JD

First time I think I ever picked up that it was a rebus AND solved it without peeking at the column first.

I enjoy all the different clues used to add Oreo into puzzles.

Man, SEZ with 2/3 of its letters crossing with proper nouns really padded my time :( Had no idea what the names of 41 and 42 down were. I only remember Henson for Sesame Street. Though I figured the Z for Oz after looking up Lalanne. Originally had Say as my answer.

"Before we get started, today’s puzzle is not a rebus. You’re welcome." Ha! This is exactly the sentence I'm looking for when I briefly skim the column on Thursdays. Now onto the puzzle!

Fun puzzle. Not as challenging as Thursdays sometimes are, but every day without a rebus is a good day for me.

Three fun and doable puzzles to start my work days this week. Thursday is gonna be a doozy isn't it?

What a fun puzzle. My aha moment came with the FULL answer. Any day I can get through a Thursday puzzle in one sitting is a good day.

When I first started getting into crossword puzzles I learned early on that Thursdays are the frustrating day. So when I discovered this column with the theme explanations, I've incorporated checking it out before jumping into Thursdays. Mainly to see if there are any rebuses, and sometimes to find out the rebus answers. No shame on my part cause I personally don't find the challenge of sussing out rebuses fun. So, going into this puzzle knowing what's in store, I had fun and really enjoyed it. Only looking at one rebus answer was enough to figure out the rest. Though I admit I thought 48A was a typo for a while and kept trying to figure out which crossing down was a misdirect and what the right answer should be. Till I finally googled the spelling I saw it was not in fact a typo.

It's been so long since I used a bulletin board or thumb tacks that 52 across stumped me for a good while lol.

COUNTS NOSES, a clue about a 1920s play, a clue about a 1970s basketball team, I wonder if the solvers who blew a gasket over the recent Nintendo-themed puzzle were happier with this one.

Read the first half of the column and was preparing for a tough time. Got a glimpse of the first tricky clues answer LAW while scrolling down to get to the comments to skim the general opinion before jumping in myself, where I picked up SWING STATE. With just these two assists I breezed through this one so quickly I surprised myself! IRATE was tricky since I didn't expect the cross answer to be spelt RARIN, though the "informally" was the key hint. But overall I guess I got lucky when I glimpsed the answer for the two exact clues that might've stumped me. My crossword brain is really coming along!

All the times I've witnessed the "it's not chai tea cause chai means tea and you don't say tea tea" correction in various social media spaces came in handy today. I'm not familiar with Thai iced tea, but I was willing to accept Chai was incorrect a lot earlier than I otherwise would have.

My intelligence level is nowhere near high enough for this puzzle. Sheesh.

The theme dawned on me when trying to work out what 9D could be based on the crosses I had filled in. Went back to 1A to see if I was right and then it was mostly smooth sailing. Had to do a "pick every letter till I get the solved music" on 32A though. Never heard of Pibb Ultra and pep pills are vaguely familiar but not a term I've heard in a very, very long time. Also can't believe it took as long as it did for me to get tacos for the chipotle menu. Always go burrito or bowls so I forgot tacos were even an option!

This might be the first rebus I stumbled into discovering without my standard Thursday skim of the column in search of the word rebus. It was the ATLANTA and SANTA entries that revealed it. Still not a fan of rebuses but I accept them as part of the Thursday fare. And it is fun when you figure it out on your own.

Scored a personal best! I love when puzzles are a breeze cause it makes me feel smart lol, but at the same time I hate when my mind is locked in during the commute and then all of a sudden I have unexpected free time for the rest of the train ride. Sometimes I jump right into another one from the archive, but it takes a bit to reset the brain from the last puzzle.

It's because of his feud with Rocco, isn't it?

This felt like a Monday runner up the editors loved too much to not publish this week lol. I'll take every easy puzzle they throw our way, cause I know a convoluted rebus you'd never figure out without the daily column's explanation is waiting just around the corner.

I enjoyed this more than I would've any rebus. Y in god's name was the first theme answer I got so I had fun trying to figure out the rest of them. Had to do some letter plugging to find the right one at the end, but there were a handful of 'ohh that's it!' answers that came to me each time I took a break and came back, which is always fun.

This might be the first rebus that I didn't hate on principle! Had to take a quick peak at the column to see the theme (aka scan the text for the dreaded rebus word), but after catching the y = x switcheroo it was a fun solve.