MB

@Kyle You have to be of a certain age to appreciate “Get Smart.” To this day, a certain tune gets stuck in my head if I find myself going through a series of doors/openings. IYKYK

@Richard. The tricky thing about this puzzle is keeping in mind that the three movies (the triple feature) may not on their own have anything to do with the movie in the clue. So, “Hancock,” “Signs,” and “The Paper” are all movies, each may have nothing to do with Independence Day, but together, Hancock Signs The Paper is Hancock signing the Declaration. The idea was simply to come up with three films that could relate to the film in the clue.

@Helen Wright “Lunk” was new for me, too. We have a rather large contingent of them tanking our country right now…

@Nom De Plume From the White Album. One of the songs we used to skip over until the day you listen and it seems to change everything. Or maybe that was the pot…

@Times Rita It’s perfectly fitting, sadly. Thank you for posting this—again. It seems we have sunken to a very new low in this country.

@Helen Wright “Having a blast!” in the US is a classic expression for “having a great time”—which many of us had while doing this puzzle! And I, too, was surprised at all the feminine hygiene products—your comment was pretty funny and quite relatable.

@Francis Funny you should say this—I’ve been repeating this very same thing lately to a dear one who has lost their job recently, in a rather slip-shod way. I learned this the hard way, and now they have, too.

@Jane Wheelaghan AP Bio is short for Advanced Placement Biology—a high school course that kids take if/when they’re planning to go into medical or science programs in college. Advanced Placement courses conclude with exams that, if you score well, allow you credit for courses in your first year, thus you can “advance” and start with a second-year level course instead. AP classes are more demanding, usually you have to get approval to take them. They’re offered in many disciplines. Sorry for the long-winded answer.

@Heidi Same here. I got the theme quickly and easily. NERTS and a few others had me stuck. Errrrr…

@Nancy J. The timing is perfect.

@Francis First off—hope you feel better soon. If it makes you feel a tiny bit better, I had the same problems with this puzzle, and I don’t have Covid. Had to rely on a bunch of lookups for this and that ubums me out. Ultrasuede was one of my gets—it was the trade name for a fabric that was developed to mimic suede—it’s not leather but synthetic textile. It was “Ultra” because it was easy to clean/maintain, less expensive (I think), and was soft and “luxurious” feeling. Plus they could offer lots of colorways. And I totally agree about Mad Magazine—I think I remember that very cartoon. Rest up. Lots of fluids. Take care.

@Andrzej An attempt at an explanation here: so, yes, two pronunciations of Baroque exist—one with a short “o” sound (ba-rock), one with long “o” (ba-roke). I’m not sure about the entire U.S. of A., but in the northeast, I’ve always heard the long “o”—and still clearly using two syllables, not slurring them, it becomes a pun on the word “broke” when taking the expression “go for broke” (to give it all you’ve got) and applying it to classical music, “go for Baroque”. It’s a stretch but quite honestly, all puns are, right? True groaner, as they say. As for Sara Lee—actually they used to be pretty good—especially the pound cake. They were sold in the frozen foods section and became very popular in the 60s and 70s—also the height of advertising in this country. The oddness of the wording in the jingle “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee” made it really stand out. As for the pound cake, a slice right off the frozen loaf with a scoop of ice cream was the best quick snack ever…! Sorry for rambling.

@Heidi I think it’s safe to say Mario Cuomo enjoyed a better reputation than his son Andrew—he served three terms as Governor. (He was my choice, way back in the early ’80s!) But as others have said, the bridge, although entirely new, will always be the Tappan Zee to many of us—(sorry, Mario).

@CCNY Thank you for this—Gary Larson is pure genius. I, too, giggled at that clue.

@dutchiris Good one! Was trying to come up with one for my dear state—all I’ve got is that we’re gonna have Augusta wind and snow today—woohoo!

@Adrian I miss PDQ Bach…

@Bruce But first you had to make sure the other “party” that you shared your line with, wasn’t on the phone. That’s me, aging myself…

@Jay Amps—short for amplifiers for sound projection. Parkour is a physical activity that’s acrobatic and rather frenetic and amazing. Basically you try to get from one place to another in the fastest, shortest, and wildest, most acrobatic way possible—turning obstacles into ways to get to your destination, but with no tools or other help doing it. Think of the wildest movie scenes of chases along rooftops and down into alleys in action movies. Kind of hard to describe but wildly fun to watch.

@CCNY Thank you for the sweet sentiments—

@Jeff Z Yes—becoming a huge problem on one end, big money on the other. Lots of stories about this in the last year.

@Zach It definitely was in Mel Brook’s “Young Frankenstein,” portrayed by the fabulous Marty Feldman. A classic.

@SBK I’m assuming he means for her bizarre political turn.

@Michael There are multiple cool things going on! So neat.

@Francis Mary Tyler Moore and Lou Grant were huge for me in the ’70s. As was MASH and Masterpiece Theater. Eclectic, but excellent writing.

@B I love the rant. All too true.

@B OK, so I am one who didn’t catch on (but I’m going to blame it on not having my full focus set on this after getting some not-so-great news). All I noticed was that the circled letter was the same as the first letter in the clue word, until I hit Pore and Elasticity, and I realized I needed to change my E to a P but I got the magic happy music of success. So the best part of the cleverness of the puzzle is that you don’t actually need the rebus, you literally only need one letter or the other. Sweet. Wish I’d had my focus on and caught the whole “or” thing sooner so that I would experience a true “Aha/a” moment. Anyway, thank you for the explanation.