Considering that JAMBOREE and CAMPOREE are both equally valid answers to the given clue, having the key letters crossed by a foreign language film and a rather vague genre of clothing is pretty gnarly work.
Yes, and CAMPOREE is a rather unknown term in the UK, so I was really quite stuck in the NE corner for some time.
@Shrike COMO was a gimme for me because I vaguely remember seeing it 30+ years ago. But does jOMO look like a Spanish word? I did get SHAPERS only with a lot of crosses.
Random thoughts: • What a gorgeous stack in the middle! Three vivid answers, with STAIRMASTER given a world-class clue, and SCREAM QUEEN and GOES NUCLEAR not only fiery, but NYT answer debuts. • A lovely never-used before grid design that highlights the stack and is without isolated islands, which on Saturday can be pretty scary. • I found TIE for [The “1” in 8-8-1, e.g.] inscrutable, but, after solving and seeing the explanation on the blogs, I head-slapped – it makes perfect sense. I love when that happens! • Plenty of rub to happify my brain, balanced by areas of “Whee!”. • Answers I loved: NO BACKSIES, NOODLES for “thinking on”, RUMI (because Rumi), TUCCI (because Tucci), WOODSY. (Say those last three answers fast five times!) • Vibrant, fresh answer set overall that makes the whole puzzle hum. Ten NYT debuts giving us not only never-before-seen answers (including DIRTY MIND and NO BACKSIES). • In fact, one out of four answers in the grid have been used less than four times in the 80 years of NYT puzzles. Wow! A powerhouse of a Saturday, a sterling and scintillating creation, IMO, doing what Saturdays should do. Much respect and gratitude for this, Brandon. Thank you!
The non-gym rats among you will maybe like to try out the thing my tired mind invented just now: the CHAIRMASTER. The path from novice to master is very accessible - you just need the dedication to sit there. Optional accessories include podcasts, crossword puzzles, and cold beverages.
@Cat Lady Margaret But people tend to REALLY hog that machine at the gym. One might need to sit down and wait your turn for it. Set up a corresponding video service and you've got yourself the next pandemic Peloton. /Emu could serve as Chairman of the Bored
I would stay up late eating noodles, but it's pasta my bedtime. (How fusilli of me.)
@Mike If you penne this as a play and do the lighting, maybe you could rigatoni. 🏆 (Emu, maybe you could ziti this one out)
My kids were scouts and I was a scout. NEVER once heard the term camporee. We've been to many a jamboree though.
@Pat absolutely agree! Many of the “clues” are really bad.
@Pat I regularly heard the term in scouting. Maybe it’s generational or regional? But I started with “jamboree“ too.
Pat, I don't question your personal experience. Steven, An answer you don't know may not be the result of a bad clue. <a href="https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor" target="_blank">https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor</a>%20Program/pdf/430-001.pdf
Extremely difficult puzzle. I can normally get Saturday. Not even close this time, in my opinion to the point of unfairness.
Is that the Newton near Natick? Plenty of that town in this puzzle..
@Jon Mark if you feel that this puzzle’s difficulty approaches the point of unfairness, may I recommend a nice little Saturday from the archives that I recently had the pleasure of (not) solving: March 15, 1997. I’d be curious to hear what you think about the difficulty of today’s puzzle after spending some time with that one (and/or more generally, exploring a sampling of Saturdays from decades past in the archives). To be clear, I’m not trying to be snarky. I just get the impression that lots of newer solvers simply don’t realize just how hard some of the Saturday puzzles used to be. (Btw I wasn’t solving back then myself — my own exposure to Saturday puzzles from “the good old days” comes exclusively from the archives.)
@Jon Mark There are a handful of Saturdays that I have spent 2 to 3 hours on. This is not one of them.
NATTY ICE, RAIDERS, TIE, REESES, TESS combined with the very crosswordy NO BACKSIES and needing to know a good score at an LSAT and the unknown CAMPOREE ( jamboree yes but the other one 🙄) made today a pain. A bit too USoteric for me.
@Ιασων, Not disputing the general point — but I have to say that NO BACKSIES is hardly “crosswordese.” I have never seen it in a crossword, but I said or heard it many times as a child in the ‘70s. It might well be an Americanism but this is, after all, an American crossword. I think your complaint is misplaced on that one.
