No AI was used in the making of this puzzle. Big thanks to Ishan from Sri Lanka for the original illustrations: <a href="https://www.fiverr.com/ishanishan5" target="_blank">https://www.fiverr.com/ishanishan5</a>.
@John Kugelman Great puzzle John thanks for popping by!
@John Kugelman that's so good to hear no a.i. was used! loved the puzzle thank u!
If you're one of the few people who print out the puzzle, and in the even smaller subset of those without a color printer, do yourself a post solve favor and go to www.xwordinfo.com to admire the illustrations.
@John Kugelman drumroll.....And the award for best animated double feature goes to ..... John Kugelman!
@John Kugelman I appreciate the puzzle itself and the thought you put into it. I most often visit the comments to validate when I feel puzzles contain shoehorned nonsense or AI slop, but there's none of that here. Your puzzle was difficult but fair, and I enjoyed the theme. The quality speaks for itself.
Just thinking we’ve had Flash and Batman, we could have rounded it out with the rest of DC: Aquaman on the Moon Wonder Woman in Red Man of Steel Magnolias Justice League of Their Own
@SP These are GOOD!
@SP Supergirl Interrupted? Clayface Off? The Big Green Lantern ?
@SP Beat the Devil in a Blue Dress The Last House of Bamboo Motor City Lights Everything Everywhere All at Once Upon a Time in the West No Time To Die Another Day The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Kong I'll stop now.
You mean to tell me "BATMAN GETS VACCINATED" wasn't the right answer? LOL
@Jamie Anti-Vaxxers take note.
My first guess was BATMANBEGINJECTIONS but the Joke(r)s on me.
After reading all the praise I guess I’m the lone (?) dissenter. Too many proper names, found the whole thing tedious. The theme entries were mildly amusing…
So, not only did John have to come up with mashup movie titles, but he had to find those for which clue pictures could be made. After all, what kind of picture could be made with, say, SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN MAN? That made coming up with theme answers one layer more difficult. Add to that, he had to come up with three pairs of theme answers, each with the same number of letters to fit symmetry. Bravo on that! I loved learning that there is no single word for “please” in the Danish language. But don’t think Danes are impolite. Post solve, I learned there are Danish phrases with that meaning, such as one that translates to “…be so kind as to”. And man, it was fun trying to guess the theme answers with as few crosses as possible just from the pictures. John, this is your ninth puzzle so far this year, four of them Sundays, and all of them with themes. You have a remarkable creative mind and a blazing work ethic. You have entertained me often, including today. Thank you sir!
@Lewis, I've been looking into the "please" question and noticed a couple of things: first, that English used to be like Danish. The use of "please" to make a polite request is relatively modern, having been trimmed down from phrases such as "if it pleases you". (The phrase uses "please" in the sense of "to bring pleasure or satisfaction", which Danish does have words for!) Second, several Romance languages don't seem to have a word for "please", either. For example, Spanish uses the phrase "por favor", meaning "as a favor"; Portuguese and Italian are similar. French has "s'il vous plait", which means "if it pleases you".
@Lewis We only knew this because we had friends visiting from Denmark last week, and they mentioned this!
Really fun and love some of the twisty clues like nuns exercising without their habits. I think FLASH DANCES WITH WOLVES breaks the rule of combining movie titles, since the movie was called FLASH DANCE* (Just tried and failed to find a standard emoji of a jungle man which I was going to paste 50x for FIFTY SHADES OF GREYSTOKE) *An uncredited 19 year old John Ezra is featured in the movie, which was shot in Pittsburgh, in a scene where Alex (Jennifer Beals) is about to audition and the camera shows Forbes Ave in early morning, the sun just beginning to rise, and off in the shimmering, blurry distance a lone bicyclist meanders slowly down the road -- that's me, on camera for all of 1.5 seconds! Alex dances to "What A Feeling," the judges are both perplexed and moved and end up giving her the nod: she's in!
@john ezra I think you should be getting residuals from "Flash Dance".
