Janis

Congrats Rena on your first NYT puzzle. It was fun and challenging, just the way I like them. Keep up the good work.

As a 78-year-old woman without grandchildren, I have no personal Super Mario knowledge. That left me at a distinct disadvantage for completing this puzzle. However, thanks to the other non-theme answers, I was able to finish the puzzle with only one wrong letter. Instead of WARIO at 88A, I had MARIO. I was just couldn't figure out how the answer to 77D "Razor blades?" was MOM. If I'd paid better attention to the clue wording, I would have seen that it said "antagonist" instead of "protagonist." Of course, now MOW makes sense. Oh well, we can't be correct all of the time.

Great puzzle. Loved the cat video. As a life-long "childless cat lady," it actually had me laughing out loud. Thanks for a great way to start the day.

Kyle, thanks for a great Thursday puzzle. It did have me going in circles (no pun intended) for a while, but once I caught on to the theme, I really enjoyed it. Deb, I'm sorry to learn that you will no longer be writing the Wordplay column, but I wish you the best of luck in your retirement. Take it from someone who has been retired for over 24 years, you are going to love it. My retirement came earlier than planned, but it was the best thing that could have happened to me.

My comment here has nothing to do with the puzzle, which I sort of liked. I just wanted to tell Sam that, from her picture, she looks much too young to know about twin sets. They were very popular back in the 1950s, when girls/women wore them with pencil and poodle skirts, or slacks. They have made several comebacks over the years, but now they're not sold as a set. The wearer has to make her own twin set from separate pieces - a sleeveless or short sleeved sweater and a cardigan of the same color.

This puzzle had me stumped for a while, but then I caught on to part of the theme. I completed the puzzle but couldn't understand why only some of the words in the answers contained double letters. This morning, after reading Wordplay, it finally dawned on me that the double-lettered words included all five fingers. Very clever David!

Good morning. This isn't a comment on today's puzzle. I'm wondering if anyone else misses the Puns and Anagrams puzzles we used to get on a fairly regular basis, or have they been published and I've missed them? Thanks.