Just as iconic is the soundtrack. Koji Kondo created masterpieces using only 7 different channels (a synthetic instrument for each one) using complex music theory that is still respected today. The determination and dexterity it takes to complete the game are positive skills to develop as a kid.
DeleteI played the games as a kid and I'll tell you it sparked my interest in traveling because in the game you go to different worlds, each with it's own distinct music theme inspired by their real-world counterparts.
I understand it's human nature to be mad at or hate things you don't understand, but perhaps if you did as you said and broadened your world you'd, at least, respect the monumental triumph this series is.
PS
I can admit us youths have problems but one glaring problem coming from the older generations is their ability to recognize their time is coming to an end and then lacking the awareness to step aside and make way for the next generation. Not everything will always be about you.
Just say “OK, boomer” and go back to scrolling Tik-Tok, kid
DeleteSame same. Isn't this just a little narrow-spectrum for a Sunday NYTXW? Like perfect for a gamer zine site or something, but this isn't that. I mean, I've got my niche obsessions too but I don't expect everyone on the planet to share them. How about next week we do one themed around college-radio indy-punk bands from the 90s? I'd do great on that one.
DeleteIsis. Many of the “kids” who grew up playing Mario games are in their 40s and 50s.
DeleteYou are free to not like video games, but pretending that they don’t have a major cultural relevance just makes you look silly
Wild to see everyone melting down. Mario has been around for 45 years. There are 200-300 games with him in it. Not “one game”. 4 tv shows, 3 movies…countless merch and other pop culture connections.
Delete"Determination and dexterity" sounds a lot like the "hand-eye coordination" our parents used in the 80s to justify letting us do nothing all weekend but play video games.
DeleteI didn't play much Super Mario Bros., but my younger brother did (I was in the Atari 2600 / home computer generation -- specifically the Commodore 64). I'm with Anonymous 7:59 AM. It's such an iconic game, part of our cultural heritage, and I had fun doing the puzzle. The 8-bit graphics were a nice touch, and apparently the constructor, a choir teacher, generated them herself (at least the first version, not sure about the final puzzle).
DeleteI was a physics major, so I have a warm (!) spot in my heart for ENTHALPY, one of ten NYT debuts (eleven if you count the constructor).
Speaking of Koji Kondo, here's an excellent Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast episode about him and his Super Mario Bros. soundtrack: https://www.20k.org/episodes/super-mario-bros. Apparently he was heavily influenced by obscure jazz fusion music. Seriously, give it a listen.
It’s been around for 40 years. That’s younger than a bunch of songs I hear on “classic” rock stations.
DeleteAlso, Mario is literally the most popular character of an entire type of media that pulls in multiple billions or dollars a year. This is like complaining that Babe Ruth is too esoteric because you don’t follow baseball.
Anonymous7:59 AM - Harsh
DeleteAnonymous 7:59 and others: Whether the Mario game universe is good or culturally significant isn’t the issue. The music of Beethoven is, by wide acclaim, of high quality and great cultural significance. But a puzzle built around Beethoven trivia would not be appropriate for a NYT Sunday. It would exclude too many people. A good crossword puzzle lets your mind zoom from one aspect of human knowledge to another, to another and another. Let’s include people of many cultural backgrounds.
DeleteYou could do a puzzle with all sorts of very specific pop culture themes where many people would be using ‘general knowledge’. A LOTR puzzle! A Star Wars puzzle! A Harry Potter puzzle! All of these fall into the ‘Mario’ category…I was able to answer or infer most of the related clues. But it was pretty uninteresting and seemed super specific for a random Sunday. And Mario is probably considerably less beloved than say Tolkien or Luke Skywalker.
DeletePeople in their 20s say “cringe.”
DeletePeople in their 30s, 40s, and 50s played the classic video game (more deserving of “classic” than any other at-home video game, I suspect!).
7:59 Anonymous: You're defending the integrity of the video game when Iris didn't criticize the game. She said she disliked the puzzle because it was built around A video game. And we should all revere it because it inspired you as a kid? Wow. Before you make statements like "not everything will always be about you," YOU should stop and listen to yourself.
DeletePeeptoe was one of the easier clues for me. After suffering through so many puzzles built by men drawing on sports and their less available to me experiences, I appreciate the growing number of women who draw on experiences I can relate to. Having said that, I have never played this video game and did not have much fun doing this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the grid I had zero interest in solving. I hit reveal puzzle so that I could find a Wordle starter. (I got a 3)
ReplyDeleteI had kids who played Mario Bors games so a good deal of it was well known to me, some of it not. I never want to be too harsh because in the end someone went to the trouble to make the puzzle. But when I was done, I wanted another puzzle to do. Because the theme answers were fairly obvious, the rest of it save a few clues and answers left me totally lacking for a Sunday. I feel like with very little effort I could throw some Mario terms into a crossword puzzle software program and come up with this. It wasn’t terrible, just meh, for me.
ReplyDeleteApparently it took 77 iterations of this pu le to get to the final one. Lot of polishing IMO.
DeleteFU, NYT, for putting out a puzzle that completely excludes anyone unfamiliar with a specific video game, then lards the rest of the puzzle with assorted obscure trivia and gnomic clues.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 7:20 am
DeleteBut of an overreaction no?
I can’t stand the whole so called Super Mario universe and didn’t know most of the theme but it turned the puzzle into a challenge which I failed by only one square ( the cross of sAMMON made no sense. So I should have found the H.) A specialized theme does not make a puzzle impossible.for those who don’t know it, just harder.
