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End to seasonal song / TUE 12-6-16 / Alfred who was follower of Freud / Filmdom's Flynn

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Constructor:Ed Sessa

Relative difficulty:Medium-Challenging (only because I couldn't make any sense out of the revealer at first, and also the fill is awful down there so I kind of stopped trying/caring)


THEME:"Little Drummer Boy"— circled squares at beginning of theme answers spell out PA-RUM-PUM-PUM-PUM and then last answer is 53A: Following the circled squares, the end to a seasonal song ('ME AND MY DRUM'); the song in question is "The Little Drummer Boy," in case that wasn't obvious.

Word of the Day:"Mr. PIM Passes By"(47D: Milne's "Mr. ___ Passes By") —
[some Milne play for which I could find no short synopsis except "When a woman's 'dead' husband returns she refuses to remarry her second until he consents to her niece's wedding," which comes from the imdb page for the 1921 silent movie of the same name]
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ME AND MY DRUM. Couldn't pick it up. Such a weird phrase to stand alone. It fits here, since it is, in fact, the end of the seasonal song in question, and does follow the rum puh pum pum bit (I never say, nor have heard, that first PUM as PUM; it's more like "rump-a-pum-pum"...). But I had DRUM and then the whole preceding part was blank and I kept thinking of kinds of drums etc. The idea that a lyric was involved ... didn't occur to me. Didn't help that the fill in that trouble area was just stale and blargh and whatever PIM is. ADLER TNOTE SARAN AGATE ERROL ERGO it's *all* of it out of Common Boring Stuff That's Been Around Forever And Isn't Interesting. Of course the rest of the grid has a bunch of that too, but it was real bad down there. ULTIMA, ugh (45D: Final syllable of a word). [Like some boarding schools] = ??? I had PREP- and *still* had no idea. Because clothes are PREPPY, people are PREPPY, schools are preparatory. They're called prep schools for a reason. But the idea of an entire school being "PREPPY," again, not something that occurred to me. I LOST. NOT IN. Also, is this crossword an ad for Big Pharma. PFIZER *and* PROZAC (crossing AZT)? What gives?


Nothing more from me. I love Christmas music, I love my Christmas tree, I was very much in the mood for holiday puzzle goodness. This wasn't it. The fact that this particular Christmas song is one of my least favorite probably didn't help matters.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]

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