This puzzle: Another example of how OCCAM always leads to the simplest and correct solution!
@Cat Lady Margaret O(CC)AM is where I caught on to the rebus. With that doubled C, it wasn’t hard to figure out that 3D was AD HO(C C)O(MM)I(TT)(EE), and everything after that came quickly.
This was a really good one. I only wish Daniel could have squeezed a fourth themer in there for the quadruple quadruple double.
@Jamie A triple quadruple double is still pretty poetic
I gotta say I especially loved Deb's intro today, concerning attitudes towards puzzling.
@Francis We are here to solve puzzles! And there are people out there who love creating them for us! That's an amazing thing. And the constructor does want you to solve the puzzle - that's the whole point. They might indulge some creativity, sure, but... isn't even that ultimately for our enjoyment?
@Francis Agreed!! Hear, hear, Deb!!
@Francis 💯 However, I wonder how many folks with that particular attitude will A. Read the column, and B. See themselves in it.
@Francis Absolutely!! She’s a CLASS ACT
And you may ask yourself, “How do I work this?” And you may ask yourself, “Where do those extra letters go?” And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful puzzle.” And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful day.” Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was. (For the record, I thought this was a beautiful puzzle. Thank you, Daniel Bodily. And happy birthday, Daniel’s dad!)
Wow. I did this in 22 minutes, which is below my Thursday average, and without any outside help! It was only possible because of experience with previous NYT puzzles. I know practically nothing about basketball. What I do know I have learned from these grids since 2023. I solved quadrant by quadrant, doing an across and down pass for each. This allowed me to get part of the theme straight away, in the NW corner - Aha! Double letters are rebuses! The revealer would have been impossibly hard for me to get 2 years ago, but today I remembered (from some NYT puzzle) that a [multiple] DOUBLE was a thing in baskteball. I wanted triple first (I spelled HAM with a single M at first, so my first Down themed entry only had three sets of double letters), but that did not fit. Then some crosses indicated it would be QUADRUPLE. Oh! The football (soccer, to you) player is spelled HAMM! Then it was just a matter of filling the rest of grid. It was not easy. I recalled some stuff I have seen here before, like ULTA and STP. Some entries I got from crosses only, like the name of the basketball player. Had A TASTE slowed me down, especially as I was confused by the clue for WILLOW. I instantly thought of willow for "weeping", but giant? Weeping willows are symbols of Mazowsze (Mazovia), the region of Poland where I've lived all my life, but I would never call the giants. Compared to other Mazovia trees, like oaks and lindens, willows are unimpressive. [Post continued in reply]
Are American weeping willows larger than Polish ones? PEEWEE FOOTBALL came to me after I got QUADRUPLE DOUBLE. I must have seen PEE WEE as a designation of children's sport here before. Overall I enjoyed this puzzle a lot. The construction was quite impressive, and I liked the clues, too. The names and trivia I got with crosses (and by chance, really. On another day I may not have remembered PEE WEE or ULTA). BTW, Barry! You advised me not to tackle NYT grids in the wee hours, yet today I solved at 4 AM having got up to help our old Jorge the Lab with some of his issues, and I aced the grid 🤩 Now to read the other comments. I swear if I see "Another Monday, how disappointing!" I'll cry 🤣
@Andrzej Agree about the willows - held me up too. In my neck of the woods we have the largest trees of all - redwoods and Douglas-firs. Weeping willows are merely large shrubs in comparison.
@Andrzej We regulars are amazed by your abilities in a second language.
@Andrzej Weeping willows can be very wide trees, both above ground and in the root zone. There are not extremely tall. They are not recommended for yard planting because of their wide growth pattern.
@Andrzej Congratulations! I had to use every single cross to get OLAJUWON, whose name I just now had to copy and paste from someone else's comment because that's how quickly I forgot how to spell it. Sports are my weakest subject, yet I too completed the puzzle with no lookups because it was so well-constructed that I was able to either infer the answers based on logic and a few crosses or no logic and all the crosses.
