Purple-hatted Nintendo character / SAT 8-9-25 / Little Italian toasts / Villainous group of science fiction / Series of mental blocks? / "The Ultimate Trivia Destination," per its website / People whose flag depicts the Lion of Judah / Actress Lombard of classic Hollywood

Constructor: Aidan Deshong and Akshay Seetharam

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: WALUIGI (13A: Purple-hatted Nintendo character) —

Waluigi [...] is a character in the Mario franchise. He plays the role of Luigi's arch-rival and accompanies Wario in spin-offs from the main Mario series, often for the sake of causing mischief. He was created by Camelot employee Fumihide Aoki and was voiced from 2000 to 2022 by Charles Martinet, who described Waluigi as someone with a lot of self-pity. Waluigi's design is characterised by his tall stature, thin and lanky frame, and his purple and black outfit with a purple hat, which displays an inverted yellow "L".

He was designed as Wario's tennis partner and sidekick, debuting in the 2000 Nintendo 64 game Mario Tennis. He has featured in over 50 video games, appearing in at least one game every year since his debut until 2022. He is a playable character in Mario sports games, most Mario Party games, and also in the Mario Kart series. He has also made cameo appearances in other video games, such as the Super Smash Bros. series.

Since his debut, Waluigi has received a polarised reception from the media, often being accused of having few defining characteristics and minimal backstory. He has attained a cult following, especially helped through his use as an Internet meme. Although he has never appeared in his own video game or any mainline Mario game, critics have described him as one of Nintendo's mascots and a cult hero.

• • •

I remain jetlagged from my CA vacation, which means I'm wide awake at 10pm when the puzzle comes out, so ... may as well do the puzzle! Look at me, solving at night, just like I did before I officially became an old man—eating my dinner at 6pm (which allegedly Gen Z is also doing?), heading to bed by 9pm (which I'm fairly certain Gen Z is not doing), and then waking at 4am (which no one but me and professional bakers are doing) so I can solve and write. Weird to be up late writing. My cats are confused. I actually had to bounce Ida from my desk chair (which is apparently where she sleeps at night). I think most of my readers still solve on the morning of, but the hard-core puzzlers and night owls (as well as west-coasters) often jump on the puzzle right when it comes out (10PM Eastern). I solve better (i.e. faster) at night, but I write more easily in the morning ... which maybe is beginning to show. Annnnyway, the puzzle! Bit of a shrug, really. The marquee stuff just doesn't sing, and there's not that much original stuff to begin with. "JUST BECAUSE" and EASTER CANDY are both original, and they're good answers, but not good enough to build a whole damn puzzle around, and the rest of it has been done before and/or leans toward ho-hum. IPHONECASES and SANDCASTLES are technically debuts, but only as plurals, and slapping an "S" on the end of something doesn't really deserve originality credit. I think the one thing that is apt to delight some segment of the solving population is WALUIGI, who makes his debut today. I don't give a damn about the characters of the Marioverse, but some people really love them, so ... there he is! I guess he gets memed a lot? If that's your idea of entertaining, awesome. I'm more a CAROLE Lombard guy, myself. 

Both the "W" in WALUIGI / "AW, C'MON!" and the "B" in BEHAR / BETTE seem like potential sticking points, though "AH, C'MON" seems unlikely and Joy BEHAR is pretty dang famous, even if Balzac's Cousin BETTE isn't, particularly. JAMAIS VU gave me some trouble, initially. It also gave me a case of déjà vu, and sure enough, I've seen it in the puzzle before. It literally means "never seen," and I don't really understand the phenomenon at all. Sounds like a dementia symptom, honestly (31D: Phenomenon of experiencing something as strangely new even though one has experienced it before), though I guess the hallmark of JAMAIS VU is that the person feeling it knows that they've experienced whatever they're experiencing before. It just feels eerily, unaccountably new. In the end, WALUIGI was the only answer that held me up for any length of time. Cousin BETTE, Carole LOMBARD, Herman HESSE and Joy BEHAR are all old friends. I'll always be grateful to Joy BEHAR for being the only reason my name has ever graced the pages of US Weekly (see no. 4 on this list of "25 Things You Didn't Know About Me"). Today is her 17th NYTXW appearance. One more and she can vote (for what, I don't know).