Late 50s. played and very familiar with the Mario universe. I did “oh boy, here we go” when I opened the puzzle solely from the anticipated (correctly) reactions from a large swath of solvers.
ReplyDeleteNo issue with the theme topic here, I mean tribute puzzles are nothing new, even toons (wazzup Wil E. Coyote, Betty Boop, et al). But the grid has some pretty messy fill and strained cluing. A slog. The area above/around the bottom pipe. yikes. Not to mention that FIREF breaks the theme. Every word in/out of the “Pipe” is legit, as they should be.
Also, if the strain of a dense theme is going to force you into the awful APEDOM, which has such a clear and obvious connection, you probably oughta go ahead and acknowledge that shared legacy.
30 minutes of my life I won't get back.
ReplyDeleteHey All !
ReplyDeleteI have played, and beaten the original Super Mario on the NES many times in my youth. What a novel game system in the late 80's, early 90's that was. Now, it looks like finding ancient cave drawings.
Neat idea for a Theme. I had PRINCESSzelda in first, confusing and combining the other famous NES game Zelda.
Neat how the Blockers were bricks, ala the blocks in Super MARIO.
Liked it a bunch. A novel puz, Kim. Did have some unknowns, but able to preserver. Things like VINYASA, ENTHALPY, ELBERT, PEEPTOE.
And Jessica Rabbit isn't bad, she's just drawn that way. 😁
Hope y'all have a great Sunday!
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
God the griping about how this theme excludes us old people is just too much. I’m 57, and had exactly the same experience as Rex. Donkey Kong in the 80s but never played Mario or any version other than a stand up arcade game way way back. But I gotta think the 20-30 and even 30-40 age brackets are constantly experiencing puzzles and clues that don’t speak to their experience either. It’s just going to happen. I got enough from having done crosswords to do this puzzle in my exact average time. Was never going to blaze thru it because I just don’t know the Mario universe. But so what?
ReplyDeleteThis is exactly how I feel. Everyone just chill. The boomer exclusion rage is just a little much.
Delete“The world has been all about me for decades. But one crossword puzzle is enough to bring it all down.”
DeleteRight exactly, the number of times that we’ve all had to write down Mel OTT Could fill this puzzle 15 times over.
DeleteSilly comment. OTT is a single answer. Imagine a Sunday-sized Mel OTT puzzle. OTT-themed. All about the career of Mel OTT. That’s what this is like.
DeleteI actually played Super Mario brothers quite a lot (almost 40 years ago!) and still didn't know most of the answers. NES? WARPPIPE? FIREFLOWER? (And I had an issue with how FIREFLOWER was split up but not MUSHROOM... That is, MUSH, ROOM, and LOWER are all real words, but FIREF is not a real word.) I knew YOSHI, and my wife jogged my memory for PRINCESSPEACH. I had an inkling about BOWSER but had forgotten his CASTLE.
ReplyDeleteLook, I pretty much enjoy any and every puzzle, and acknowledge the work and creativity each take. But a theme based purely on PPP, with lots of PPP crosses, is simply not fair, fun, or allowable for a general readership such as the NYT. Go publish such a puzzle in a video games magazine.
You…didn’t know the game platform you played so much Super Mario Bros. on? Even though it’s been in the NYTXW many times?
DeleteI am in my 40s and played NES and super mario bros a ton when I was a kid, and this puzzle feels like it was made by someone who never played the game. No one ever called it a “WARPPIPE,” and those are not “FIREFLOWERS.” So that’s probably why you had a hard time coming up with some answers. They are just bizarre.
DeletePlayed super Mario brothers a bunch so all the theme answers came quickly which made puzzle doable. Didn’t love or hate it but did like the visual appearance as it was nsotalgic.
ReplyDeleteAnyone else NATICK at the GESTE / ELBERT crossing?
I had an A at the end and GESTa with aLBERT seemed reasonable….
Anonymous 7:42 AM
DeleteNot a Natick because Beau Geste was a famous (but very old) movie and lower case ithe term means a noble usually futile gesture. The movie was based on an English novel which popularized the French term. Ironically, is boomers are more likely to know it , in contrast to the theme. We needed it! BTW a Frebch term is unlikely to end in A.
Been doing the NY Times puzzle for 62 years; never tossed one aside before. A waste of time for someone who never played or even saw the game. A slog in every sense of the word.
ReplyDelete62 years. Thats the problem. I am of the same era, and it is on us (13 down) to stay current. We are not , or should not be, the target audience. Puzzle was annoying because of crap like IMSAD and ADAYAGO, not the theme
DeleteOn the one hand, the griping is excessive today. Millions know and play and like this game. On the other hand, the puzzle knew what it was doing—saying “f u” to the olds like an annoying child. It’s a highly, *deliberately* exclusionary puzzle. Generationally divisive by design. The puzzle equivalent of clickbait. Not my fav cultural dynamic. Make the generations fight. “Kids these days…” “OK boomer…” Ugh.
ReplyDeleteAfter finishing, I sent my 21-year-old the theme clues, I expect she'll send the answers back shortly. I knew the answers from her geeking out about it for 8 years or so.
ReplyDeleteI'm about to speak out of both sides of my mouth: publishing such a thoroughly single-topic puzzle is risky and (today) completely offputting ... unless of course on another day, it's a topic that I adore! Chuckle.
ReplyDeleteDEREK Hough is a legitimate star who has branched out into other venues because of his fame on DWTS..
ReplyDeleteThat was more of a gimme than most of the theme answers! Played Mario a total of once with my son and knew nothing about what I was doing as he whizzed around. The names were all I remember from his loving that game and mentioning them.