@john ezra Wow, you're a star!! I got curious recently about who body-doubled for Jennifer Beals in the *iconic* audition scene. Marine Jihan is a great dancer and I've been attempting to do her great dance videos lately!! Sort of. By the way, I've always loved the scene where Alex gets enraged and stops traffic in the tunnel when she learns that her hi-class boyfriend has put in a word for her to get the audition! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4M5MT96FwY" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4M5MT96FwY</a>
@john ezra my sister has a similar story; she was an extra when parts of The Man Who Fell to Earth was filmed on the campus of NMMI in Roswell NM. She wasn't ever recognizable in those scenes but it pretty sure there is a glimpse of her riding a bicycle.
Today is my birthday and picture clue themes are some of my favourite crosswords, so this was a delectable birthday treat to bite into!
@Marco Happy Birthday - it is mine too!
@Marco Wszystkiego najlepszego I saved it after @Andrzej posted it.
NAMABLE?? Namable plop.
@Ben Blackwell NAMABLE is strange looking, right? I looked it up and it is a lesser used variant of nameable, which looks better IMO. I don't mind one or two of those though.
Hee hee, this was fun, especially with the added twist of puzzling out the drawings. Gonna spend the rest of the evening mulling over the plot of “A Shot in the Dark Knight”… Batman joined with Dolly in a public health campaign…? But, first, to find out if a YAK also has a thick skin.
Here’s the first real one I ever heard of, on a marquee in 1979 (yes really they were all out the same time) ALIEN MEATBALLS ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ <a href="https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/054/768/088/946/228/original/5212d2631158fd6d.jpg" target="_blank">https://mastodon.me.uk/system/media_attachments/files/110/054/768/088/946/228/original/5212d2631158fd6d.jpg</a>
I have done YEARS of crossword puzzles here and must tell you this is THE most fun I've ever had with a NYT Puzzle!! BRAVO!!! More, pretty please, with puns on top? 😀 ❤️ 💙 💜
Fun one! Very enjoyable theme! I got FLASHDANCESWITHWOLVES first, and had the right idea early on... however, for some reason, I thought the cartoon hero was Thor. I'm not too terrible with the super hero universes, but I'm also not too deep into them. I have heard of FLASH, of course, but after having the DANCESWITHWOLVES, it was easy to get and remember FLASH from the crosses. And it made HECKA more sense than THORSDANCEWITHWOLVES. Har! The only one I struggled with was BADBOYSDONTCRY. I also had a couple tougher to me crosses in there and I did no favors by entering fIftH instead of NINTH at 71A for a while. Made it very hard to see NON and TNOTES with those there. Also, I thought the BADBOYS were sweating... Har! I do need to see my eye doctor soon, maybe up the ole contact lens prescription. Why are they sweating? Why are they holding skulls? Why are they angry while sweating? They're not TWELVEANGRYMENINBLACK... !? Oh, so many questions in that area. All got worked out though. My other funny me moment was ALIGHTHOUSEINGUCCI. The symbol looked like two bocce balls to me, kissing, as we said in my bocce league. I looked at ALIGHTHOUSEINBOCCE, which I actually did fill in rather early on, and started laughing HELLA hard at myself. It's nice when I add my own entertainment to my entertainment. ANYHOO, enjoyed all the themers, but also the clues for NUN, OWL, and BATON. There were some others, but those those come top of mind.
@HeathieJ Yes, great puzzle, the OWL was the last square to fill, I was going with boNE at first for Fortified stuff
Re the midi. I watched a great Shakespeare documentary on Tubi recently. Wait, was it Tubi or not Tubi, that is the question.
@Nicholas Good one. But that joke was literally made in the puzzle itself.
There were several places that almost did me in— mostly having to do with the crossing of stuff I didn’t know. Funny how that works. But the theme was too much fun to wave a white flag at. I love all rebuses, especially picture rebuses. But gah! Trying to decipher those teeny tiny pictures on a mini iPad! Was I the only one who thought the lighthouse was illuminating some pumpkins? I guess it was the banging on my screen in frustration, trying to pinch-zoom, that led me to accidentally discover the three-finger tap of the moveable magnifier box. Congratulate me, I’ve joined the elite world of People Who Are a Little Less Dim About the Technology They Paid For! Oh, and I solved the puzzle. It’s all Gucci.