[Florence Pugh sneaks a very dubious "Martini" demo into this CROSTINI demo]

What else?:

• 25A: Windjammer, e.g. (SHIP) — I had SAIL. Then I had SHOE. 
• 32A: Rabbit food? (EASTER CANDY) — the EASTER Rabbit (aka "Bunny") brings CANDY (which is, technically, "food") to good children, just like in the bible.
• 33D: Series of mental blocks? (TETRIS) — how are the blocks "mental?" I got this answer very easily, but ... I guess the idea is that you have to use your "mental" powers to arrange the blocks strategically.
• 49A: "The Ultimate Trivia Destination," per its website (SPORCLE) — are SPORCLE quizzes still a big deal? Seems like they had a moment and then I stopped hearing about them. Big overlap between crossword and trivia enthusiasts. I am not part of that overlap. I'll do a SPORCLE quiz if it's put in front of me, but I'm not "enthusiastic" about it. I just identified 20/20 "Popular People in 1987," though it did involve an absolute guess in putting the names with the faces of the last two. Never heard of Nelson Piquet or Ruud Gullit. Ruud!? RUUD?! Where has that name been all my life? If he were truly famous, you'd think he'd've made an appearance or two in the NYTXW by now.

[OK so he's widely considered one of the greatest football players of all time. Pardon my ignorance. You can put him in the puzzle now. I'm ready]

• 5D: Villainous group of science fiction (SITH) — first thought: BORG ("Resistance is futile"). Second thought: AXIS (that's a "villainous group" of non-fiction). KAOS? That's spy fiction. Eventually SITH just sort of filled itself in.
• 11D: #1 on BBC's list of greatest 21st-century TV series (THE WIRE) — the "BBC" part really threw me. Is it the Baltimore Broadcasting Corporation now?
• 42D: American in Paris? (YANK) — since it's an English word, I think of it being more of an American in London or American in Sydney situation. But then those aren't movie titles, are they? No funny misdirection there. 

See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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Events akin to streaks / FRI 8-8-25 / Freudian drive to survive / Hybrid feline whose coat may feature rosettes / Their tracks diffract light into rainbows / Competition conducted in rounds over rounds / Synthetic fabric sometimes called "elastane" / Caregiver known as a "nutrix" in ancient Rome / Bouts held in a dohyo / Way to the left?

Constructor: Rafael Musa and Matthew Stock

Relative difficulty: Medium (I think ... I'm out of practice)

THEME: none 

Word of the Day: UNDIE RUNS (55A: Events akin to streaks) —

An Undie Run is an event where a large number of people disrobe until they are only wearing underwear, and then run. The site of Undie Runs are typically college campuses, but they may occur on other sites such as streets. Undie Runs may be purely for entertainment, a form of protest, or as with the ASU Undie Run, fund-raising for charitable purposes. It is reported that the Guinness Book of World Records considers the Undie Run that took place on September 24, 2011, in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States to have had a record number of participants. There were 2,270 participants in that Undie Run, which was held to protest Utah's conservative laws. COED Magazine, a magazine in the United States marketed to college students, has reported that Undie Runs are the "number one university sanctioned event". (wikipedia)

• • •

[34A: Reassuring words when help is needed]

Hello. It is currently 1:50AM EDT and I have just (just!) arrived home from my weeklong extended-family vacation in Santa Barbara (SB -> DEN -> SYR, then 1hr 20min drive home). I have to be at the gym at 8:30AM, which means ... hell, I don't know what it means, mathematically, but I have to go to bed (very) soon, so this will be (very) brief, and I'll tell you all about my vacation tomorrow. Or never, who knows? I solved this puzzle on my phone (which I never do) in the car (which I really never do) so that I could start blogging as soon as I came in the door (after a few minutes of smushing my kitties). I don't know how people solve on their phones regularly. Not being a "digital (ha!) native," phone-solving does not come naturally to me. Too many fat-finger (fat-thumb) keyboard mistakes, too much fumbling with cursor placement, clue toggling, etc. It's a fine way to solve if you have no other way to solve and are not in a hurry. You can see here how long it took me (this is about twice my normal Friday time—though I didn't think it was any harder than average):