I wonder if baseball's Alou brothers like Indian cuisine that features potatoes. Interesting how [Hold, please?] didn't turn out to be I NEED A sec. I trusted my instinct to put in BONOBO (sounded possible and Spelling Bee loves it), and ENYA as well. But I also trusted my instinct to leave out STET (where STAR actually belongs). I assumed REESE'S makes something called Puffs because it was the most likely name, after I had the R and the two S's, but I had never heard of the product. I had the sense to put in AM-NRA and wait for the cross at the middle vowel. Turns out my instinctual guess, an E, would've been wrong. I was surprised to find out that the slippery thing at 22A was an ELM, not an eel. 10D: Medina, Saudi Arabia is only HOLIER if you're a Muslim. I missed that the Las Vegas eleven was a sports clue, too; I got it on the crosses and never went back after that; also the TIE clue was opaque to me, so I didn't see it as a sports clue, either; I assumed it was one of those early text expressions like 1-4-3 for I love you (they say it actually is from the flashing of lighthouse lights and dates back to 1901).
@Steve L I solved it by changing letters painstakingly. Why would an ELM be slippery? Had to mentally check through Hozier, Chieftains, Cranberries and Sinead before I thought of Enya! Nice to see her clued differently.
@Steve L That Egyptian god's name is spelled all kinds of ways. Most often I've seen 'Amun-Ra'. But there's 'Amen-Ra', 'Amun-Re', 'Amen-Re', in addition to Amon-Ra. (True, that, for 10D.) "Hold, please" was an especially clever clue!
"You! All of you!" I laughed out loud when I filled in SOLVERS! Some clever clues... "Hold, please?" I NEED A HUG! 😁 Had a good time with this puzzle; thanks.
Fun puzzle that almost defeated me in the SE corner. REESE’S Puffs sound only vaguely familiar; I had no idea on the “This Is Us” character; I couldn’t remember the River CLYDE until I had 60% of its letters; and I’m too much of a beer snob to pay attention to any Anheuser-Busch InBev brands. And then there was the wonderfully misdirecting clue for LSAT. Watching “Suits” last year prompted me to look up my LSAT score from 1983 (it was absolutely the worst test-taking experience of my life). I enjoyed the other great clues like the ones for STAIRMASTER and I NEED A HUG. Thanks for a fun challenge, Mr. Koppy!
@Eric Hougland At least you know what LSAT is, and that 180 might be a score in it. Imagine how nasty that corner was for a Polish beer snob... I NEED A HUG.
Great wordplay with “Stretcher bearers” and “Nonstop flight”, and some clever misdirects, especially“Eleven in Las Vegas”. I love the debut of SCREAM QUEEN and think the constructor’s original clue is brilliant ("One eeking out a living"). HERE’S to you, Brandon.
@Anita For “stretcher bearers” I was rifling through all the synonyms for “liars” that I could think of.
@Anita I had no idea what Jamie Lee Curtis and Neve Campbell had in common, so I googled it. I found out they both hate horror movies! But that didn't fit. Funny how they've been in so many.....
SRSLY?!?! Like, could anybody actually read "Speed Hump" without so much as a chuckle? I think 20A should be normal mind. For those who find speed dating too superficial, I highly recommend speed humping. (I'd go into more detail about that, but I don't want people to think I have a dirty mind.) Hey, no backsies!
It's interesting how different people's knowledge bases are. The first commenters often say how easy a puzzle was. This one looks easy, now that I've finished it, but while I was solving? Impossible. I wasn't confident of much beyond ENYA and COMO. Stared at the NE and SE corners for a long time, partly because I thought it was YOU SEE not YA FEEL. Finally resorted to Google to verify that CAMPOREE is a real thing, and looked up the oldest daughter in This is Us which I've never watched, and the river in Glasgow (which I should know, darn it). I tried looking up those blasted potatoes but couldn't find them. Oh, and I had to look up Squid Game, another show I've never watched. My first job in Phoenix was washing dogs in a DOG GROOMERS shop. It took me way too long to get the pun and find the answer. I've spent enough miserable minutes on them that I should have gotten STAIRMASTER faster, too. I was sure Jamie Lee and Neve were Final Girls but couldn't make it fit. This puzzle had plenty of crunch for a Saturday. Hannah below said she thought yesterday's was harder, but I found that one pretty easy: 14 minutes and no lookups, compared to 41 minutes for this one even with Google's help. To each her own, I guess.