This was a tedious slog for me today.
Building an entire puzzle around a single videogame franchise is ridiculous. And I owned video stores and rented the games for years. Just never played one. I never heard of any of the terms except for Luigi (and that's probably from crosswords). Now potato guns: that's a different story. It was a "spud gun" and I loved it. You stuck the tip into a potato and then shot the projectile at your friends. Cheap ammo ! I had a nice metal one but some kid took it from me and threw it down the sewer, presumably after I shot him with it. I've been only able to find plastic ones on eBay.
ReplyDeleteNot fun.
ReplyDeleteEven knowing relatively little about the world of Mario (like Rex, most of what I know comes from crosswords), and not seeing whatever the special grid features are, this was easy for a Sunday.
ReplyDelete... Just went and had a look at the grid art. I think it would have confused me more than helped me. In particular, the squares with question-marks in them would have puzzled me a great deal.
Esa es una albóndiga picante.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing this one will divide people up pretty quickly. Those who've never played the game and those who love it and their reactions will likely be predictable. The haters will blame the gunk (in their way), but we do puzzles this gunky all the time. See below.
The project of wading through a massive amount of theme material was a fun and challenging even without knowing anything about the game. I liked it even though I was ATSEA throughout and it took way longer than usual.
I was ultimately stopped by ENTHALPY, but I'm okay with that. It's not a thing somebody like me will ever need to know and it's kind of an ugly looking word.
Huge fan of any puzzle with a POTATO GUN and SPUDS waiting to be used as ammo.
I am not an elitist, I am a SNOOT. I'm also LIKE MAGIC. My concern is, thanks to crosswords, I wrote in PEEPTOE without any crosses meaning I'm a little too comfortable in women's shoes.
😩 APEDOM. ENTHALPY. ODORED.
Okay, let's see just how pop culture-y product placement-y this really was:
Theme: Peeps 4 Products 7 Places 1 Quotes 2.
Non-theme:
People: 12
Places: 4
Products: 11
Partials: 10
Foreignisms: 4
--
Gary's Grid Gunk Gauge: 41 of 136 (30%)
If theme material was added to the math (quotes don't count): 53 of 136 is 39%, so even still an unexceptional gunk percentage, just a tad on the heavier than usual side.
Funny Factor: 4 😕
Tee-Hee: ANAL. HOE CAKES.
Uniclues:
1 Land a wee lass.
1 ATTAIN RED-HAIR WOMAN (~)
My Fascinating Crossword Uniclue Keepsake from Last Year: Where I differ with the bra strap. CLASP MEANS WELL.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Plenty of stuff about today's puzzle already. I looked up Taimane Gardner on youtube and she's great. Just wondering if you're a fan of Stu Fuchs, solo guy. We've seen hime locally a few times and he does lots of interesting things with a ukulele.
Delete@pabloinnh 12:21 PM
DeleteStu is wonderful. He's been at it as long as I have and he does a lot more performing than I will ever do. He's got a very inspiring approach to music overall. I haven't met him face to face, but hopefully someday.
Wow a lot of opposing comments today, positive and negative. I’m in the didn’t like it category. I did it last night and just felt long and tedious, the definition of a slog. I don’t know any of this Mario stuff. Potato gun? Warp pipe?
ReplyDeleteAny one have an explanation for 77D? Mow, for razor blades?
“Razor” = verb
DeleteBlades of grass
DeleteBlades of grass
DeleteUgh.
DeleteI cannot believe all the moaning coming from the comment section. The puzzle itself was easy enough to solve but was fun with all the Mario bits.
ReplyDeleteTo those of you who didn't like it because you don't know the reference, well every time there is a clue about niche essayists or some random Dutch painter from the 17th century, I also feel stumped but work my way through it. Video games are art just like any other and evoke feeling and help people process them like a good book. I'm not saying it's superior to other art, but it's just another branch that some people like.
Maybe try one instead of griping about how you don't understand them.
Single clues about Dutch painters? That’s your comp? Got news for you, not even the olds were alive in the time of said Dutch painters. And you let me know when someone tries to ram an entire Jan Steen puzzle down your throat. I’ll be right there protesting with you.
DeleteYeah, not a reasonable vomparidon at all. Can’t even remember the kast tome a Ditch Madter was in the puzzle. Mario et al seem to be regulars.
DeleteAnd that’s setting adide the importance of the teo things. I’m guessing Princess Peach will be a WOE long begore peole aren’t admiring Girl with the pearl
Earring.
Yikes! Have had no exposure to the Mario universe except through crossword puzzles so this was a tough one for me. Got answers like PRINCESSPEACH and BOWSERSCASTLE via crosses and lucky guesses but way too much specific trivia for me to get by without one look-ups. Interesting construction and colorful grid—I think the mention of “WARP” deserves a Star Trek recognition. Toy guns for my generation were cap pistols and suction-capped dart pistols…
ReplyDeleteMario isn't just a random popular videogame, it's been a pervasive, visible cultural phenomenon for 40 years. "Mario", "Luigi", "Yoshi", "Mushroom", and "Coin" are very reasonable for anyone with an expansive general knowledge to know, and the longer theme answers are gettable through crosses - this is an american style crossword guys! Acknowledge its a perfectly fair theme not quite geared to you, that a lot of people are having fun with, and move on!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention a couple of (crappy) billion-dollar movies that have come out in the past few years.
DeletePervasive cultural phenomenon for forty years!!!
