Constructor: Bruce Haight
Relative difficulty: Challenging (3:42, solidly Tuesday time)
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THEME: underwear— wacky theme clues all start [Underwear for ...?], resulting in ordinary phrases where the last word is underwear-related:
Theme answers:
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My god this theme is botched. Let's start with the fact that this is obviously a Tuesday puzzle, not a Monday. "?" clues on the themers almost certainly takes the difficulty level up a notch from regular Monday puzzles, and in this case, the theme answers were so odd and shaky much of the time that figuring out what the "?" clues were getting at was not especially easy. MOVIE SHORTS in particular felt off and odd. Short films, short subjects, or just "shorts," I hear all the time. MOVIE SHORTS is tin-eared. Does not google (in quot. marks) well at all. Weirdly, theme clues sometimes take the answers out of their normal frame of reference (e.g. DISC JOCKEYS clued in relation to Frisbee), but sometimes ... don't (e.g. LEGAL BRIEFS clued in relation to judges). The real wobbly part, though, is the fact that the "underwear" words are related to (men's) underwear in different ways. You've got, in order, underwear type, underwear brand, underwear type, underwear synonym, underwear synonym. Shaggy as heck. This set of themers starts off with the most hackneyed of puns (how many times have I seen some dumb-ass winky "LEGAL BRIEFS" joke in my life? please don't answer), and then rambles and trips and ends. No. EWW (which is itself a truly horrible answer).
Few words are INANER than INANER. The world is tyrant- and conspiracy theory-driven enough without IDI and FAKED (as clued) gumming things up. The answer that took me the longest to get was HUMPH (ironic, as I am H(arr)UMPHing at this puzzle right now). There is no way that HUMPH achieves "Well, I never!" levels of pique. HUMPH is way, way less offended. The definition (above) even says, "slightly"—"slightly scornful doubt or dissatisfaction." Truly bad clue. Laura vis-a-vis Rob Petrie = WIFE. They are both already on TV. You could say MTM* was DVD*'s TV WIFE—that would make sense. But Laura is just Rob's wife. Oh, and OH YAY was, like HUMPH, hard, because it was, like HUMPH, badly clued. No one says "OH YAY!" unless they are saying it ironically. "Woo-hoo!" doesn't cut it, and it's just not a great answer to start with. Trying too hard and botching the works. Not my idea of a good Monday (I usually like Mondays better than all other themed days ... HUMPH!).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*Mary Tyler Moore / Dick Van Dyke
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: Challenging (3:42, solidly Tuesday time)
Theme answers:
- 17A: Underwear for judges? (LEGAL BRIEFS)
- 24A: Underwear for Frisbee enthusiasts? (DISC JOCKEYS)
- 34A: Underwear for beginners? (AMATEUR BOXERS)
- 47A: Underwear for actors? (MOVIE SHORTS)
- 55A: Underwear for tycoons? (CASH DRAWERS)
exclamation
• • •
Few words are INANER than INANER. The world is tyrant- and conspiracy theory-driven enough without IDI and FAKED (as clued) gumming things up. The answer that took me the longest to get was HUMPH (ironic, as I am H(arr)UMPHing at this puzzle right now). There is no way that HUMPH achieves "Well, I never!" levels of pique. HUMPH is way, way less offended. The definition (above) even says, "slightly"—"slightly scornful doubt or dissatisfaction." Truly bad clue. Laura vis-a-vis Rob Petrie = WIFE. They are both already on TV. You could say MTM* was DVD*'s TV WIFE—that would make sense. But Laura is just Rob's wife. Oh, and OH YAY was, like HUMPH, hard, because it was, like HUMPH, badly clued. No one says "OH YAY!" unless they are saying it ironically. "Woo-hoo!" doesn't cut it, and it's just not a great answer to start with. Trying too hard and botching the works. Not my idea of a good Monday (I usually like Mondays better than all other themed days ... HUMPH!).
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
*Mary Tyler Moore / Dick Van Dyke
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]