@Heidi 😂 No, but if you see in my comment, I thought the lighthouse was projecting bocce balls. 😘 Agreed overall
@Heidi I’m on my phone, such teeny tiny illustrations I couldn’t enlarge.
@Heidi I thought it was an incomplete Venn diagram! 😂
I often find myself in this situation: I am in awe of the setter for their amazing idea and the brilliant execution, but still disgruntled about a lot of the unguessable crosses — MILO/ILDIVO being a case in point. The problem is that when you have an error in the filled grid, you can fiddle endlessly with the known unknowns, but you can’t be sure that your fiddling is going to complete the whole puzzle, because there might be unknown errors lurking elsewhere. So it doesn’t help to know you’ve got one bit wrong, and you end up having to check. (ie cheat) So my overall feeling is slight dissatisfaction and disgruntlement, while knowing that i am just being a curmudgeon in the face of genius.
@Petrol I had a handful of such crosses and made my best guesses and was quite surprised to get a gold star. I never check for errors on Sundays - not caring about streaks is so liberating!
My thoughts exactly. IOMMI? ILDIVO? AOKI? Solved it without help, but needed crosses and guesses for too much obscure trivia that detracted from the overall enjoyment of this clever grid.
@Petrol Remember Debbie Amlin's advice that the puzzle is for your joy and enjoyment. If you need to Google or check a clue for something you know you can't figure out, it's ok. No need to stress over this daily morning pleasure.😊
@Petrol I respectfully disagree, and I would go as far as to propose that the L crossing in MILO and ILDIVO is a great example of the kind of guessable entry that adds to crossword fun. The clues seem designed to push us in the right direction. Vertically we are looking for the first name of a literary character, and it doesn’t take many crosses to leave MILO as the only plausible candidate. Across the clue lets us know that opera is involved, so even without having heard of these gentlemen or knowing that diva has a masculine form, IL DIVO is a moderately clever name, and it’s difficult to think of anything more logical to tack onto DIVO than an Italian definite article. I can’t help feeling that the author and editors are trying to help us, not frustrate us. They wouldn’t be so generous on a Friday or Saturday. By the way, I might pay to see a group called Il Devo perform “Whip It!” in operatic Italian.
@Petrol Yeah, there was some questionable stuff, but I was still gruntled.
Funny theme. Funny illustrations. Hope everyone had fun. (No "Art Heist" this week.)
@Barry Ancona I had fun! You also had fun?! This is truly a great puzzle!
@Barry Ancona Were the images bigger in the magazine section? I could barely make them out in the app. And I had no idea what was in the lion picture other than the Lion.
Steve, The images were fine in The Magazine. They look reasonably good here too: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/svc/crosswords/v2/puzzle/print/Sep0626.pdf?large_print=true" target="_blank">https://www.nytimes.com/svc/crosswords/v2/puzzle/print/Sep0626.pdf?large_print=true</a>
@Steve L They are really big in the android games app version.
@Barry Ancona I fear that grids like "Art Heist" have gone the way of the washboard.
@Barry Ancona Ugly pics so very tiny on my Android phone, and I couldn't zoom for some reason, even though I have an override for that in the browser. 🤷♂️ Not for me.
Rarely seem to enjoy Mr. Kugelman's efforts. Same today. A few clever themers could not compensate for the tortured and generally uninteresting fill. Solve unaided in about 40 minutes. Hope others found this fun.
Xword Junkie. I was thinking there might be a thirteenth angry man in eastern Europe (non-speaking role today)… so, 14th just west of the Delaware? ;)
@Xword Junkie Yes! A crossword with long and clever themers AND un-tortured fill is rare indeed. There are a lot of trade offs in crossword construction. That's probably not news to you. For that reason I prefer themelesses.