DeleteIf ive told you once ive told you a million times, stop exaggerating
Super Mario Puzzle : The New York Times : : 2026 Half-Time Show : The World Cup
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned earlier, the 'toy' is not a potato cannon, it's a potato gun aka spud gun, like this: https://www.retrofestive.ca/potato-gun-with-retro-packaging/
ReplyDeleteAny idea what 'Podia' means ... & While we r at it what does the word 'Daises' mean?? (105D)
ReplyDeleteMore than one Dias, and Podia is more than one Podium.
DeletePodia is plural of podium. A spot for a speaker to an audience usually on a stage. Which is what a dias is also.
DeletePODIA is plural form of podium; daises is plural form of Dias. Though I read the clue as “daisies” myself for the longest time!
DeletePlurals of podium and dais
DeletePodium is a synonym for dais, and the (proper) plural of podium is podia.
DeleteDais is a raised platform. Normally it gets a diaeresis that for whatever reason was ELIDED in the clue, making it artificially (IMO) difficult to understand.
Delete1 dais = podium. 2 daises = podia.
DeletePlural of podium…Plural of dais.
DeleteWhen my 8 year old granddaughter spends the night she gets a big kick out of helping me with the crossword, so if there's an answer she might know, I'll pretend to be perplexed and ask for her help. Well, she happened to be staying over last night and when I saw that it was a MARIO puzzle I asked for help on each theme-related clue and immediately got the answer. I imagine that I would have finished without her help, but doing it together was unadulterated joy. Thanks and congrats, Kim Alswager.
ReplyDelete@egsforbreakfast 8:26 AM
Delete❤️
I love this!
DeleteI’ve done that with my grandson re. Zelda and others it’s very cool!
DeleteI always come here first on Sundays to see what I'm in for.
ReplyDeleteNot going to bother (2nd and/or 10th Sunday, I think). What's going on Will?
I don’t know anything about the video game, so my solving experience mirrored OFL’s. I stuck with it because there was enough “normal” stuff to at least keep things moving.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been more fun (and definitely more interesting) if the constructor had gone to great lengths to keep the grid free of other arcana (see Rex’s comment regarding the clue for DEREK) and nonsense like ODORED. Evan Birnholz over at the WaPo is a master at that - he will offer a complicated Meta Puzzle while being diligent to ensure that the surrounding fill is an enjoyable adjunct to the challenge at hand without annoying the solver with clues like "?!?!?!?!".
So this one had the potential to reel in the non-gamers among us, but unfortunately, at the end of the day it has the NYT’s fingerprints all over it.
How can this be published - the theme gimmicks (pipes and boxes) don’t…do…anything.
ReplyDeleteOk the pipes have a connector action but even those don’t really count as doing anything because the clue tells us the connection. Remove the boxes and pipes and you have the same puzzle, therefore they don’t serve a purpose.
Bizarre puzzle. Nap time!
I’ve never come so close to just stopping working on a puzzle when I realized — early on — that it was about a video game character I’ve heard of but about whom I know nothing. Hard to imagine anything more out of my wheelhouse. Shrug doesn’t begin to capture it. I was explicitly annoyed that a Sunday puzzle would be wasted on something like this. But for those who are into Mario, I hope you liked it.
ReplyDeleteWell I grew up playing all kinds of Mario games so this puzzle was fun for me! Since Rex doesn't know anything about Mario he should have RECUSEd himself from today's writeup.
ReplyDeleteYes, he should have. And that's the point. This puzzle was gift to popular culture, not a gift to puzzle solvers.
DeleteThe complaints about the complaints are so bizarre. It sounds like the following is expected of me: “Today’s puzzle was totally lame and required the thinking skills of a 9th grader but since the young uns like it, I suppose I’ll just smile like a good grandma-aged person and pretend I liked it, too.” To quote the puzzle, WHAT?
ReplyDeleteThe "complaints about the complaints" are not chiding people for disliking the puzzle. In fact, many say they disliked the puzzle themselves. What they are calling out is that given the NYT crossword generally skews "old", that there are countless clues and themes that go uncommented on for being within the wavelengths of those solving (which they take for granted), that when there is one which is out of their comfort/familiarity zone it isn't a question of just saying I disliked this puzzle, but rather they act infringed upon and cry that it is excluding them, age-ist, and generally not taking it stride but having a bit of a fit about it. All this while the subject under discussion is one of the most popular pieces of culture of the last 40 years, that people who grew up playing Mario Bros. games are now 50 years old, and that the complainers don't think about the base assumptions baked into a "normal" NYT puzzle.
DeleteYes, I like everyone else definitely thought of her hair as Jessica Rabbit’s striking feature. Definitely the hair, nothing else.
ReplyDelete@ElStudHombre 8:41 AM
DeleteEyes up here.
Super Mario Bros Turns 40 this september
ReplyDeleteI liked this one a lot, and I’m excited that my kids will enjoy doing it too.
ReplyDeleteDaises=lecterns=podia.
ReplyDeleteI am familiar with Mario et al, so found the puzzle easy but dull. Regardless, the whining on display here is really something. A lot of puzzles don’t appeal to all users for some reason or another but the entitlement and outrage from a certain demographic is outsized and unfortunately par for the course (and indicative of far larger issues).
ReplyDeleteFrom the aghast proclamations you would think this was aimed at teenagers. If someone was 10 years old when Super Mario Brothers was released they are currently 50. Hardly a young-un. Not shaking the accusations of a generational failing that is causing grievous harm based on pure resentment that not everything in the world is meant for or optimized for them.
