Raunchy 1981 comedy with two sequels / TUE 10-17-17 / South Asian shade tree / Brand of kidswear with superman batman options / Pro at building financial worth slangily / 1951 film featuring Nero / High level HS class with integrals

Constructor: Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging (on the slow side for a Tuesday) (3:48)

THEME: CON MEN (43D: People who target the starts of 17-, 30-, 40- and 57-Across)— starts of those answers are words that describe victims of CONMEN:

Theme answers:

• PIGEON COOP (17A: Base for long-distance carriers?)
• CHUMP CHANGE (30A: A mere pittance)
• SUCKER PUNCH (40A: Unexpected hit)
• MARK ANTONY (57A: Cleopatra's lover) 

Word of the Day:"PORKY'S"(46D: Raunchy 1981 comedy with two sequels) —

Porky's is a 1981 Canadian-American sex comedy film written and directed by Bob Clark about the escapades of teenagers in 1954 at the fictional Angel Beach High School in Florida. Released in the United States in 1982 with an R rating, the film spawned two sequels: Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) and Porky's Revenge! (1985) and a remake of the original titled, Porky's Pimpin' Pee Wee (2009) and influenced many writers in the teen film genre. Porky's was the fifth highest-grossing film of 1982. (wikipedia)

The theme is typical First Words stuff with a weirdly offset revealer. Nothing to write home about. The only thing I want to talk about isIBANKER (23D: Pro at building financial worth, slangily). I have never heard of this. I needed every single cross and still wasn't sure it was right. After I was finished, it still took me a few moments of thinking to figure out what the "I" even stood for. First tweet I saw online about the puzzle was this:

And I practically shouted "OH THANK GOD." Now I feel I can say, with impunity, that the decision to put this term in this position is profoundly, startlingly misguided. This is what happens when you become overly enamored of your giant word list—which you've apparently amassed without careful thought as to whether the world (i.e. crosswords) would be improved by all the thousands of alleged "slangily" terms there are in the world. You could easily do So Much Better in this section, replacing IBANKER with actual, real words—good ones!—without any, or with only slight, changes to surrounding fill. Don't get high on your own supply, constructors. Make good choices. Wow. OK. Moving on.


This puzzle was harder than normal, both because IBANKER (smh) and because of clues on the themers that are weird and hard. 40A: Unexpected hit (SUCKER PUNCH) was unexpectedly deceptive (I thought "hit" in the Broadway / Hollywood sense). And I have never ever been a fan of "?" clues on themers when "?"s are not part of the theme, i.e. they all should have them or none of them should have them. When I get a "?" on a themer (*especially the first themer*), I naturally assume the "?" is part of the theme. So of course there I am like some sucker / chump / etc., with the PIGEON part of 17A: Base for long-distance carriers?, wondering how the wordplay is going to express the theme... and all I get is COOP. I felt some heady mix of ennui and bathos as I filled in COOP. Is that all there is? Yes, that is all. Oh, and it has nothing to do with the theme. Enjoy.


Then there's the astonishing amount of crosswordese. Veteran constructors should not be serving us this much crosswordese. Conservatively, this is how much crosswordese this grid has:

Note that I let ORE and IOTA and IRA and even BNEG slide. I did enjoy UNDEROOS and "PORKY'S". I did not enjoy ANTONY and ANTONYMS being in the same grid. A six-letter shared letter string!? My construction software flags that *&$% at four. Six!? Wow. Now I want to build a weird crossword theme around the answer MARK ANTONYM. Ooh, if you just move the "M" to the end of MARK ANTONY you get ARK ANTONYM ... maybe there's something there ... I mean, probably not, but only by pursuing your most ridiculous notions are you ever going to find truly interesting themes. Your notebook should be 90% failed ideas! Minimum! Where was I? Oh yeah, IBANKER. Ugh. IBANKER? I hardly I-know her! Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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