Theme was fun and unique but the rest of the grid was terribly constructed. Awful trivia, dry clues, and slang that was too cute by half.
We’ve seen similar themes like this before, but usually with corny word puns (confession: my first published puzzle with the WSJ was one) but never in John Kugelman’s inimicable style and with such eye catching visual diversions. I was completely charmed and delighted, not only by the theme but by the rest of John’s signature clues and entries. My favorite by far was NUN, but gotta love STOP sign of the cross KOOSH and INCOGMEATO and YESANDS as a verb and PEACHEMOJI and FURSONAS…I expect a hecka (make that HELLA) lot of comments today that I can’t wait to read. One misdirection a YAK has thick skin too no? Anyways, a Kugelman that didn’t disappoint, me at least. Here’s another Crosshare share from me, my one and only themeless attempt. I don’t fault that it wasn’t published, I don’t think it was quite there, but I did love the spanners and the first two downs, so have at it and tell me what you think: <a href="https://crosshare.org/crosswords/CC2SHU4Y2Hmc3YOlFclk/where-its-at-themeless" target="_blank">https://crosshare.org/crosswords/CC2SHU4Y2Hmc3YOlFclk/where-its-at-themeless</a>
@SP So hard and took me forever. Thanks! A great palate cleanser after today's cheap and gaudy fast food entree. My last holdup was a persistent faith that the person delivering a pitcher was a Scout. Sigh. And the other actual sports stuff was a bit overwhelming for me. I'm still not sure what Derry is about but I guess it was sports too; maybe a book or movie. I liked the other spanners a lot though. Thanks for sharing this.
@SP Tough puzzle! It took me a couple of hours and I needed a couple of lookups. Well done!
@SP I liked it a lot. Definitely hard. I did get most of it. 41D is evil. 56A is brilliant 19A had me stuck on DRINK. 16A I don't get, though I sussed it out and confirmed with Check Word. 34A. I thought Best Buy was all hardware but I guess not.
I'm quite new to crosswords and still avoid any rebus puzzle like the plague, but this one was just too fun! Thank you John for creating a Sunday puzzle that made me realize how much fun rebuses can be, especially when one already as a special interest in comics and movies!
Kylee, This one doesn't count as a rebus puzzle; the pictures are in the clues, not in the grid. Rebus puzzles Some puzzles require you to use symbols or to cram more than one letter into a single box.
@Kylee Don't listen to BA. This puzzle featured True Rebuses (ok, in the clues and not the answers, so what) and It's great that you enjoyed it.
@Kylee And the article calls this a rebus puzzle in its truest sense. I agree with you - a ton of fun!
Yes, it was fun. Yes, I'm glad the OP enjoyed it. Yes, the column calls them rebuses. Yes, those are rebus clues. No, this does not count as a rebus puzzle. <a href="https://www.xwordinfo.com/Rebus" target="_blank">https://www.xwordinfo.com/Rebus</a>
In case you're wondering why the 110A film TWELVEANGRYMEN featured an all-male jury, here is some interesting information from the internet: [In 1957, state jury qualifications varied widely. Three states (Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi) completely barred women from serving by law, while many other states used "opt-in" systems or automatic exemptions for homemakers that kept female participation extremely low.] [The Civil Rights Act of 1957 first made women eligible to serve on federal juries across all states regardless of local state laws, but actual representation remained minimal.] [Low participation rates are famously reflected in the 1957 film 12 Angry Men, which featured an all-male jury—a scenario that was entirely normal and accurate for courtrooms of that era. It was not until the Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968 and later 1975 Supreme Court rulings that systemic sex discrimination in juries was prohibited nationwide.]
And they're all white men...
@lucky13 In most common law jurisdictions outside the US, lawyers are statutorily prohibited from serving on juries. The rationale is, I think, that lawyers might have undue influence in jury deliberations. In Ontario, the statute bars barristers, solicitors and students-at-law (the latter-most being a person with a law degree but not yet licensed to practice law). Interestingly (to me, anyway), the instructions accompanying Ontario’s Mandatory Jury Eligibility Form leave open to question whether a lawyer resident in Ontario who happens to be licensed to practice in a jurisdiction outside Ontario is ineligible to serve on an Ontario jury.