Thank. You. For. This. Comment! 💯
DeleteThank you 👏🏻
DeleteThe second I saw all those cutesy graphics I knew I was going to hate it, and I did. Perfect emblem of everything wrong with the NTXW's direction since they dropped the .puz format. If I wanted a crossword to be a really lame wannabe version of a video game, I would just play a real video game. But I don't like video games. "Let's try (and fail) to turn the crossword into a video game!" I know sh-- about the Mario "universe" and care even less, though I was able to grind my way to a solve.
ReplyDeleteThis puzzle made me chuckle all the way through, thinking of all the ranting and complaining that would happen in these comments! Was certainly not disappointed!
ReplyDeleteI guess love it or hate it, I'm in the latter camp. Just gave up out of boredom half-way through.
ReplyDeleteBut, a potato canon a "kid's toy"????? Never, never, ever. More like a toy for "grown-up kids". These are made out of 3 inch PVC pipe, with aerosol from a hair spray can as propellent. The potato can fly a hundred yards at high velocity. They can do serious damage. Maybe a little safer than a BB gun, but not by much.
When I think of a potato gun I think of this: https://a.co/d/05jTCeeU and likely that’s what the constructor had in mind too. My brothers and I had one when we were kids. It gouges little pellets out of a potato about the size of a pencil eraser. Not dangerous at all but I agree the other kind of potato gun certainly is!
DeleteI think the constructor meant this kind of potato gun: https://a.co/d/05jTCeeU
DeleteMy brothers and I had one as kids, it gouges little pellets out of a real potato- they’re about the size of pencil erasers- and uses air pressure to launch them. Not dangerous but the other kind of potato gun certainly is!
Seastate5. The answer was POTATO GUN, not potato cannon. The former is a small, handheld plastic or metal "hand gun". The design of the barrel allows you to stick it into a potato and twist in order to load a potato pellet. I haven't seen one in a long time but I think the firing mechanism is a spring. Certainly not as dangerous as the weapon you describe, but you could still hit someone in the eye.
Delete@SouthsideJohnny 8:30 AM, has said it best. The criticisms are not about generational angst and Super Mario. This is about scads of PPP (and crossing PPP), especially in the central portion of the puzzle. It's part of puzzle construction and puzzle solving to include both PPP and difficult clues, but generally, the surrounding grid should allow the solver to complete the puzzle. If one substitutes "PPP trivia" for "Super Mario trivia", then you will see similar criticisms every day, every week.
ReplyDeleteScary how many people play video games.. In my generation we read..
ReplyDeleteDawg your generation is hooked on 24/7 cable news
DeleteThe generation that grew up before the advent of video games doesn't care for them. The generation that grew up after it does.
DeleteFilm at 11.
I thought this was a fun design and a good effort for a debut puzzler! I hope to see her do more themes in the future!
ReplyDeleteComing from this millennial that’s solved for a few years now, I can’t count the number of weekday puzzles that have had themes around subject matter that felt targeted specifically for generations older than mine. Not my favorite solve overall, but as someone who got a SNES at 5 years old, the themes were a breeze. Not for nothing, Mario has been in the zeitgeist for nearly 40 years.
ReplyDeleteA. weekDAY puzzle, maybe. But please point to a Sunday puzzle that is *this* exclusionary to, say, *under*-50s. I don’t mind this theme, but the tit for tat claims seem a little weak. Puzzles have been skewing younger for years now as the median constructor age has shifted down.
DeleteJust within the last year, the puzzle from Sunday, September 14, 2025. Wile E. Coyote debuted in 1949 and the vast majority of those cartoons were released before 1967.
DeleteIf you expect younger solvers to know who Mel Blanc and Chuck Jones are, I think it's reasonable to expect older solvers to know who Princess Peach is.
What’s enjoyable about these comments is us older folks thinking younger solvers care about our experience at all, and younger folks thinking that admonitions like “chill” and “move on” are somehow persuasive.
ReplyDelete"Odored" was my last fill and it made me angry. I really don't think there is any such word in the English language. "Odorous"? Sure. "Odiferous"?? If you're not in to the whole brevity thing, man. I liked the puzzle mainly because I put a lot quarters into Super Mario Brothers at one point.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this puzzle. I’m 46 and have played Mario games since the original super Mario game came out in 1986. I still remember the Christmas when Santa put a Nintendo under the tree. What’s wrong with a puzzle that appeals more to younger people than older people? Lots of clues most days reference stuff that I don’t know because of my age. For instance, I didn’t know the happy days “gimme” clue Rex mentions. I remember happy days being on tv when I was a kid but I was too young for it to remember much more than that.
ReplyDeleteI think the constructor is referring to a different kind of potato gun--a small pistol-shaped toy that shoots tiny potato pellets. If you search "Archie McPhee potato gun" you'll see what I mean.
ReplyDeleteI’m on the old side of Gen X and have had limited experience with the Mario universe, but I was able to solve this puzzle in almost exactly my average time. I liked that they’re trying something to appeal to younger solvers, though I thought the execution was a bit of a disappointment — I was expecting the pipes to be used in a more impressive way, for example. What I kind of struggled with was the fill. Lots of potential Naticks in this grid that had nothing to do with video games: the VINYASA(???)/HIP cross that could have been VENYASA/HEP, HOECAKES(???) and DEREK. This puzzle had an odd back and forth slog vs. whoosh feeling. Can’t say I hated it and can’t say I loved it. Shrug.
ReplyDeleteI'm of the Mario generation and enjoy the games but found the puzzle visually noisy and consequently difficult to navigate for reasons unrelated to any intrinsic challenge. Didn't much care for it.