@Beth Right? I also think how doable this puzzle turned out to be was down to its very fine construction rather than particular ease of the fill. I am extremely rarely impressed by a puzzle, and this one almost does the trick.
@Andrzej I love your play-by-play!! I got the revealer on the crosses completely and certainly needed every single cross for OLAJUWON. Had no idea about any of that! And don't cry no matter what the other people say. 22 minutes is amazing!! You are amazing!!! ❤️🫂
@HeathieJ You're quite amazing yourself! Not only as a solver but most of all as a person. Your positivity is a true inspiration. I mean it. Recently I've been trying, and actually succeeding, to make people around me less miserable. I had no idea how great it might feel to be nice to a stranger for no other reason than their dignity as a human deserves it. The way people light up when it happens is so cool! They won't ever know it, but to some extent they have you to thank for it 🙂
@Andrzej A good-sized weeping WILLOW is about 10 meters high, comparable to our oaks. If it were a person, it would be pretty gigantic; compared to our redwoods and sequoias, not so much. For future reference, PEEWEE is synonymous with "itty-bitty", slang for very small, but it is often clued by means of the former Brooklyn Dodgers' baseball star PEE WEE Reese or comic persona PEE-WEE Herman.
@The X-Phile Our oaks and lindens can be 30 m tall, and willows are 10m, tops. I've never seen a willow and thought of it as gigantic 🤷
If after years of solving one doesn’t find that the puzzles have become easier then one’s doing something wrong. It’s not the puzzle, it’s you. This was a fine puzzle.
@Ιασων Both things are true. I've gotten better, and the puzzles have gotten much easier. I know this because when I go back and do puzzles from the archive from 30 years ago, with my current skillset, my solve times are often double or triple what they are now.
She-eep was baaaaad.
@Ed I'd say it was just as baaaaad as this comment, or just as good. I'll opt for the latter.
@Ed a woolly situation, certainly.
Felt like a Monday puzzle with rebuses. On the thumbs up side if you are new to rebus puzzles this is a great one to sink your teeth into. I figured out the rebus squares very quickly today. My mom once babysat Mia Ha(mm) so as soon as I saw three letters for her name I figured it out. Ditto with O(cc)am and then quickly realized Ad Ho (cc)o(mm)i(tt)(ee) and also quickly started spotting the rest of the double letters. Fun, easy, and one of my best Thursday times.
@Megan Wow, your mom babysat Occam? Now that's a long life. (Hee hee hee!)
@Nora "Oh my goodness, sweetie! Please put down that razor."
Yassss!! My first Thursday with a rebus that I did totally solo… and managed to finish in 26 mins which is half my usual time for Thursdays (I bet that seems like ages to all the expert crossword competitors in commentlandia haha). I’ll take my win with gratitude (and an embarrassing smidge of giddiness)! 😊🎉 For anyone still relatively new at daily solving, doing it everyday *does* help! I remember Thursday puzzles sometimes looking as barren and ominous as Fridays/Saturdays can still appear for me at the start… the later-in-the-week/harder crosswords are slowly getting more accessible and less difficult. Hang in there, we’ve got this! 🤗
@Beth C My Thursday average is a bit quicker at a shade over 30 minutes, but there are plenty of us here who’d be (and are) proud to do a Thursday in 26. Nice work.
Well done, @Beth C!
Can we who are not bothered by rebuses simply stipulate for the benefit of those who hate rebuses that, yes, they are unfair, annoying, confusing, senseless, obstructive, unethical, abominable, and a sin against God and man. There! Now the people who hate rebuses need not post about them, and the people who like to read comments need not read about them.
@drsophila Omg, this!! Can we just pin this comment at the top of the page every Thursday (and some Sundays)? Well, at least I can take a screenshot and refer to it from time to time to calm my nerves. :)
@drsophila Oh, if it were only this simple. I tell myself that if I don't like someone's comment, I can just keep scrolling, but I find it hard to take my own advice.