@Shan Oh my gosh until I read your post I had pictured the groomer using dog toys to distract an animal while cleaning. Completely missed toy poodle. How silly of me. Thanks! /emus groom themselves
I live ten minutes walk from the River Clyde and I spent a few minutes trying to remember what it was called 😅 Want expecting to see it in the crossword
Fun! I also had jAMbOREES and was scratching my head because the crossings were weird, but I don't think I would have ever fixed it without using Check Puzzle.
There I was, zooming right along... well on my way to a fun Saturday personal best! Kapow! Bam! Screeching halt in the SE! I've read the comments so I know my experience is not unique there. I had the IES in NO BACKSIES in and out, in and out, rinse, repeat while I tried to figure the rest out. I was proud I thought of a test score for 180 but put in PSAT first. ACK, indeed! I slept on the SE. It was no easier today, but I realized I had eeK at 49D instead of ACK, thus DIe instead of DIA. Fixing that helped start me on the right track for CLYDE, but it was a total guess, so I looked it up to confirm. Same with TESS. That gave me enough structure to start plunking in letters that might make words instead of gibberish. That area took me longer than the entire rest of the puzzle, even though I also got stuck a bit on the jAMbORReS issue. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it a lot and thought it was fun and lively. SOLVERS and I NEED A HUG are adorable! Stanley TUCCI is an absolute favorite, and I enjoyed remembering reading "COMO agua para chocolate." I never understand those who say it was unfair. I don't see it, it was just stuff I didn't know yet. It's not supposed to be easy. Even though it wasn't an entirely clean solve for me, I feel pretty good about it! I might even argue that I deserve some ALOO gobi! These puzzles always make me hungry for Indian food! But it is too bad that I missed playing Connections the day of the NATTY ICE. ☺️
@HeathieJ Ditto, I absolutely tore through the puzzle and hit a brick wall in the SE, I spent more time there than solving the entire puzzle, haha. I did manage to set a new PB so it worked out in the end. Sometimes you're on the same wavelength as the constructor and the answers are obvious. Sometimes you aren't and you can't find a toe hold anywhere. I don't think it's unreasonable to struggle with a puzzle that doesn't click with you, I have a few constructors that are on my skip list because I don't enjoy their cluing. It's all relative in the end.
Couldn't work this one out. Ten debut answers, and several of them completely unfamiliar terms for me. And a couple of others as well... e.g. CAMPOREES. And some tricky clues that I just never caught on to. Actually surprised that most found this one fairly easy. That's just me. Oh well. ..
@Rich in Atlanta My little brother Ric went to a JAMBOREE one year--held at Valley Forge--so that was a helpful gimme, but I went down by the bow eventually (10 wrong letters --or blanks)...found it quite difficult... I find I am in Good Company
@Rich in Atlanta My little brother Ric went to a JAMBOREE one year--held at Valley Forge--so that was a helpful gimme, but I went down by the bow eventually (10 wrong letters --or blanks)...found it quite difficult... I find I am in Good Company....except that now I learn I have TWO MORE wrong letters, and someone thiinks CAMPOREE is a Scouting gathering. Sure was never a part of my Girl Scout years or my brother's outings. Wow, an even worse Fail than I first thought.
@Rich in Atlanta I did not find this one fairly easy. You are in good company, if I do say so myself.
Woof! GAD! ACK! Brandon Koppy Kills! I got the puzzle filled in down to the SE corner, and then it was just too much for me. AWK for 'Frustrated cry' Had NO BACKSIES but took it out Managed to guess RAIDERS (or was it ROADIES?) but was crippled by self-doubt by then... Had never heard of the 'cheap lager' (for a good reason, I'm sure) Tempted to enter NATTY because it's our nickname for our son... And of course no clue whatsoever about the TV show daughter, the river through Glasgow, or doing the 180 (even after I looked up the crossings; I gather 180 is a good score.) Brandon can hang my old white head on the trophy wall (with what hair is left, that is.) I guess I'm proud of haviing gotten so much of this very challenging, cleverly-clued puzzle. That will have to do, eh?
@Mean Old Lady 180 is the highest score possible. Unfortunately, i plopped ROAD into the good place to do a 180, and was lost for some time.