ReplyDeleteHey folks, remember the Tetris puzzle on 9/9/22? Did that get this level of vitriol?
ReplyDeleteI had no clue about that either - but I solved it, as I did this one. Have to say I'm surprised by the sensitivity of Mario fans to the grumbling. 8000 nerve endings…
DeleteBeing an old man has tought me many things. One of them is that everything is not all about me. I'll take the "L".
ReplyDeleteNYT: Please stop with all the gimmicks 🤦🏻♀️
ReplyDeleteOh yes - I totally agree. Give me a good themeless any day.
Delete(RIP Manny Nosowsky)
Started doing puzzles about 6 years ago - with the dailies and then as I got better and faster started into the archives as well - reading comments from this blog after all those solves. I’m now back to mid-2013 puzzles which are a very different experience for me. Times can be 1.5-2x as compared to current dailies and DNF or “cheats” are much more common, especially getting into Fri/Sat puzzles. It’s definitely interesting to see the shift in cluing/themes/answers over time. A lot of the difficulty for me as the puzzles get older are a combination of 1) “current events” that just get forgotten and 2) “culture” that I was never a part of. Sometimes I get frustrated not knowing those answers cold, but it is fun to try to force my way through and conquer it. All that being said, Mario is directly in my childhood memory (and my son’s) so this one was fun because of that - but understand the challenge for those who don’t have that connection. I’m still going to continue heading backwards as far as the archives (and my ability to solve them) will take me because I like the challenge - and enjoy reading the comments from all solvers after completing!
ReplyDeleteEventually recognized who we were talking about which explained why so many of the references were making no sense. My boys were not MARIO guys and my 8-year old granddaughter was unavailable (lucky you, @egs). I soldiered on and finished it without any cheats, mostly because on Sunday I do Sunday puzzles. Got everything but the M from MUSH which I should have seen but couldn't get past thinking about some kind of PUSH. Duh.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind a tribute puzzle but I'm with those that think it's too much on a Sunday. I've seen some MARIO references in previous puzzles or would have been lost entirely. I'm sure folks younger than I, of which there are many, had a great time with this one, and I don't begrudge them that, but a lot of us would have preferred something more inclusive.
Congrats on the debut, KA. I hope you Keep Adding to your list of published puzzles and hope the next one is more up my alley.
@pabloinnh: Well said.
DeleteWTF?
ReplyDeletei'm on the older side of rex and have played mario bros and its spin-offs like smash bros., yoshi's world, etc. i even bought a switch 2 this year to play the latest mario kart. all of that to say even though i'm familiar with the theme subject, this puzzle could have/should have been so much more. the only visual is the WARPPIPE and it gets that wrong by having FIREF-LOWER & MUSH-ROOM swap sides. it's not like mario comes out from one facing the opposite direction of how he entered.
ReplyDeletebeyond that, where's the joy? it's an onslaught of cluing (mostly) ordinary words using the game. why not have a visual jump or a shell destroying a koopa? instead there's only 3 visual blocks and 2 pipes on a huge sunday grid.inverting the block answers would give more energy. notably missing is the stage-ending flag pole. when the puzzle leans this much into a theme, it should lean allllllll the way in. this is merely name-checking items instead of a theme.
the FIREF-LOWER separation was painful.
No way to get traction on this PPP slog. Add to that a theme so foreign to me it might as well have been written in sanskrit. And to think I'm paying for this!
ReplyDeleteNo Fun for a person completely unfamiliar with the game. And outside of the game we get PEEKTOE (??) POTATOEGUN (??) and ENTHALPY (obscure science) and a bunch of obscure to me Proper Names (DEREK Hough, ERIN Andrews for example). Ditto Rex on ODORED (knew that would be in the write-up as I entered it).
ReplyDeleteThere’s always next Sunday.
Agree 100% with this review. Plus, the visual gimmick didn’t even display on my (up-to-date operating system) phone.
ReplyDeleteAs an Italian-American, I am quite offended by the answer: "Itsa me Mario. Ah, justa kidding, I'm not offended by that. However, as a 77 year old, I'm way offended by the theme. Fifty-eight minute slog of a slog. Music at the end, but no joy. Imma so sad.
ReplyDeleteEasily the most annoying Times crossword I’ve ever done. But I’m an old fart……so?
ReplyDeleteEasily the most annoying Times crossword I’ve ver done. But I’m an old fart…….so I’ll move on
ReplyDeleteBeen solving crosswords since before there were potato guns. My favorite part of doing a crossword puzzle is learning new stuff. I have never read a book by Tolkien but answered a Jeopardy clue yesterday (ents) because the word regularly appears in crosswords. Impressed the heck out of my LOTR nerd husband. Thank you crosswords! Today I learned the names of Mario characters after buying the video games for my son, and now my grandson, for years so today’s solve was a win for me. Seems like one would be missing the joy of puzzles if you’re just looking to have it reflect what you already know. My present store of knowledge would be limited to the word for needlecase, the guy who played Tarzan on TV and nicknames of old presidential candidates if crosswords didn’t change with the times.
ReplyDeleteBest comment , along with Egs'.
DeleteNever having played Mario, I worked my way through, ending with naticks at the B of BOWSER/ELBERT and the N at NES/HAMMON.
I wish generational animosity wasn’t so prevalent in our culture. The pace of change is challenging for all, but especially for those who’ve seen the most. Younger people often seem to think life is a piece of cake for older people. This is often incorrect. And long-time customers of the NYTXW (or any business) can be disappointed when it doesn’t deliver what we expect.