@drsophila What if a puzzle was constructed and nobody complained? What if one person commented, "Fun puzzle today!" and then 500 people hit the recommend button? That would be boring.
@drsophila What's wrong with people posting that they don't like something? At a time like this would you really encourage giving voice to only some people? Those you agree with? ...
@drsophila - actually, can those who love, worship, and want to marry rebuses just stipulate and those of us who find they twee and tedious can discuss all the clunky clues and boring themes?
@Grant @Andrzej I don't have any complaint with people complaining. I enjoy hearing different opinions, and I do my own fair share of complaining. It's just when they become so redundant and predictable. And the anti-rebus crowd seems to take it as a personal affront that the Times would even consider such an egregious violation of the rules.
@drsophila oddly enough, I communed with the Flying Spaghetti Monster a few days ago and he/she/it thought it would be a mitzvah if the NYT had more rebuses.
I'm crushed -- a rebus I actually liked. I probably should cancel my subscription and call it a day.
@R.J. Smith, I love it! 😄
@R.J. Smith Someone needs to check the temperature in the underworld, and I mean Right Now.
And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?"
Hakeem was a (fantastic) soccer goalie and found basketball far later in life than any other great. And he was somehow able to play full tilt during Ramadan without taking a sip of water from sunrise to sunset, even during day games.
Misspelled OLAJUWON badly and thought, "My God, what have I done?!"
As your resident alphadoppeltotter, a role I’ve inexplicably taken in the past eight years, it is my duty to inform you that while the theme may make it appear so, this puzzle does not have an unusually high number of double letters, at fourteen, where unusual is twenty or more. I must admit, however, that my heart skips a beat whenever I look at the completed grid. I remain your humble servant, ever on the alert.
@Lewis Immediately thought of our faithful R. A. while solving. Thank you for your service, sir!
I love that this was extremely accessible even if you know nothing about basketball, of which I know very little. Focusing on the revealer helped validate that I knew it had to be a rebus and explained how it would most likely work out. Work those crosses, work those revealers, baby!! Not a top favorite puzzle of mine because I didn't find a super ton of humor, and I'm a big fan of humor words, but it was still fun to figure out things that I didn't know and solve based on a theme revealer that I was otherwise clueless about. So still a winner in my book!! ☺️ As to LOAF, having one's feet up, perhaps, I've been putting my one foot up a lot today because of the sprain I got after falling from another bout of dizzy spells that I mentioned in one of my sub comments yesterday. Ice and elevation! Oh yeah! Anyhow, I didn't see the comments until like 1:00 a.m. this morning because of life craziness so I thought I would just say something on today's comments. I wanted to call out those of you who sent well wishes and advice about vertigo, exercises, doctors, and whatnot. You are each so lovely to me!! ❤️ Thank you to those of you who took the time to send such nice messages. ❤️ I am following up with my doctor tomorrow and hope to start finding some answers. I have fallen on black ice before, living here in Minnesota, but just falling randomly in my living room because of a dizzy spell is pretty scary. Glad to be out here amongst such fine people!!
@HeathieJ Yikes! That does sound scary and unpleasant. I hope your doctor can give you some answers and that you get relief very soon. I'm sorry I didn't see your previous comment about it.
@HeathieJ I must have missed the post you mention. Take care of yourself! MRI, etc. 🫂
@Beth and Andrzej Thank you and no worries, it was buried a few comments down below my main comment, more as an aside. I appreciate your kind thoughts!! ❤️☺️❤️
@HeathieJFEEL BETTER SOON!
@HeathieJ I’m so sorry you’re dealing with both physical and mental discomfort. Neither is fun, and the combo is just yuck. Vertigo turned out to be a virus for my friend. No other symptoms. For my husband, inner-ear congestion. Looking forward to hearing you’ve gotten some answers, so that both your ankle and your noodle can rest easy.
