Constructor: Garry Trudeau and Ross Trudeau
Relative difficulty: played easy for me, but I don't know why; seems to be playing hardish for others (for a Tuesday) (3:16)
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THEME: STAND-UP COMICS (33A: Dave Chappelle and Dane Cook ... or a literal hint to the answers to the eight starred clues) — answers are all titles of comic *strips* that are going Down (so ... standing up):
Theme answers:
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As I was solving this, it felt a little rough, a little clunky, but I finished pretty quickly and hadn't quite taken it all in yet. Then I took a good look at the theme and thought, "Oh, yeah ... it's rough." Then I glanced at Twitter, where normally mild-mannered folks were ripping this thing apart, so ... there are problems. Here are a few of them. I'm gonna start with the theme, which is conceptually OK. Comic titles in the Downs. But for this to Work work, all the titles—not some; all—need to be clued as something other than the comic. See, for instance, the clues on TIGER, BABY BLUES, OPUS; do *not* see, for instance, the clues on LIL ABNER and DICK TRACY, which are impossible to clue without reference to their comics-ness. LOL at the idea that anyone thinks of LIL ABNER as a "film." Not sure why they didn't bother to try to hide DICK TRACY via filmdom too, but they didn't. At any rate, the other answers can all be masked but those cannot, so the theme (as executed here) fails. It just does. It does because if you'd had the whole thing just be titles of famous comic strips, running Down ... that's just boring. And dumb. What's interesting is masking them. But you can't really redirect the meaning on two of your big themers, and so: thud. But wait, there's more (problems).
"TIGER"? Like ... what? What is that? I am reading about it and I see that it was fairly widely circulated, even in my lifetime, but whatever it was, it Dis Ap Peared from the face of the earth a while back and has never been heard from again. It is the opposite of iconic. It has no afterlife. Zero. No one is going to do that reboot. Was there not some other five-letter comic strip that would've worked better? And "OPUS"? That is a stretch. Everyone knows OPUS as the penguin in "Bloom County," but far far fewer know that he was the titular star of his own comic strip. Probably because it was Sunday-only, and ran for just five years (in the mid-'00s). I'm not knocking it, per se, but it just doesn't rate compared to the other, much more recognizable titles you've got here. Why not replace it with ZITS, say? And, look, PEANUTS (7), BLONDIE (7), both clueable in non-comics ways! Sigh. Look, I think for this theme to work, you have to ditch DICK TRACY, LIL ABNER, TIGER, and OPUS (so, half your themers) and replace them with familiar strips whose names are maskable (i.e. clueable in non-comics ways). Then, your theme works. Here, no, it doesn't.
But that's just the theme. The fill ... EEK*. Not sure where to start, so I'll just dive in. WEEB!? Oy, that is the crosswordesiest of names. Absurd. I wrote in SHEB because I had the "B" and thought, "Oh, what's that ridiculous name I know only from crosswords? Oh, right, SHEB!" But it's WEEB. That one's gonna destroy people. REWELD? I keep laughing every time I look at REWELD. I guess you can RE- anything, so sure, weld, why not? RECLIMB, RECARVE, REDANCE, REWELD. T-FAL? Needed every cross for that. Another crosswordese thing I've seen before but couldn't remember. You've got "eyes in the clue for BABY BLUES but then EYED in the puzzle (DOE-EYED). Slight foul. Also, speaking of eyes: SEEST (unslight foul) (as opposed to OPUS—an unslight fowl). The most absurd thing in the grid isn't just ORANG (which is always mildly absurd). It's ORANG being neighbors with ORANG...ES. What the ...? Why would you do that?? Knock knock who's there ORANG ORANG who ORANG you glad ORANGES isn't also in this grid oh wait it is Nevermind. I mean, ORANGES!? It's a fine word, but now it looks like a French plural of ORANG. There's lots of other little crosswordese infelicities and foreignisms, but I'll leave those be. As with yesterday's, this one needed a Lot more polish. I like DRIVE-INS. I also like how DO OR DIE looks like "DOOR—DIE!" But I don't understand most of the choices that went into making this. I'm just glad I was (improbably) on the puzzle's wavelength, so my dislike wasn't also compounded by solving frustration (a toxic combo).