Hated this puzzle.
ReplyDeleteAfter Pac-Man and death race, I never got into any other video games. This puzzle felt pretty flat for me. I did finish it in 37 minutes, which is pretty good for me for a Sunday. Luckily, I got a lot of of the fill that wasn’t theme oriented. Did have to cheat a few times. definitely was not one of my favorite Sunday puzzles
ReplyDeletePotato gun is actually a different thing from a potato cannon. Search it on eBay and you'll find the thing the puzzle is more likely referencing.
ReplyDeleteVying for most uninteresting comment of the day: here's what I didn't know: chachi, vinyasa, princess peach, derek, yoshi, enthalpy, potato gun, mayim, bowser's castle, coin, warp pipe, mamma mia, hammon, itsamemario, fire flower, mushroom, one up; I. recognized LUIGI and WARIO from previous puzzles. I regret I couldn't take delight in the theme - I can see that the constructor went all out. I did manage to fight my way through.
ReplyDeleteEasy-medium for me too. Like @Rex et. al., all I know about MARIO is what I’ve learned from crosswords so this was neither my cup of tea nor any where near my wheelhouse.
ReplyDeleteThe trickiest part for me was the BOWSER/ELBERT/REDHAIR/PODIA section where I did some lucky guessing.
What @Rex said.
I texted my wife, "If you're under 50, this puzzle is waaaaaay too easy." And it was, but I still had a lot of fun with it.
ReplyDeleteCerainly a slog for those of us who never played the games.
ReplyDeleteI'm a 57 year old who knows this world inside and out from my teens and twenties. It was easy for me, though I can't say I loved it. I'm empathetic to the solvers who are completely unfamiliar with the theme, but man, some of the vitriol here is over the top. It reminds me of the griping you here about hip-hop clues - except here its ageist rather than racist.
ReplyDeleteSide note: There's a fourth item that pops out of a ? block, a STAR that grants temporary invincibility. I'm surprised it wasn't part of the puzzle.
Great point with the STAR.
DeleteIf you’re interested in potato weaponry, check out the movie The Family Fang,
ReplyDeleteOriginal and thought provoking.
Potato gun ,, prominent in Marvel's Iron Man .. the Mechanic meets the kid
ReplyDeleteI’m a child of the 80s who didn’t even own a video game system as a kid, and my issue was this was TOO easy — hit a new PR and only encountered one bumpy area. That being said, the complaining about ageism is really hilarious. Most crossword cultural references are to things decades before I was born, and I have adapted. This is a 45-year-old piece of IP with movies, TV, etc — it’s not like this is Fortnite-themed or something. This is really disappointing from a community I’ve grown to admire.
ReplyDeleteThe hand-wringing about the theme here is kind of absurd. I’m 48-years old and played this game as a child, it is *very* old and has been very much a part of our culture for four decades. If I can learn about actors whose heyday was 20-40 years before I was born to solve puzzles, older solvers can learn about things that happened around them while they were alive — even if it’s not something that interests them personally.
ReplyDeleteThat said, the real problem with this theme is that it was a *lame* attempt at celebrating Super Mario Brothers. This was merely a random assortment of rudimentary facts about the series; the pipes added a mildly interesting twist to two small pieces of the puzzle, but the rest was just tedious.
It's a tribute puzzle. They're always like that.
DeleteCame here for the comment section; was not disappointed! Lol
ReplyDeleteThis was not a crossword puzzle, even though it tried desperately to look like one. No wordplay, no interesting or challenging clues or answers, no misdirection. Just a lot of fill-in-the-blank in the service of some sort of "guess who I am" game, or ":Where's Waldo" game, or "Dora the Explorer" game superimposed on a crossword grid to look like a crossword puzzle that is most decidedly NOT a crossword puzzle. And making it worse is the lack of opportunity to order a Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast while solving on a placemat - where it belongs.
ReplyDeleteIn its mandate to ensure NYTimes reaches 15,000,000 subscribers, the NYTimes Puzzles has been feeding us a lot of junk lately.
But this one jumped the shark.
I’ve been happily doing the NYT crossword virtually every day for 50+ years. This was awful! And ageist? You betcha.
ReplyDelete"Hoes gotta eat, too!"
ReplyDeleteThe first time in a long long time that I just gave up and clicked Reveal Complete Solution. A total waste of time for me as while I have heard of Mario I have never played it. And I don't know any of the theme answers except ITSA ME MARIO.
ReplyDeleteAnd on top of that: all the stupid Unknown Names! Worst puzzle in a long long time; what a slog.
In Across Lite the warning message says "This puzzle uses features which are not supported in this file format. The solving experience may be compromised". It should really say: "If you are not a Mario fan, don't bother with this puzzle".
Agreed. This was a puzzle for a narrow audience.
DeleteReminding me of an internet meme I encountered recently — photo of a half-dozen busty 1970s teen babes in short shorts, captioned: NO VIDEO GAMES? GEE, GRANDPA, YOU MUST HAVE BEEN SO BORED.
ReplyDeleteWell ... hmmm.
ReplyDeleteM&A's knowledge of the Mario video universe =
1. NES platform name [from previous puzs].
2. MARIO is a plumber who saves some princess from DONKEYKONG.
3. LUIGI is Mario's bro [from previous puzs].
All other puztheme aspects in today's puz were no-knows.
That's a lotta no-knows, when you toss in several non-theme no-knows, at our house.