@HeathieJ, Hope you can get back on your feet soon! I’m glad to see you’re still out here in Crosslandia. I always love seeing what you have to say! ❤️🫂
@HeathieJ I've had several close calls lately, when I feel off-balance and I have a hard time correcting it. So far I've been able to grab something or lean on something. That won't always be the case. I hope you find something that helps.
@HeathieJ Actually, look at Hanson's reply, I recall a few years ago it was just waking up, and suddenly the entire bed seemed to rotate by 90 degrees, so I reflexively grabbed onto the bed to keep from sliding off. Took me several seconds to realize it wasn't. It was almost certainly an ear crystal moving, as Hanson suggested. It kind of terrifies me if that can happen while I'm driving.
Great rebus puzzle for those who are learning. Definitely a CLASS ACT.
Anyone else misspell Hakeem's name as OLAJUWaN, making the "Rainbow, to some" an aMEN? I sort of like the idea of people looking up at a rainbow, and quietly saying to themselves "Amen!"
Amazing construction! Daniel Bodily strikes again and hits the nail on the head, with a clever and accessible grid. For those just getting started on rebus puzzles, this is the perfect one to get your feet wet. But even for me, it hit the sweet spot, as I wasn't in my best form to tackle anything of a more involved nature. I often enjoy the super challenging Thursday, but today wasn't that day for me. And, despite the rebus itself being more straightforward, the fill had some lively misdirects, just enough so that I wouldn't LOAF. Perfect! Thank you, Mr. Bodily, for your dedication to puzzle construction, always bringing me great enjoyment! (And now I'll read my fellow commenters' posts, but not before I hit rewind all the way back to the 70's when "PAPA Was a Rolling Stone"... <a href="https://youtu.be/nXiQtD5gcHU?si=tYAy4ykuWIVTlEzs" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/nXiQtD5gcHU?si=tYAy4ykuWIVTlEzs</a>)
@sotto voce, One of the all-time greatest songs. Hypnotic, almost. I had never seen the video. Brilliant. Thanks for the link.
@sotto voce "...and when he died, all he left us was alone."
@sotto voce They are visiond in pink. I love a good Soul Train video of a song. If you're not familiar with it check out the Funky Town Soul Train extravaganza.
@sotto voce Here you go. <a href="https://youtu.be/1OupsNaHK0U?si=SsmvUgDQYtnUmdbW" target="_blank">https://youtu.be/1OupsNaHK0U?si=SsmvUgDQYtnUmdbW</a>
Being an avid basketball fan really helped on this one; managed to shave 31.7% off my usual time. Still a beginner in my own estimation, but today the strangest thing happened: after beating my head against the wall for the past several years with tricky Thursdays, today I was actually a bit crestfallen that the solve wasn’t MORE difficult. I think I’ve finally started enjoying the challenge that late week puzzles bring. And I think I finally understand the good emotion/feeling behind comments on a puzzle’s relative crunchiness. As always, very hearty thanks to this community for being so helpful and encouraging over the past couple years.
@John Peil Isn't it wonderful when you get that feeling? 🙌 Congratulations!! Next up: getting that feeling when you make what feels like a wild stab... and it turns out to be correct! 🎉
@John Peil, Congratulations, John! And welcome!
As a relatively new solver, this was one of the Thursday’s that I was able to solve without any help. I’m so excited. I’m a former b-ball player and a fan, so that helped, but I thought that the standard Thursday twist was readily discernible today. Thanks, Mr. Bodily!
Way to go, @Maureen Ryan!
A lot of fun, once I caught on. But at my age (89 11/12) can I really afford 1:23:37 worth of fun?
@kilaueabart Hope you have a major bash planned for your big Nine Oh! In case I forget next month, Happy Birthday!
@kilaueabart Of course you can!
@kilaueabart When you're having fun, the longer the better! Happy early birthday! Please remind us on the day because many of us here would love to line up and shake your hand, give you a hug, and congratulate you on your 90th!