The puzzle seems fine, solid, mostly good, but there's only one answer that really stood out to me because ... well ... I had no idea what I was looking at, even after I had the answer completely filled in. That answer: UNDIE RUNS (55A: Events akin to streaks). The problem stems, in part, from the fact that I've literally never heard of these, but more so from the use of the word "streaks" in the clue. I think the clue means "streaking." Are instances of streaking called "streaks?" Streaking involves running naked, which is very very different from running in your underwear, for many many reasons, ranging from the legal to the practical. The noun "streak" to me means one of two things—an unbroken series of things (like your crossword streak) or a ... smear? Smudge? Marks left behind by ... something. So, first I thought the "unbroken series" form of "streak" was involved, and maybe there was some kind of video game frame of reference; like, if you are on a streak in a video game where you don't die, maybe you are on a "un-die run." That seemed so awful that I was then forced to move onto the "smear" meaning of "streaks," which was somehow much more awful. Why are there streaks in your undies? Please answer without using the word RUNS. Please. Pretty please? I had to look up the term after I was finished to realize it was just people running in their underwear. According to wikipedia, UNDIE RUNS are popular university events. If my university has hosted such events, I have been blissfully unaware. The fact that I haven't heard of them doesn't mean they're not real ... they already seem a lot more real to me than ECO-HOTELS (17A: Establishments with many green rooms) (presumably all the rooms in such an establishment are green?). 

Besides UNDIE RUNS, there were no other tough spots, no other mysteries ... except for Iris CHANG, who wrote a couple of very well regarded books about Chinese history before dying very young in 2004. I struggled some with BENGAL CAT, which is a "hybrid" of ... what? (15D: Hybrid feline whose coat may feature rosettes). Hmm ... looks like Asian leopard cat (not a cat I knew existed) and domestic cats, primarily the Egyptian Mau (which I also didn't know existed). If it starts BENGAL and the next word isn't TIGER, I don't know it. But the CAT part was easy (why are they saying "feline" in the clue if not to avoid saying "CAT"?) and the rest was eventually inferable. 

I need to go to sleep so off we go to the Lightning Round:

• 1A: Who wrote in an 1852 novel "Any mind that is capable of a real sorrow is capable of good" (STOWE) — as in Harriet Beecher, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (the 1852 novel in question—a tremendously popular book).
• 6A: Stick around camp? (TENT POLE) — me: "Oh, I know, it's the ... thing ... you toast marshmallows with ... for S'mores?" Sadly no.
• 36A: Means of defense for an elephant (TUSK) — also apparently a means of defense for a Cape buffalo ... (OK, TUSKs aren't the same as "horns," but ... close enough for my purposes here):

[FAFO, I guess 😢]

• 43A: Their tracks diffract light into rainbows (CDS) — this was cute. I guess CDs (which contain music "tracks") do diffract light that way.
• 4D: Follow to the letter? (WRITE BACK) — the phrasing here feels a little forced, even for a "?" clue, but the idea is that someone writes you a "letter" and then you "follow" suit and WRITE BACK
• 7D: Freudian drive to survive (EROS) — huh. Did not know that. "Libido," that's a Freudian drive I know. Also ... "death drive," is that something? Yes! Two Freudian drives that I know. But EROS, missed that one.
• 23A: Way to the left? (WEST) — looks like a political clue ... but isn't. On a map, conventionally, "left" is WEST.
• 33D: Table tennis or beach volleyball (COED SPORTS) — neither of these seems definitively "co-ed" to me. The times I've seen these sports on TV, they've been single-sex. I know CO-ED versions exist, but ... they exist in regular tennis, too? Odd.
• 45D: Animal that's mostly white, helping it hide in its natural habitat (PANDA) — gonna go to sleep now and try not to think about what color PANDAs "mostly" are. I think I'd've said "black." Pictures are deceptive. Apparent black/white-ness really depends on the angle. But their heads and torsos are white, and that's a lot of surface area, so I'm inclined to believe the puzzle. OK, that's all, good night from me and this PANDA:

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook]
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• Pop Sensation (vintage paperbacks)

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