Bygone TV host with a famous neighborhood / MON 3-14-22 / Neighbor on Full House / Typographical flourish / Central room of a Roman house / Dinosaur in Super Mario games

Constructor: Stephen Hiltner

Relative difficulty: Medium (easy, but a couple of those themer names ... yikes)

THEME: TV neighbors — "neighbors" on '90s TV shows, and then ... FRED ROGERS, of "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," For Some Reason (!?!?!!) (62A: Bygone TV host with a famous "neighborhood")

Theme answers:

• STEVE URKEL (17A: Neighbor on "Family Matters")
• KIMMY GIBBLER (28A: Neighbor on "Full House")
• WILSON WILSON (45A: Neighbor on "Home Improvement")

Word of the Day: HOODOO (41D: Something that brings bad luck) —

1: a body of practices of sympathetic magic traditional especially among African Americans in the southern U.S.

2: a natural column of rock in western North America often in fantastic form

3: something that brings bad luck (merriam-webster.com)

4: NONSENSE, HOKUM 

(merriam-webster.com)

• • •

I am offended on Mr. Rogers' behalf. What the hell is this? FRED ROGERS was one of the greatest forces for good in the history of the medium of television, and you "honor" him with ... corny '90s TV neighbors!? They are *all* from the same era, these "neighbors"—you could at least space things out a little. All sitcoms, all '90s, all ... yuck. I mean, STEVE URKEL is OK, at least he's iconic, but WILSON WILSON!? LOL, I actually knew "Wilson," but the fact that he was a WILSON WILSON? That is news to me. And as popular as "Full House" was, it was terrible and while the name KIMMY GIBBLER is vaguely familiar, it rings only the faintest of bells. Certainly not a Monday bell. And these "neighbors" have absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. They are "neighbors," but when Mr. Rogers asked "Won't you be my neighbor?," well, even he would've been like "uh, not you guys." Just kidding, Mr. Rogers would've welcomed everyone, because he was just that patient and kind. But I'm not. Not for these "neighbors," anyway. Just a jarring, weird theme with an exceedingly narrow scope. Sitcoms in the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '00s and '10s had neighbors too, what the hell? 

I was wary of this puzzle very early on when I had to endure the bizarre partial OUTIN. There is no good reason for a partial that bad to appear in a perfectly ordinary small corner of a Monday puzzle. There's nothing special going on up there, so tear it down and start over. HOODOO is also inexplicable when VOODOO works there so easily. Just change HATED to VOTED and there you go—and you're spared the awkward clue on HOODOO (3rd def.???). 

The corners are tiny and highly segmented, esp. those NE and SW corners, which have no thematic content and no connection to the rest of the grid except through the narrowest of outlets. Just a waste of space. Nothing good can come of a highly isolated 4x4. Sigh. If the theme were solid, the useless and occasionally clunky short stuff really wouldn't matter. The grid just feels like it should be much better polished. But in the end, it's the drastic reach of the theme revealer that is the real let-down today. Also, maybe [Children's TV host...] instead of [Bygone...], which just feels rude. I mean, yes, he's dead, but that guy is a lot fresher and more relevant today than any of these so-called "neighbors." Have some respect. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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