Theme From Shaft composer 1971 / MON 9-2-13 / Classic computer game set on island / Alternatives to Slurpees / So-called mansiere essentially in Seinfeld episode / Complement of Disney dwarfs

Constructor: Jim Peredo

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: "We call it 'maize'..."— ends of theme answers all rhyme with "Maize" (with the 'aize' sound spelled different each time)


Theme answers:

• 17A: "Theme From Shaft" composer, 1971 (ISAAC HAYES)
• 25A: Part of a project just before the end (FINAL PHASE)
• 53A: Condiment that can remove crayon marks (MAYONNAISE)
• 66A: Intense look (STEELY GAZE)
• 11D: Team in "Moneyball" (OAKLAND A'S)
• 33D: The Fonz's sitcom ("HAPPY DAYS")

Word of the Day: GTO (32D: Old Pontiac muscle car) —

The Pontiac GTO is an American automobile built by Pontiac Division of General Motors from 1964 to 1974, and by GM subsidiary Holden in Australia from 2004 to 2006.

It was a muscle car classic of the 1960s and 1970s era. Although there were earlier muscle cars,^[1][2] the Pontiac GTO is considered by some to have started the trend with all four domestic automakers offering a variety of competing models. (wikipedia)

This was ... a puzzle! Done in 2:36, which is "Easy" for me, but I seem to be slightly ahead of the curve today, so I'm gonna knock this one back to "Easy-Medium"—appropriately Mondayish, probably slightly easier than usual. I thought the theme must have something to do with 1A: "What ___ in the 5-Down!" at first. Often, cross-referenced 1-Acrosses are thematic. Since it's Monday, I didn't slow down to figure out what was going on; I just blew through all the crosses. Never noticed the theme until I was done. Two things this theme has that it *has* to have to get into the NYT—a. 6 answers (i.e. a lot of answers), and b. 6 different ways of spelling the rhyme. Just having a bunch of rhyming words would not be sufficient. We could all come up with theme answers that end with rhymes for "maize" ad infinitum—the bar needs to be a bit higher for the theme to be NYT-worthy. I didn't love this, but it's an appropriately easy lark of a puzzle, and the fill is quite clean. It's like a nice, easy themeless that, look, just happens to have a theme. The end.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld