Figure skater Brasseur / FRI 3-23-12 / 1993 rap hit in which Snoop Doggy Dogg popularized term bootylicious / Ancient talisman with mathematical properties / Minnie Moocher feature / Ponyo writer/director Hayao / Vronsky's love / Beater of full boat in poker

Constructor: Steven Riley

Relative difficulty: REALLY EASY

THEME: none

Word of the Day: "DRE DAY" (56A: 1993 rap hit in which Snoop Doggy Dogg popularized the term "bootylicious") —

"Fuck wit Dre Day (And Everybody's Celebratin')" (released as "Dre Day") is a hip-hop single by Dr. Dre, with a guest appearance by Snoop Doggy Dogg, from the 1992 album The Chronic on Death Row Records. The song was released as a single in 1993. (wikipedia)

[WARNING—profane]

• • •

I nearly set a Friday record, and I was solving on paper. In fact, I'm certain this is an on-paper record for me, for Friday. It's a nice, lively, clean grid, but the cluing could've been dialed up a bit. Too many gimmes, and some long gimmes at that (e.g. "JERSEY SHORE" 47A: Hit MTV series starting in 2009; BRAIN FREEZE 19A: Ice cream gobbler's woe, etc.). There was some clue trickiness around a couple of actor names, most notably BROSNAN (36D: Pierce with lines) and ANNE (43A: Archer of film), and I can see how some people might have been utterly locked out of stuff like "DRE DAY" and MIYAZAKI (31D: "Ponyo" writer/director Hayao), but that's all right over the plate for me. The problem with a puzzle this smooth and easy and unthornily clued is that there's not much to say. A pleasant way to spend a handful of minutes on a Friday.

Bullets:

• 36A: "The Godfather" enforcer who "sleeps with the fishes" (BRASI) — Luca BRASI. Everyone who knows that film knows this answer. 
• 39A: "Minnie the Moocher" feature (SCAT) — is it possible that this song was in the "Blues Brothers" movie? I feel like I know it, but I don't know how ... YES. I was right. Hurray for my memory and its ability to retrieve 32-year-old trivia.

• 53A: Vronsky's love (KARENINA) — come on. 
• 4D: Ancient talisman with mathematical properties (MAGIC SQUARE) — No idea what this is, but MAGIC filled itself in, and then the Q showed up (28A: Beater of a full boat in poker = QUADS), and what else could it be?
• 12D: Figure skater Brasseur (ISABELLA) — a nice attempt to toughen things up, and yet I filled this in entirely off just the "IS-".

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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