The theme words were the easy part, but pop culture did me in, breaking my 21 day no-lookups streak. My downfall was 44D, BLACK SABBATH GUITARIST TONY (IOMMI), and 65A, OPERATIC POP GROUP FORMED BY SIMON COWELL (ILDIVO). I have to wonder why I spent two hours and 38 minutes on this puzzle. IOMMI and ILDIVO are words known by a VERY VERY select few people. This puzzle gets a D minus in my book.
I'm sure they are not known as clued by everyone, but which of the crosses of 44D and 65A did you also not know?
@Laura Stratton Black Sabbath's self-titled album was the first I ever bought with my own money. Probably not so well-known to the Broadway fans here.
@Laura Stratton In all fairness, we have our strengths when it comes to esoteric knowledge. I love me a random sports answer, while 18th century poets and nobel winners kill my chances, and we all have likely encountered our perfect slumdog millionaire puzzle. When I'm faced with a vegan food brand crossed with a British Olympian (even though it's a sports item), I just pour a larger mimosa. Cheers!
Very creative and engaging! I had fun trying to figure out the illustrations, which were very well done. TWELVE ANGRY MEN IN BLACK is my favorite. Great clue for KILN [Burn unit?] This one is hard to do with emojis, but I'll give it a go since it’s a fun mashup. 🎭 💘 (IRL) SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE ACTUALLY
IOMMI self a pat on the back for hanging in and not resorting to look ups. Almost none of it came easily, and it took forever. Forgetting to look at the title didn’t help 🙂
@Dan IOMMIself a pat on the back too!
I actually loved it: creative and different and perfect for a Sunday. I enjoyed the cross-over movie names, and the trivia was fun and, where obscure, could be sussed out via the crosses. I quibbled with “namable,” but when I looked it up and learned that it’s an acceptable form, I moved on. Learning is good for that.
Clever, fun, a tad on the easy side but satisfying all around. Love the multiple portmanteaux! Thanks, John! @SamCorbin: It guess it helps to be old...I loved Peter Sellers in "A Shot in the Dark" (I was 10) and I used to have a gorgeous turquoise cashmere twinset (short-sleeve crew-neck top with matching cardigan). Wonder what happened to it...
Had a lot of fun with this one! Rebuses were clear without being too obvious, and each movie title mashup got a laugh out of me. I thought the clue for ACAI was especially clever. Clues I only kinda sorta knew the answer to had plenty of crossing words to help me out, which kept the puzzle flowing well. Thanks and nice work!
Well Sam, you're just a young'un. Twinsets were a staple of the fifties and also veddy veddy British. Read some Golden Age whodunits and you'll find them all over.
@Gill, and there was a brief comeback in the 80s! I had several! (I'm 66.)
@Gill I had no idea - I thought they were bed linens.
@Gill More recently they were all over some online catalogs. Maybe 15 years or so ago? I only remember because I was restocking my wardrobe for a new job and kept coming across them when looking for something not that.
Well, only 53 minutes before Monday's puzzle drops, and no one will bother reading these comments, because they'll all be rushing to see Lewis's Favorite Clues of the Week list; but if you do, here's a lovely organ work by Arvo Pärt, titled "Mein Weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler"--i.e. "My Path has CRESTS and Troughs": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOvll7X0mDc&list=RDtOvll7X0mDc&start_radio=1" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOvll7X0mDc&list=RDtOvll7X0mDc&start_radio=1</a> It was worth the puzzle, just for that one little earworm.
@Bill I'm listening. I always listen to your suggestions. But is it really an earworm for you? I think of an earworm as a song with a catchy hook that you mentally sing over and over. Or maybe you play it in your head repeatedly. This music doesn't seem repetitive enough to be digging a rut in your brain.
@Bill and your link put me into a youtube playlist mix, yours I suppose. Lovely, including the harp and the deer.