@kilaueabart I think you can afford it at 89 far easier than you could at 39.
I got very worried when I saw how many sportsball entries there were. Had a feeling I was finally going to have to look some things up, especially when I saw that the revealer was also a sports reference. Sheesh, I thought. Did this constructor not get the memo that he was supposed to make sure the entries were in my personal wheelhouse? /sarcasm But no! I didn't need to look anything up because the crosses were so helpful, and I didn't need the revealer to get the theme. In fact, the theme entries helped reveal the revealer! Filled in ADHOCCOMMITTEE right away and was off to the races. (Don't ask which races... that's also sports.) I did use every single cross to get OLAJUWON. I'm surprised it came together on the first try, and I didn't even have to run the alphabet. Some folks will say that's because the rest of the puzzle was too easy, and maybe it was. But I had a long, hard day today, and this puzzle was fun and not too taxing. Just what I needed this time.
@Beth You took the words right out of my brain! Fun, relaxing solve
@Beth "Sportsball" is a lovely neologism for those uninterested in such things.
I absolutely LOVED this puzzle! Kudos to the creator! I look forward to the Thursday puzzle every week because I enjoy how creative and out-of-the box they can be. Deb, thanks for the reminder that grappling with a challenging solve is part of the fun.
This is a poppin’ fresh theme. QUADRUPLE DOUBLE not only looks gorgeous spanning the grid, but it’s only appeared in a Times puzzle once before. The three theme answers are all NYT debuts, and worthy ones. Props for that, Daniel! The theme has been done before, twice with the words spelled out one-letter-to-a-box, and once with answers that ended with POINT, REBOUND, ASSIST, and BLOCK – but never like today, with rebuses. Props, again, Daniel, for pushing the envelope. A pair of lovely serendipities: ETNA sharing the puzzle with EDNA, and the crossing PuzzPair© of SOUP’S UP and GOT A TASTE. A nit: The execution would have been a tad more elegant if the theme answers were the only answers with double letters, but alas we have UDDER and BUFFS. On the other hand, I love that the theme answers lilt down, like a basketball dropping from on high to swish in the basket. Mwah! This was fun and perfectly timed to accompany the NBA Finals. Thank you, Daniel!
@Lewis The UDDER/BUFFS issue was brought up earlier.
@Steve L -- Ah, thank you, I see it now, missed it before. Had I seen it, I wouldn't have piled on. Sorry about that, Daniel!
@Lewis Well, I will pile on. There was a rebus puzzle a while back with double Es, and it was pointed out that there were no other Es in the puzzle. Now that was elegant, especially as E is the most common letter in the alphabet. Having the two non-rebus doubles took a bit of the bloom off the rose for me.
Great puzzle! I think if you city folk ask around down at the milking shed, you'll learn that the 49D answer "UDDER" is anatomically incorrect. Squeeze an udder and you're likely to get kicked! The milker squeezes the teats... alas... For another rebus, maybe "BOOBS' might be squeezed by a farmer, but the species presumably would be a biped.
@William Schrader Yes, but teats are a part of the UDDER.
One should also not perform surgery based on answers in a crossword.
@William Schrader Yep, I shuddered at that one. But given that teats are part of the udder, as a nipple is part of a breast, it works for a crossword, if not in real life. But it's like describing a nipple piercing as a "breast piercing". A little more anatomical specificity is both appropriate and welcome, to all concerned.
At some point in the past week, I came across an article about the QUADRUPLE DOUBLE, since apparently it’s somewhere around an anniversary of a player nearly achieving one in the NBA playoffs. My eye really just ran across headline, but I didn’t actually read the article since the only sport I follow at all is baseball…nonetheless, it was on my radar (SONAR?). One of the first things I do in a puzzle on Thursdays and Sundays is look for long(ish) fills in the south, since that’s often where the revealer is. When I saw the clue for 50A, the answer came to me immediately…and I finished, if not at a PB, pretty close to one. Also, I appreciated some of the clueing…”Article around a photo?” “She-eep.” …and the juxtaposition of OVERTHROW beside P(EE)W(EE) F(OO)BA(LL). Given our current time, I could only see SALEM/SELMA as places that, in addition to being anagrams, were also the locations of some of the most shameful events in our history.