Nope, nope, nope. This is just not my week. I’ve struggled with almost every day and this was no exception. My brain refuses to divulge known information and I seem to be incapable of working out the unknown in my usual manner. I could be all grumpy and claim the puzzles are too hard or too US centric or whatever. But I won’t because the issue lies with me, not the splendid constructors. On the upside, I did get SCREAM QUEEN after scream actor. Plus the CLYDE was of course a gimme. I did put ENYA first, but was so sure of ponders I messed myself up for ages. ARGH I am v tired from caring for my elderly Mother as well as running the land while DH is working away, so I’m going to put my brain fog down to that. Only one more week and he’s home to help. Yay.
@Helen Wright Caregiving is so hard and exhausting... in all the ways!!! Bless you for doing it and I trust that, especially with your DH being gone, it is probably the reason for your brain fog this week! I know that I experience that when we care for my MIL, who has pretty advanced dementia. Cheers to a better next week!!
Ouch. Some grade-A clueing. Solid themeless. But it’s me. I’m the problem, it’s me. Was not vibing. Whatever the (make-believe) opposite of cruci-vibing is, that’s what I was doing. Cru-surviving. I cru-survived this one. Got it done. No lookups. But took about three days. Hoping the other puzzles will be forgiving… Thank you, Brandon!
@CCNY Hey, Taylor, I mean CCNY...I was thinking Thursday how that lyric could have been used to clue the cross to EMEND (not amend), which was ITS ME. Some people thought the [Indentifying words from a familiar voice] could have easily been ITS MA...which it couldn't have been if they'd have used the Taylor Swift lyric. Or the old Todd Rundgren lyric...Hello, ITS ME...
Far too obscure, at least for me. Some answers seemed to require taking an enormous logical leap from the clue. Hard is one thing, hard is good. But why so many clues and answers requiring young pop-culture lingo, slang and colloquialisms? 'Nobacksies' . . . 'Dirtymind' . . .? Give me a break. Still, it could be my age—over 70. Yikes!
L. Eaglesham, I don't think it's your age. 1. I thought *younger* solvers might object to NO BACKSIES, an expression I used frequently more than 70 years ago. 2. A DIRTY MIND is a joy forever. 3. Happy Saturday!
@L. Eaglesham NO BACKSIES came straight out of my childhood and into the grid -- and I'm no youngster. About 30 years ago, there was a road sign that got a laugh out of my mother every time we passed it: it was printed SOFT SHOULDERS, to which someone had scrawled below "firm thighs". (My mother is in the same decade as you...) Today's clue definitely got a chuckle out of me!
@L. Eaglesham I agree that it was hard, almost impossible for me. But I am about your age and agree with the other commenters that the examples you cite are old. In both of the areas I was stuck, it was Boy Scouts and sports that tripped me up. And French, but if I'd gotten the Boy Scouts reference, I'd have gotten the French.
Any puzzle with Stanley TUCCI in it is okay by me. This was so much fun to solve. Everything came together very organically. Thanks, Brandon.
@Vaer TUCCI is one of my favorites, too. I had forgotten he was in “Julie and Julia,” which I’ve seen but was a bit disappointed by.
The SE corner was simply brutal for me. Spent over an hour there alone, and was about to give up several times. Finally decided to leave my chair and walk down the hall. As I did, CLYDE popped into my head, seemingly out of nowhere. This suggested LSAT, and finally I realized that the eleven in Las Vegas were a football lineup (not a dice roll)---and that the RAIDERS were no longer in Oakland. That was enough to let me break through, though it still took a while to understand that 8-8-1 was a sporting record---wins, losses and TIEs. Never heard of NATTYICE, REESES Puffs, or Randall of "This is Us" (much less his daughter TESS), and NOBACKSIES isn't really in my lexicon. (Also unfamiliar with CAMPOREES, but JAMBOREES didn't work.) Finally finished, without assistance, after 1:41:06. Not an easy one for me---INEEDAHUG.
Stretcher Bearers? was the best in my opinion. Great clue, great answer. SE was brutal, some of the top center too; took longer than the entire rest of the puzzle. Getting to the point where I can complete 85% to 90% of the Fri/Sat puzzles and then just fall apart on the last couple fill-ins (i.e., I go get my Google on). Pretty cool to see the progression from my fear of Wednesday's two years ago to this point. Onward!