@Bill Plenty of us have schedules askew from NYT's expectation. I am just now finishing my route through Sunday's commentary. Thanks for posting the Part.
42D had a part of the answer in the clue. I thought that’s not supposed to happen.
@Nanopoder Probably didn’t even notice it because it was just a qualifier. I don’t think it tipped anyone off.
@Nanopoder it seemed like the obvious answer but I left it blank until the crosses filled it in, for just that reason
@Nanopoder This is probably the first time someone commented on clues and answers having the same word in them and actually got it right. Good catch!
You’re right! I wonder if it’s because “say” is used in a different way in the clue?
Is that Batman with two dogs? A lighthouse with that weird Marriage Encounter logo you see on bumper stickers? Batman (again?) getting a vaccination? Time to break out the magnifying glass! I'm not good with anything movie related, so it was still a challenge to pull them together, but I did recognize most of titles as they came into view. [Quite the head-turner?] for OWL made me smile.
@Nancy J. After the first couple of questions, I thought for a second you were Nancy from NYC!
@Nancy J. I literally had a magnifyiing glass in my hand for all the images (I solve on my phone). This one was unsolvable for me. Reality shows, furry slang, and pop idols just aren't part of my world, and I am about as far removed from those who can recognize a Gucci logo on sight as you can get. I had a ton of entries lacking single letters (and with the crosses lacking that single letter, too) that I had no idea how to complete, more so than any of the nearly three thousand New York Times puzzles I've completed so far. I managed the top and bottom of the puzzle, but the middle required quite a few lookups. I'll get over it.
More of these fun visual rebuses please. Very cool.
Took me a while to spot the few wrong letters I had… I did wonder why the PEACe EMOJI would be anything to do with sexting, but figured I was just old
Am I the only one that thinks YAMs don’t have thick skins? YAKs do, though (I guess).
@McX Lots of fur, but unremarkable skin per se. AFAIK.
@McX Maybe you're thinking of sweet potatoes – I think they have thinner skins than yams.
The drawings and movie mashups were cute and all, but today I learned that there is a vegan food company called INCOGMEATO? I would like to meet the marketing team that came up with that amazing and also terrible pun.
Wendy, <a href="https://www.kellanovaus.com/us/en/brands/incogmeato.html" target="_blank">https://www.kellanovaus.com/us/en/brands/incogmeato.html</a>
Good heavens. I thought this was just fine, and the illustrations were cute—I solve on a laptop, because a phone makes everything too small. It's a practice I heartily recommend for my fellow glasses-wearers. But as for the moaning about contemporary slang and references (and many are hardly contemporary): certainly few are obscure, at least to me (for instance,FUNfetti can be well known to anyone who strolls the grocery aisle, and FURSONAS has been around for a while). Others, like IOMMI, are outside of my wheelhouse but that doesn't make them obscure in general. Besides, they're mostly gettable on the crosses and clearly in someone else's Goldilocks zone. If you want to see obscure, try the first crossword ever published by the NYT, in 1942. I've hacked away at it periodically for over two years, and I'm nowhere near complete. But that's on me, not on the constructor.
The day I see FURSONAE in the puzzle, I'll know we've reached peak NYT.
@Katie Keeping this in my list of Comment of the Year nominations. If that is not an actual contest, it should be.
@Katie But then I’d have to argue with myself about whether it was pronounced furson-A or furson-E.
l was in an amateur production of "Twelve Angry Men". It was great fun. I wasn't all that angry, so didn't have very many lines, which made it a rather easy play for me. Mostly just reacting to what was going on. Another guy who sat across the table from me didn't have many lines either, but in rehearsal whenever someone went up on a line, he always knew who was supposed to deliver the line and what the line was. So one night in performance, the worst happened. Someone missed a cue or forgot a line, and there was an awful silence for a few seconds. I looked over at this guy, and he shrugged and mouthed "I have no idea". I knew we were in big trouble then. Eventually someone figured it out, and the play went on. But it was a seriously tense moment.