*(note: actually, this may be the only time in my long history of solving where I enjoyed seeing EEK—seemed appropriate)
PS ASANA is *any* position in yoga. No idea what that clue thinks it's doing (45D: Sitting position in yoga)
[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Facebook]
Relative difficulty: played easy for me, but I don't know why; seems to be playing hardish for others (for a Tuesday) (3:16)
Theme answers:
- TIGER (2D: *Feline in a zoo)
- LIL ABNER (25D: *1959 film set in Dogpatch, U.S.A.)
- BABY BLUES (14D: *Dreamy eyes, informally)
- OPUS (49D: *Magnum ___)
- POGO (7D: *Bounce on a stick)
- DICK TRACY (28D: *Detective who wore a two-way radio)
- GARFIELD (23D: *President between Hayes and Arthur)
- MUTTS (46D: *Mongrels)
Tiger was an American comic strip created by cartoonist Bud Blake. It ran from May 3, 1965 until the spring of 2003. [...] Tiger followed a gag-a-day format and was designed to appeal to both adults and children. It centered on a scrappy group of school-aged kids in an unidentified, middle-class neighborhood. Parents and teachers were occasionally referred to, but no adult was ever pictured. Tiger was told from a child's perspective and retained its innocent kids' eye world view from beginning to end. (wikipedia)
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"TIGER"? Like ... what? What is that? I am reading about it and I see that it was fairly widely circulated, even in my lifetime, but whatever it was, it Dis Ap Peared from the face of the earth a while back and has never been heard from again. It is the opposite of iconic. It has no afterlife. Zero. No one is going to do that reboot. Was there not some other five-letter comic strip that would've worked better? And "OPUS"? That is a stretch. Everyone knows OPUS as the penguin in "Bloom County," but far far fewer know that he was the titular star of his own comic strip. Probably because it was Sunday-only, and ran for just five years (in the mid-'00s). I'm not knocking it, per se, but it just doesn't rate compared to the other, much more recognizable titles you've got here. Why not replace it with ZITS, say? And, look, PEANUTS (7), BLONDIE (7), both clueable in non-comics ways! Sigh. Look, I think for this theme to work, you have to ditch DICK TRACY, LIL ABNER, TIGER, and OPUS (so, half your themers) and replace them with familiar strips whose names are maskable (i.e. clueable in non-comics ways). Then, your theme works. Here, no, it doesn't.
But that's just the theme. The fill ... EEK*. Not sure where to start, so I'll just dive in. WEEB!? Oy, that is the crosswordesiest of names. Absurd. I wrote in SHEB because I had the "B" and thought, "Oh, what's that ridiculous name I know only from crosswords? Oh, right, SHEB!" But it's WEEB. That one's gonna destroy people. REWELD? I keep laughing every time I look at REWELD. I guess you can RE- anything, so sure, weld, why not? RECLIMB, RECARVE, REDANCE, REWELD. T-FAL? Needed every cross for that. Another crosswordese thing I've seen before but couldn't remember. You've got "eyes in the clue for BABY BLUES but then EYED in the puzzle (DOE-EYED). Slight foul. Also, speaking of eyes: SEEST (unslight foul) (as opposed to OPUS—an unslight fowl). The most absurd thing in the grid isn't just ORANG (which is always mildly absurd). It's ORANG being neighbors with ORANG...ES. What the ...? Why would you do that?? Knock knock who's there ORANG ORANG who ORANG you glad ORANGES isn't also in this grid oh wait it is Nevermind. I mean, ORANGES!? It's a fine word, but now it looks like a French plural of ORANG. There's lots of other little crosswordese infelicities and foreignisms, but I'll leave those be. As with yesterday's, this one needed a Lot more polish. I like DRIVE-INS. I also like how DO OR DIE looks like "DOOR—DIE!" But I don't understand most of the choices that went into making this. I'm just glad I was (improbably) on the puzzle's wavelength, so my dislike wasn't also compounded by solving frustration (a toxic combo).
*(note: actually, this may be the only time in my long history of solving where I enjoyed seeing EEK—seemed appropriate)
PS ASANA is *any* position in yoga. No idea what that clue thinks it's doing (45D: Sitting position in yoga)
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