@John Peil Congratulations! One of these days, you're going to get there all the way on Fridays and Saturdays without getting your Goog on!! One of my life mantras is progress not perfection and though I am striving to not have any lookups ever, I feel like that applies well to crossword puzzling too.
Loved every bit of this one with the minor exception of CAMPOREES, which I’ve never heard of and made the NE corner a fight. Definitely on my wavelength on the whole (DIRTYMIND, SCREAMQUEEN, and MACGYVERS fell right away). I wish your original clue of “one ‘eeking’ out a living” had made the cut, though! Honestly that would have made my day. Great puzzle.
I almost gave up then made some breakthroughs (SCREAMQUEEN, GOESNUCLEAR). But then it got tricky again. I really didn’t like HOLIER for the two Medinas. Would have preferred “Swiss cheese vs cheddar”. Now that’s fun!
@Ernest Agreed on the Medina’s Now if the answer had been funky cold…
Glad I read the column otherwise next time I went to Vegas and rolled an eleven I would have yelled "RAIDERS baby!" Who knows, maybe it would have caught on. That SE corner was like a quintiple natick for me, okay, slight exaggeration, but only slight. Finally TIE and LSAT allowed for a somewhat finite number of plausible guesses as I returned a few times throughout the day before lucking into keeping the streak alive.
Camporee instead of Jamboree is truly an evil move from the puzzler.
Wow, I found the SE corner extremely challenging! Never went to law school so I’m not up on LSAT score ranges. Never consumed that particular “beer” from our friends at Anheuser-Busch. Was sure that STET was the signal of importance. Was convinced that “eleven in Las Vegas” had to be dice related, ala “snake eyes” and “boxcars”, but nothing was fitting. I thought my streak was going, going, gone. Finally remembered that Reese’s Puffs were a thing or I might have been here all night. 692 and counting!
@Brian That’s hilarious. I had almost EXACTLY the same experience with the SE! I just guessed at Reeces and it all fell into place, allowing me to hit 1000 gold stars. I’m slow as can be, but persistent.
@Brian I struggled with that corner, too. I don’t have the “never went to law school” excuse, and while I know very well that 180 is a perfect LSAT score, I was successfully directed to think of ueys (or if you prefer, uies).
@Brian Similar experience. I’ve heard in craps elevens are called “Yo-leven” and it fit. But it didn’t last for long. Northeast finally did me in. — — — — — — — —
ARGH! and also, ACK! Two puzzles in a row that kicked my butt. I NEED A HUG and an easier Sunday to restore my confidence.
@Heidi Sorry to hear that. Sunday is almost certain to be easier. Good luck and stay cool!
This one is worthy of not reading the other comments first. The really scary kind (starring Jamie Lee and Neve) where you start easy in the NE, then everything goes dark and silent, so… uh oh, that means even with a lot of helping letters I still can’t get anything else. So many fun clues where initially every single word in the English language, and yet none, seemed fair game! Wow. Never heard of that beer, so having visited Glasgow saved me there, and total guess on which vowel fed the potato god to finish. Loved it! The puzzle provided all the frustrated cries I needed.
Always love the puzzle, but I have a complaint today. TESS should have been clued as Randall’s *middle* daughter. Déjà is older and is just as much his daughter (through adoption). It suggests a lack of respect for adoption to clue Tess this way. (I do see she is clued as elder, not eldest, but still…)
@Molly I'm not familiar with the show/story/movie--whatever it is--but I believe you: it was tacky to ignore the adopted daughter. (Fits right in with some recent news reports about who is, or is not, childless...)
@Molly Thank you for flagging! I came here to say the same thing. It could have so easily been clued as "Randall's middle daughter" and avoided the implication that adopted children aren't as valid as bio children.
@Molly Adopted children are certainly as sons and daugthers as natural-born children, but to be fair, TESS is only Randall and Beth's middle daughter at the very end of the run. For the majority of the show, Deja isn't their daughter at all. And with all the time traveling that takes place in that show, it's not enough to know who they are; you also have to know when they are. I do agree that the cluing should have been better, but perhaps "first daughter" might have worked.
If you don’t like the football reference…. How about Oceans Eleven as Raiders? That works too in my mind!
@hallmachine I thought of Oceans Eleven as well, and entered RATPACK instead of Raiders
As a Buffalonian, 46 Down was much appreciated (and true).
