Constructor: Michael S. Maurer and Pawel Fludzinski
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME:DRINK DRINK DRINK (32A: Line from "The Student Prince" appropriate for this puzzle)— this puzzle contains various toasts from around the world
Theme answers:
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This is terrible. Truly not good, on every level. So bad it makes me almost never want to drink again. We can start with the boring, basic, nothing theme. Let me get this straight—the theme is ... toasts. That's it. Just toasts. And there are just four of them (?). Four ... toasts from around the world. Oh, and then a "formal" and an "informal" ... toast (in English). These latter toasts are at least mildly colorful, but still ... toasts. And the revealer ... wow. Like most of this puzzle, it is out of the past (and not in the good, film noir way). I have no idea what "The Student Prince" is. None. Never seen the movie, wasn't alive during Prohibition to see the operetta. No idea. Didn't matter, as the answer was obvious, but how ridiculous to have a revealer that old and marginal, and on a Wednesday.
Speaking of old and marginal, let's move on to the other reason this puzzle is bad—the fill. I thought we'd finally gotten rid of much of this junk: KCAR? ROK? IDI? ARNE? *&$^ing ALER!? Gah, this is a mess. A mid-20th-century mess. A NEHRU jacket-era mess. Then there's the truly-bad-in-any-era EMAC (40A: Early 2000s Apple product) and SERIE (59A: Something to watch on la télé). Then there's merely bad ALTOS IMIT HOSP. Then there's the complete lack of anything interesting (besides maybe REDSHIRT) (35D: Hold aside for a year, as a college athlete). I mean, C'MON, man. Round these undead answers up and send them back to the tombs whence they came. In the end, the puzzle's only virtue was its short life span—I drove a stake through its heart in less-than-Tuesday time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Easy
THEME:DRINK DRINK DRINK (32A: Line from "The Student Prince" appropriate for this puzzle)— this puzzle contains various toasts from around the world
Theme answers:
- TO YOUR HEALTH!
- DOWN THE HATCH!
- SALUD!
- L'CHAIM!
- TIRAMISU!
- AMALFI!
- KANPAI!
- NEHRU!
- PROST!
- ROID!
The Student Prince is an operetta in four acts with music by Sigmund Romberg and book and lyrics by Dorothy Donnelly. It is based on Wilhelm Meyer-Förster's play Old Heidelberg. The piece has elements of melodrama but lacks the swashbuckling style common to Romberg's other works. The plot is mostly faithful to its source. // It opened on December 2, 1924, at Jolson's 59th Street Theatre on Broadway. The show was the most successful of Romberg's works, running for 608 performances, the longest-running Broadway show of the 1920s. It was staged by J. C. Huffman. Even the classic Show Boat, the most enduring musical of the 1920s, did not play as long – it ran for 572 performances. "Drinking Song", with its rousing chorus of "Drink! Drink! Drink!" was especially popular with theatergoers in 1924, as the United States was in the midst of Prohibition. The operetta contains the challenging tenoraria"The Serenade" ("Overhead the moon is beaming"). (wikipedia)
• • •
Speaking of old and marginal, let's move on to the other reason this puzzle is bad—the fill. I thought we'd finally gotten rid of much of this junk: KCAR? ROK? IDI? ARNE? *&$^ing ALER!? Gah, this is a mess. A mid-20th-century mess. A NEHRU jacket-era mess. Then there's the truly-bad-in-any-era EMAC (40A: Early 2000s Apple product) and SERIE (59A: Something to watch on la télé). Then there's merely bad ALTOS IMIT HOSP. Then there's the complete lack of anything interesting (besides maybe REDSHIRT) (35D: Hold aside for a year, as a college athlete). I mean, C'MON, man. Round these undead answers up and send them back to the tombs whence they came. In the end, the puzzle's only virtue was its short life span—I drove a stake through its heart in less-than-Tuesday time.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]