Super fun Thursday puzzle! I think this is the first puzze this far into the week that I've solved with zero help from friends, the blog, or lookups. And I shaaved nearly 20 minutes off my average! The theme was really fun and a huge help once I got it, looking forward to more similar triumphs ^v^
@Erin yes this was really fun! The theme actually became apparent to me relatively quickly and I solved it in about half my average time for Thursday, and without help either, high five us!
Would’ve been a super quick Thursday for me had it not been for six little squares in the SE: ciDER is squeezed by farmers, right? Hi C MAX sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? And that famous basketball feat, QUADRUPLE iciBLE? Sheesh, not the day to be blissfully unaware of all things basketball, including names of basketball greats. Spent a good three minutes rearranging the jigsaw puzzle pieces before OLAJUWON triggered a synaptic burst. Good puzzle. I only wish that OCCAM and HAMM crossing AD HOC COMMITTEE had not given away the secret too soon. Let’s hope everyone is a CLAS(S) ACT today about Daniel Bodily giving us a rebus.
@Sam Lyons I had ciDER too. However I puzzled over the spelling OCAM without getting the point.
Smooth fill, and I didn't have to look anything up despite not knowing Mr. Olajuwon's name (I am not a sportsball person). In my first pass I had of the across answers suspected correctly but I wasn't yet sure where the rebuses were. Missteps: waRY before LEERY, OHS before OOHS, Peru before PAPA, and Whoa before WAIT. But ETNA was a gimme that got rid of the last, and SORTD__U didn't work, and then PEEWa made no sense either, so by the time I finished everything was good. ME_AS was one of the last entries to fall but the crossing helped. I suspect this was trickier to construct than to complete (at least for people used to rebuses and Thursday puzzles) -- four doubles in short stretches is by no means easy! -- so well done there.
I am not a "sportsball person" either (Lol @ Isabeau) but I enjoyed it a lot and was sad when it was over. Due to my early careless spelling of HAM and OCAM it took me a while to catch on but that made it more fun.
I did this one while watching the NBA finals, so QUADRUPLEDOUBLE and OLAJUWON were timely and in my wheelhouse. I figured out the double letter rebus because I knew Mia HAMM was spelled with two Ms. My sports obsessions paid dividends tonight. And the crossing with ADHOCCOMMITTEE made the revealer easy to spot. Fun puzzle for me.
This is the perfect intro to rebus puzzles for a newer solver! I immediately entered double letters for WILLOW, OCCAN and HAMM. I had flagFOOTBALL until I entered the revealer for the theme. It didn’t take me long to figure out PEEWEE once I knew I needed 4 sets of double letters. Happy birthday to your dad, Daniel. Today was my father’s birthday as well. He would have been 77 today. Unfortunately we lost him last October. Thank you for this puzzle, Daniel. I really enjoyed the solve.
It bears pointing out that a quadruple double has been achieved by only four players in the history of the NBA, Wanna know one? Look no further than 38D. Some gosh-darn clever constructing.
@Matt You didn't bother looking it up? The others: Nate Thurmond Alvin Robertson David Robinson
Rare Thursday I managed to solve without checking or Googling the answers (except checking if I got the Sephora competitor right). And at the beginning I was kinda hopeless seeing the basketball revealer (I know nothing about it - I have to look up what the revealer even means). "Only" took 50 mins but I'm proud of myself!