FUNfetti cake for all! And bake it in a LOAF PAN. This was up my alley; in my wheelhouse; played to my strengths. A couple themers I was able to get from the pictures only. A couple I needed a few crosses first. FLASH DANCES WITH WOLVES was my fave. I also especially like the clues for NUN and OWL. I expect there will be kvetching and worse because there is a bunch of trivia, but OLES to you John Kugelman.
I have known since time immemorial I am not at all pictorial. Are these drawings clear as day To others who are not that way? Cannot parse them; too much rigor Needed. Gosh, I want them bigger! As they are, they're clear as mud. For me this puzzle is a dud.
Nancy, Bigger? Did your Magazine get wet and shrink?
@Nancy Mine were fine I do declare On my laptop Not "barely there" I clean my specs Get out the magnifying glass Then gird my loins And make another pass I know wolves from coyotes Twelve men from ten If I had another one I'd do it all over again
@Nancy, I just screenshot and enlarge when needed, and then don’t save it.
@Nancy At this point I’m kind of farsighted with my contacts in (should get bifocals or reading glasses, I know) and I wished the picture clues were enlargeable on the app!
@Nancy Brava. Even though I could see the clues really clearly in the Games app on my Samsung Galaxy phone.
47A gave me fits for quite a while. I started with ANYWAY, then ANYHOW, then ANYWHO, and finally got it. 22A: I have never heard NAMABLE used in this sense, nor could I find any examples of it. I disagree with the clue. I also disagree with the spelling, but it is acceptable. ANYHOO... I am proud to say that I got 93A immediately, with no crossing letters. Your applause and admiration are appreciated. Thank you very much.
@NanuNanu I agree about NAMABLE! But I loved this puzzle. You and my partner get all the plaudits for getting 93A first crack!
Never head of Peter Sellers? Start renting some of his movies. A Shot in the Dark is a great start because it is the genesis of the Pink Panther movies. Dr. Strangelove is pretty timely these days.
@Charles I've often said that Peter Sellers was the straight man, and the world was the fall guy; "Being There" is probably the most perfect example of that.
@Charles Totally agree with you & @NanuNanu. Peter Sellers was a comic genius, and both Dr. Strangelove and Being There sit atop my list of best films. I also fondly remember watching the Pink Panther movies with my late father--very happy (& funny) memories!
Maybe it's a sign of the times (or my eyes), but spent way too much time thinking the three people were women 😔... Went don't a rabbit hole trying to figure out a film with three anarchist lesbians... 🤣
@Hitch They certainly looked like they were bewailing the injustice of the patriarchy. Or their NWSL team just lost.
@Hitch Patricia Rozema's *I've Heard the Mermaids Singing* (Okay, maybe they weren't anarchists, but it is a great movie!)
I'll never go out of my way to see Jackson Pollock, listen to Miles Davis, read Ernest Hemingway or solve John Kugelman. But I cannot deny they've all got game.
@Matt Please, just give Kind of Blue a listen today. If that's the only Miles Davis you ever listen to, you will still be a better person for it.
IGONGMEATO is a ridiculous thing to include in a puzzle. The factoids crossed with themes I found excusable because the themes were mostly easy. When an answer such as NAMABLE is in the column you must know it’s suspect…. Ok puzzle. Not enthused. Thanks
@Ιασων ya mean "in cog meat o"? or did you truly misspell it while doing the puzzle?
@Ιασων I've finally come to accept that many of the vegan faux animal foods will have these kinds of puns. A half century ago, after our mother went on a soy-granule kick in a bid to turn our family vegan, we all decided we liked foods that looked and tasted like what they were rather than foods trying to pose as something they weren't.
I loved it! The illustrations in particular took it from good to great. (I just wanted to drop my 25 cents here since this comment section is fairly scorching!) And I love the Pink Panther movies, so I will just say: A Shot in the Dark is _not_ a drama 😁
For those who like this theme, it’s also a common game played on Doug Benson’s podcast “Doug Loves Movies.” I like to think my years of listening gave me an edge today!
About 8:00 longer than average .. but I'm blaming Eala and Jovic for such a good US Open match on TV as my distraction.