Sooo ... was it any fun? Well, puz challenges are sorta fun. And it's good for you to suffer, now and then, with yer solvequests. I reckon I'd rate it "Painfully Fun". Not sure how that translates into stars, altho stars *are* used in cartoons to indicate pain, tho...
staff weeject pick: Not themer NES, becuz of the winner bein MOW. It's ?-marker clue tasked m&e over and over again, as I desperately needed it, to help m&e figure out them pesky WARIO & POTATOGUN no-knows. Razor as a verb, huh. Yikes.
fave stuff: Real different puzgrid looks. M&A likes different stuff. Also different: puzthemers of all sortsa lengths, from 3 to 13. And The Jaws of Brickedness, of course.
Biggest dislike: That DONKEY KONG didn't get included in these here games.
Thanx for the differentness, Ms. Alswager darlin. And congratz on yer debut, at a Sunday-sized level, no less.
Masked & Anonymo9Us
p.s.
"Sunday-sized" Runt puzzle:
**gruntz**
M&A
Okay, nobody’s going too read this because there are already over 150 comments posted but …
ReplyDeleteI’m 74 years old and I like the Mario Bros. games. Haven’t played them in years but my kids used to invite me to play occasionally so they would have some someone to easily destroy. Made them feel good about themselves. What are dads for? But I grew to like those fun, innocent contests. (Zelda was my other fave.) So I have nothing against the subject of this puzzle. But it’s a tribute puzzle - a type I don’t particularly like - and a big one. A 21x21 slog. I made my way through it thinking something exciting would happen with the cutesy graphics. But no.
One of the more interesting things for me while reading the comments were the number of people saying, “It was fun for me because I knew all the answers”. Others hated it because they knew so few. Leaving aside all the accusations of ageism - both ways - we have to remember it’s a puzzle. Not knowing the answers makes you have to work them out. Knowing all the answers makes it no fun.
I’m not a fan of Sunday puzzles or tribute puzzles. Nor am I a fan of entries like ODORED (possibly not a word?), APEDOM (same), and VINYASA (I hate yoga terms; they all seem made-up to me). So I found this puzzle deficient, but not because of any ageist anti- Mario position.
I'm replying just to mention that I read your comment, since you didn't think anyone would.
DeleteThanks, Jesse. I'm sitting at my desk, chuckling. High point of my day.
DeleteIf it wasn’t for my young grandchildren who like McDonald’s Happy Meals which have been Super Mario-centered for awhile, I wouldn’t have had a chance!
ReplyDeleteThis apparently went down on the easier side for me today, at 69 percent of my average, but it sure felt like a slog.
ReplyDeleteI've played slightly more of this universe than Rex has, but only slightly—mostly entries in the various Super Mario Kart series. And my younger sister definitely played the Super NES game. So the characters are, I wouldn't say they're terribly familiar to me, beyond Mario and Luigi, but I can recall them.
I liked the INANE/SANE pairing. Well, I guess not really a pairing, but they're both in the puzzle, and I like that.
ENTHALPY I knew off the bat, or I should say guessed, but I wasn't entirely sure. Obviously it got confirmed by crosses. I wasn't sure whether ARIANNA Huffington spelled her name with one N or two. ELBERT was a completely new one to me. That is not a prepossessing name for a significant peak. Whitney I know, and Shasta, and Denali, of course, but not ELBERT.
The various crossword form factors tend to reuse words in quick succession; I don't know if that's Shortz's doing, or something else. One of this week's reruns is TRIAD, which I know I saw elsewhere, and there's another one in there somewhere I'm forgetting. Maybe it was YUM, though that's common enough not to seem like a rerun. And today's Midi also used a brick motif, though in service of another theme (no spoilers here).
ODORED is not, not, not "Scented." Scent is a neutral term, or possibly slightly positive. ODORED is...not.
Errors: SELLS for VENDS. ORTHO for LOWES. ADAGES for PEARLS. TUGBOAT for TOWROPE. OVERNIGHT for LIKE MAGIC. JUNGLE for APEDOM. BREASTS for RED HAIR (clearly an intentional mislead, but I fell for it, so what can I say—coming soon after ANAL, I thought we were heading down the blue route). OFF for LIP, briefly.
Just no.
ReplyDeleteIt's a Me! Hating this a ridiculous puzzle! Natick-ed up the wazoo because of proper names. What is the NY Times obsession with this stupid Mario video game?
ReplyDeleteAwesome callback to the Marisa Tomei anagaram, whose previous puzzle theme was Hollywood Shuffle with the hoe cakes! Bravo! :)
ReplyDeleteHorrible trivia contest, not a crossword.
ReplyDeletehad my granddaughter help. really disappointed that the puzzle didn't do anything when it was completed. the mini was better.
ReplyDeleteThis was, without a doubt, the least enjoyable crossword I’ve ever done and I’ve done crosswords out of the back of airplane magazines.
ReplyDeleteBUT!! Think this was a day without a Star Wars reference! 😂
ReplyDeleteHow is “decorous” “staid?”
ReplyDeleteLiked it. My millenial and Zillenial kids played various Mario things and I feel like there was a movie... One of them texted this morning "looks like today's puzz will be more on my wavelength than yours". True that, but nice for the youngs to have something for them, and yay me for finishing it. Weirdly got PRINCESSPEACH off 4 random letters. Like others I object to FIREF; would not put it in because the others were actual words...
ReplyDeleteHated it … it’s not an age thing I just had no desire to play it, my kids are college aged and never played it either. So what if certain video games are popular with some people, so is pro wrestling and UFC, and I’d find a crossword focused totally on these subjects equally unenjoyable as well.
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