Really tough one, but not in a gimmicky way. Just clues that made no obvious sense . . ,. until they did and I was like DUH!
This was one of those puzzles where I guessed a few answers and was shocked to be greeted by a gold star. CAMPOREES was foreign to me even though I'm American and was a Cub Scout, but the crossings seemed to require it. TESS, NATTY ICE, RAIDERS, and CLYDE were all guesses for me as I never watched that show, I don't drink beer, I don't follow sports, and I'm unfamiliar with Glasgow. I originally tried NATch ICE but that was really not working. Still shocked that I solved this one!
This was such a fun one for me after two days of just not vibing at all with the Thursday or Friday puzzles—a personal best by a mile and the enjoyment of being in a flow state that was in perfect sync with the constructor’s brain. I’m just sad it’s over now! To the archives…
Well, I definitely NEEDAHUG after that one!
I recently had a pretty nasty injury in my nearest gym going on a stairmaster. Weird that it is again mentioned, same with yesterdays sects. Are you guys collecting my personal information and feeding me this puzzle ? You guys can’t be in my walls, can you ?
@Krists Andersons Yes, we are in your walls. We all like your latest haircut.
Very enjoyable — “Hold please”? — was brilliant, but also symptomatic of how omnipresent colloquialisms in crossword puzzles have become. Interjections like ARGH and ACK can be spelled in a variety of ways and this, with the inclusion of slang like NOBACKSIES and YAFEEL, has opened worlds of possibilities for constructors but may have also led to some laziness on their part since most people — I assume — come to crosswords to test their factual knowledge, not their familiarity with common speech.
Robert Schwartz, By "factual knowledge" I trust you mean formal language, not proper nouns? I doubt many people come here just for the PPP. I come to crosswords to engage in wordplay, and I'm happy to play with both common and uncommon language. N.B. Interjections and slang have been in the crossword for quite a while. You may not be familiar with some of the newer slang. 5 results for SKIDOO from pre-Shortz puzzles: Thu Mar 10, 1983 9D Scram Bernice Gordon Maleska Thu Nov 20, 1980 52A Scram! William Lutwiniak Maleska Sun May 8, 1977 27D "Scram!" Yael Gani Maleska Sun Sep 3, 1967 46A Get lost, old style. Eugene T. Maleska Farrar Sun Aug 29, 1954 74A Old term for "Scram!" W. E. Jones Farrar
@Robert Schwartz For me, crossword puzzles are about wordplay, not relaying facts. I'm generally not a fan of trivia games, so I enjoy crossword puzzles where puns and turns of phrase teach me a new fact or two along the way. The fun for me is the push to think in new, unexpected directions.
@Robert Schwartz Thank you so much for the way you expressed your opinion. It was both pointed and respectful--an existence proof that such a thing is possible! Although my experience is different from yours, your comment helps me understand something interesting about some unknown portion of the solving public.
Holy cow -- I struggled and suffered everywhere! I finished only with the help of two "checks", not "cheats", exactly -- and I'll explain the difference in a minute. First the side of the puzzle I got completely on my own, though not without a Herculean struggle. The combination of EDDIES at 1D and PONDERS (for "thinks (on)" gave me a DN to begin the "cleaning up lots of toys" answer and an SR to begin the "coal miner's discovery" answer. Either EDDIES or PONDERS was Very Wrong and I had no idea which. I also had EEL instead of ELM for the "slippery" thing. If I had just known ENYA -- but of course I didn't. Not until DOG GROOMER started to fill in did I change PONDERS to NOODLES. (PONDERS is better, AGREE?) Now for "checking" vs. "cheating" [TM]: I didn't Google the beer directly. I had what looked like it might be NATTY something-or-other, so I typed "beer: NATTY" into Google and both NATTY ICE and NATTY BOH came up. I preferred the letters in NATTY ICE. Why are RAIDERS "eleven in Las Vegas"? I thought "eleven" was either a very lucky or a very UNlucky throw of the dice -- I can never remember which. I struggled not only with the plethora of pop culture film and TV clues, but with some of the very clever clues like DOG GROOMER and STAIRMASTER. However, one trick clue came to me in a nanosecond: DIRTY MIND -- which I got with no crosses!!! (Maybe that's because I have one?) More struggle than pleasure for me. But it did keep me fully absorbed.
@Nancy The Raiders are a football team. Eleven players on the field at a time.
@Nancy I think the Raiders are the football team formerly located in Oakland but now in Las Vegas. I assume there are 11 members of a football team ...
Unusually, I didn't finish. I try to work through clues I don't know, but if it's a cluster, I end up getting bored. In this case, raiders, natty ice, and even Reeses, which I had to guess, and I have kids. Didn't like.
I loved "You all of you!" as much as I hated YAFEEL for "get me". I really wanted DOGGylOvERS for DOGGROOMERS. I know there are variations on Amun Ra but I was expecting it to be in the RA so that threw me for a minute. I'm definitely a NOBACKSIES kid so that was fun. The whole SE came together with a series of 'this might work' guesses that did. And in the SW dropping in OSIRIS and BONOBO was fun.
Absolutely delightful! Remarkably smooth sailing for me - got DIRTYMIND right off, and even had NOBACKSIES but took it out until the crossings indicated I should have kept it - until the SE corner, where I had to slow down and try a couple educated guesses, starting with ACRE and STAR. This is the strategy I use when I think I'm about to be stuck: instead of typing in only the answers I'm ink-sure about, which is normally what I do, I try to relax down to only needing to be pencil-sure 😅 Not easy for me, but often enough it's the key to melting an otherwise totally frozen chunk. Loved STAIRMASTER, SCREAMQUEEN (and I wish the original clue had stuck, especially given how often we're entering EKE or EKING!), and DOGGROOMER. The balance between OSIRIS and AMONRA (whose third letter I left out until the crossings came through) was lovely. Thanks for the fun, Mr. Koppy!
I feel like crossing AMONRA on exactly the letter that changes every time that particular deity is in the crossword with a foreign word that looks perfectly fine with any of the possible spellings of the Sun God was totally not cool.
Matt, ALOO has also been a word in English for a while. If you aren't familiar with it from menus, you'll find it in dictionaries. <a href="https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/aloo" target="_blank">https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/aloo</a> #####
@Matt exactly Matt! huge natick.
20A made me giggle. A wonderful Saturday, easier than Friday but I'm not one to argue with someone who calls me out for a DIRTYMIND.
@Anna Grace Is "speed hump" a regional thing? We call them speed bumps out here.
@Mr Dave I've seen their use growing across both coasts. I grew up with bumps, and humps were totally foreign when I first saw them. Bumps and Humps differ slightly in their design and goals. Speed bumps are usually shorter and more severe, aiming to slow traffic to 5-10 mph, while humps are slightly longer and can be passed in the 10-20mph range.
No one I know ever bought Natty Ice as a budget Budweiser beer. It was Natural Light or Busch. In college we drank cheap beers like Genesee or Schaefer, $4 per case. In graduate school we drank PBR.
@Norman in Chicago, we drank Old Style when we wanted to save a buck. That was back when bars sold dollar pitchers of whatever was on tap.
@Norman I'm pretty sure my first beer was a Genny Cream Ale. Natty Bo (National Bohemian) was the budget beer of choice growing up in MD. In college, I frequented a bar that served Natty Light in buckets - priced to sell before it went bad. (They change the kegs on Monday.)
I loved MACGUYVERS, and yes, I have used that as a verb. There was one episode where he removed the cylinder from a revolver to use the frame as a wrench. The joke was that the character never used a gun...for it's intended purpose, anyway. I have friends from Medina, Ohio who might raise an eyebrow at 10D. The one in Saudi Arabia is certainly HOttER.
NATTYICE, MACGYVERS, CAMPOREE, once again another puzzle that was out of my wheelhouse. And two sports trivia clues. 8-8-1???? I should have gotten RAIDERS, since I live here, but I'm not into sports at all. Hoping for a more pleasant Sunday.
I haven't failed to complete a Saturday in months. I don't feel bad about this one after having to do two or three reveals. There's such a thing as fair play and this one fell short. Obscurities, 'backsies'. TV shows I don't care about. A perfect storm of unsporting obfuscation.
I completed the puzzle with no lookups. But still I’m not happy to see answers that even a six year-old would be embarrassed to say. Lately these puzzles seem to be getting dumber and dumber. And while that fits my capabilities, I think they should aim a little higher.
@peinstein As a class of clues, it feels like television references are on the edge of slipping into being atavisms. Who from the younger generations is going to know or care which station a show was aired on?