BB MM UU HH TT Amazing feat of construction and really enjoyed this one. Typical slow start for me, but tumbling to the trick was a great 'aha' moment and then it just became a lot of fun to figure them all out. No Bodily harm here (and was somewhat surprised to see that BODILYHARM has never been an answer in any puzzle). And... was surprised I didn't remember that this trick had been done before, since it was just last year. That was a Monday from October 15, 2024 by Dana Edwards. Same QUADRUPLEDOUBLE reveal, and then the three theme answers were all 15 letter grid-spanning acrosses: ACCESSHOLLYWOOD MISSMISSISSIPPI WELLWHOOPDEEDOO Here's that Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/14/2024&g=54&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=10/14/2024&g=54&d=A</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta And.. one more rather amazing puzzle find. A Tuesday from December 10, 2013 by Bill Thompson. One answer in that one was MANDM, but it was not identified as a reveal. And then.. the theme answers in order: MAGICMARKER MEDICINEMEN MISSMISSISSIPPI MODESTMOUSE MUCKETYMUCK And... there was no reveal that noted that the letters following the M's in each of those answers - in sequence - were A, E, I, O, and U. Pretty amazing to be able to come up with those 5 theme answers that fit the vowel sequence AND... fit synchronously in the puzzle from top to bottom. Here's that Xword Info link: <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/10/2013&g=36&d=A" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Crossword?date=12/10/2013&g=36&d=A</a> ....
@Rich in Atlanta I know nothing about basketball, but the phrase "quadruple double" seemed familiar, like it had been an entry before. I guess Mr. Boddily has upped the bar by using rebuses for the double letters, and grid art.
Super fun puzzle! Some very challenging clues and a very satisfying theme to figure out. When I first started solving a couple of years ago, I HATED Thursdays. I thought I would never figure it out. Now they're my favorite day, and puzzles like this are why!
@Avalon V I always look forward to Thursday’s too.
OOH I loved the puzzle today! The theme and rebuses (rebi? I really want to go with rebi) were on the simpler side for me and the theme in general was right up my alley. I didn't even need any lookups and I finished well below my average. Super fun altogether! I did struggle a bit with the PEEWEE part of the entry (the FOOTBALL I had down quite quickly), but I managed with a mix of crossings and the only letters that made sense.
This is the first rebus I’ve actually enjoyed. Thank you, David, and happy birthday to your dad.
I LOVE rebuses and this one was much fun to work through!
Nice and light, just what I needed this morning.
So, I went through all the comments to see how many other people tried to fit POPWARNER in 9 Down before catching on to the theme. Just me, then? I’m not a basketball fan, but enjoyed the construction and clueing. Not my fastest or slowest Thursday, but I had fun.
@PaganPicnic My thought exactly: "Pop Warner is too long, flag is too short.."
@PaganPicnic My mind went to Pop Warner first, too.
@PaganPicnic I gave in and looked up Pop Warner; another one to remember for future crosswords.
@PaganPicnic I tried to do something with Pop Warner, too, even though I had picked up on the doubled letters much earlier.
@PaganPicnic I was surprised PeeWee didn't fit. I got the quadruple-double answer but, for some reason, didn't consider Rebus until Adhoc and Hamm.
Very tight theme and satisfying fill. I got the trick of the theme from the shorter-than-needed cross entries and the rest of the crossword filled itself. TIL the IRL meaning of the revealer phrase. :)
Great puzzle! Just to spread the word — all parts of the okra plant are edible: pods, leaves, flowers, stems, and even roots, which have been used in traditional healing systems.
@Adam I did not know that. I love okra! I love spicy pickled okra and okra in gumbo and fried okra and... I'm starting to sound like Forrest Gump going on about shrimp!
@Adam But to be fair, the clue didn’t say “only edible part”, and the POD is the part most people (not I!) eat.
A delightful rebus puzzle, my first with no help from the column and only one look-up (I had the wrong Hakeem). And even though I got a little PEEVEd in the NE corner, when I took another look at the rebus fills in the rest of the puzzle I figured out what was going to get the job done. Thank you, Daniel Bodily, for all the QUADRUPLE DOUBLES! I'm still on a high.