Puppet dragon of 1960s kids' TV / TUE 9-15-26 / Mario's dinosaur sidekick / Cringey ad campaign going viral, for example / Character at the heart of the "Who shot...?" cliffhanger of 1980s TV / Scannable squares often used in place of paper menus / "Light" Jedi weapons / Actress Pompeo of "Grey's Anatomy"

Constructor: Nate Cardin

Relative difficulty: Very easy

[31D: "Light" Jedi weapons]
[55A: ___-Wan Kenobi]

THEME: _R — every theme answer starts with two initials, the second of which is "R":

Theme answers:

• P.R. DISASTER (17A: Cringey ad campaign going viral, for example)
• J.R. EWING (26A: Character at the heart of the "Who shot...?" cliffhanger of 1980s TV)
• V.R. HEADSEAT (30A: Oculus Rift or Meta Quest 3)
• E.R. DOCTORS (47A: Many characters on "The Pitt")
• QR CODES (52A: Scannable squares often used in place of paper menus)
• H.R. PUFNSTUF (64A: Puppet dragon of 1960s kids' TV)

Word of the Day: H.R. PUFNSTUF (64A) —

H.R. Pufnstuf is an American children's television series created by Sid and Marty Krofft. It was the first independent live-action, life-sized-puppet program, following on from their work with Hanna-Barbera's program The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. The seventeen episodes were originally broadcast Saturday from September 6, 1969, to December 27, 1969. The broadcasts were successful enough that NBC kept it on the schedule as reruns until September 4, 1971. The show was shot at Paramount Studios and its opening was shot at Big Bear Lake, California. Reruns returned on ABC Saturday morning from September 2, 1972, to September 8, 1973, and on Sunday mornings in some markets from September 16, 1973, to September 8, 1974. It was syndicated by itself from September 1974 to June 1978 and in a package with six other Krofft series under the banner Krofft Superstars from 1978 to 1985. Reruns of the show were featured on TV Land in 1999 as part of its Super Retrovision Saturdaze Saturday morning-related overnight prime programming block and in the summer of 2004 as part of its TV Land Kitschen weekend late-night prime programming block, and it was later shown on MeTV from 2014 until 2016.

In 2004 and 2007, H.R. Pufnstuf was ranked No. 22 and No. 27 respectively on TV Guide's Top Cult Shows Ever.

Fast food chain McDonald's later emulated aspects of the series for its long-running advertising campaign "McDonaldland", and the company was successfully sued by the Krofft brothers in 1977 for copyright infringement. (wikipedia)

• • •

Clean, but slight, and far too easy, even for a Tuesday. The [blank]-R conceit just isn't that interesting, and once you figure it out (by the second themer, probably), then every theme answer after that becomes almost transparent. I didn't even look at four of the six theme clues because I just didn't need to: J.R. EWING off the "J.R.E-," VR HEADSET off the "VR H-" etc. Same with E.R. DOCTORS and QR CODES. I only looked at the H.R. PUFNSTUF clue because I started at the back end and wondered what in the world could end -STUF that wasn't a Double Stuf Oreo. I can see how if you aren't well, old (old like me, I mean), then maybe two of those themers could've been hard for you (J.R. EWING and H.R. PUFNSTUF). I grew up with '60s TV (in reruns) and '80s TV (in original runs), so both those TV icons were very familiar to me. Speaking of "'60s TV," I was going to quibble with that characterization for H.R. PUFNSTUF because I grew up watching that show on Saturday mornings, and I didn't start watching Saturday-morning cartoons until the mid-'70s at the earliest. I was stunned to learn, therefore, just now, that in fact H.R. PUFNSTUF ran for just three months—a grand total of 17 shows—in late '69, and then just ran forever (or through the '70s anyway) in syndication, as part of the Krofft Superstars suite of shows from '78 to '85. The beauty of kids TV in the '70s was ... it seemed fine to me! I did not see it as "old" at all. Just looked kooky. And it had a catchy theme song. It has since become a cult hit; I guess it caught on with stoners who thought "Pufnstuf" was a drug reference? Needless to say, that never occurred to 8-year-old me. 

The grid is 16 rows tall instead of 15. This extra room almost certainly kept the fill from being much cruddier (six theme answers is a lot to cram in without compromising fill quality). I just wish the puzzle could've gotten any kind of extra-thematic zing going, the way yesterday's did. EDIT WARS isn't really doing it for me (10D: Conflicts over Wikipedia content). But I am grateful for the relative lack of garbage. I had absolutely no trouble with any part of the solve today. Look at clue, enter answer, pretty much from start to finish. I blanked on YOSHI for some reason (11D: Mario's dinosaur sidekick) ("LUIGI? Wait, he's not a dinosaur ... is he?"), but only needed a cross or two to fix that, and then I hesitated at UFOS (62D: Sights that make you go "What the ...?!"). Clue seems accurate enough, I supposed, but "sights" wasn't enough to get me looking to the sky. Again, as with the YOSHI glitch, we're talking about a few seconds being added to the solve, tops. 

[Apparently there was also a film, released in San Antonio (?!!?) in 1970 but otherwise not seen until it came out on DVD in 2009!: "The biggest musical fantasy since The Wizard of Oz" lol]

Bullets:

• 4D: Ultimate ___ (team sport) (FRISBEE) — I thought it was just called "ultimate" now. Yes, "officially simply called 'ultimate'" (wikipedia).
• 55A: ___-Wan Kenobi (OBI) — you've already got a Star Wars answer in this grid (SABERS), so just make this the kimono sash, why don't you? It's not like a partial name is good fill, so you may as well add a tad more range to the cluing.
• 24A: Clic Stic and Wite-Out brand (BIC) — every time I look at "Clic Stic" I misread that first "word," badly, such that the name sounds like a sex toy. "Wite-Out," despite also being wackily misspelled, causes no such problem.

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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