Rapid green growth in lake or pond / MON 11-11-19 / 1960s-70s teen idol with the hit Julie Do Ya Love Me / General Mills cereal since 1937 / 760-mile river that starts in Switzerland / Protection sold at Apple store / Southwestern plant with swordlike leaves

Constructor: Evan Kalish

Relative difficulty: Medium (3:12)

THEME: THINK TANK (64A: Research institute ... or, when read as a direction, a hint to the ends of the answers to the starred clues) — last words of themers are kinds of "tanks":

Theme answers:

• POOL SHARK (17A: *Hustler with a cue stick)
• WINDMILL DUNK (24A: *Showy basketball two-pointer)
• TEARGAS (40A: *Riot dispersal weapon)
• BOBBY SHERMAN (51A: *1960s-'70s teen idol with the hit "Julie, Do Ya Love Me")

Word of the Day: BOBBY SHERMAN (51A) —

Robert Cabot Sherman Jr. (born July 22, 1943) is an American singer, actor and occasional songwriter, who became a teen idol in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He had a series of successful singles, notably the million-seller "Little Woman" (1969). Sherman mostly retired from music in the 1970s for a career as a paramedic and later police officer, though he occasionally performed into the 1990s. (wikipedia)

Found this one largely boring. The longer Downs would've been a nice bonus feature of an otherwise easy Monday if they'd been at all interesting, but they were just OK, and the theme ... well, I'm biased. Roughly a decade ago now, a friend of mine and I had a "tank"-based puzzle rejected by the current editor because He Had Not Heard Of Either Of Our Sherman Options. The theme was TANK TOP and the themers all ran Down and the first words (i.e. the "top") of the themers were all tank types. We had reasonably famous author SHERMAN ALEXIE in our initial draft. No dice. OK, hey, what about SHERMAN POTTER, who was, you know, a central character on "M*A*S*H" for, like, ever? Still no dice. Whatever, we submitted it to the LA Times and it ran with our original Alexie answer. The point is—BOBBY SHERMAN?!?!?! You've heard of BOBBY SHERMAN!?!?! Who was famous for like 10 minutes when I was like 4 years old!?!? I wanna say "OK boomer," but a real boomer Would Have Heard of Sherman Potter. Oof. Anyway, THINK TANK is somewhat clever as a revealer, but overall I didn't find the theme or themers very moving. The grid is also loaded with over-familiar stuff (NIA EENIE NENE ENOKI ASAHI HUH AAH ECARD).


TEAR GAS is somewhat grim. Does PASS GAS pass the breakfast test? I'd take it before TEAR GAS. Might make your eyes water, but not part of a gruesome police state violence ... I don't think. I can't believe this puzzle missed the chance to use "BABY SHARK" for the first themer. When you accept puzzles months if not years in advance, you're less nimble to cultural trends. "BABY SHARK" would've made this thing much more current. POOL SHARK is fine, but not as exciting. I guess the idea is that all of the "tanks" are used non-tank contexts, i.e. the second word changes meaning in a "tank" context (basketball dunk becomes dunk in water, tear gas becomes gasoline, etc.). So I get it. POOL SHARK makes for greater consistency, I guess. But it's less fun. In much more particular-to-me news, I hate the word ALGAL when I see it alone in a grid and I don't like it any better here in ALGAL BLOOM (30D: Rapid green growth in a lake or pond). Had ALGA and then no idea. The fact that that answer crosses BOBBY (about whom, also, no idea), took me from a probable comfortable sub-3 time to a very average 3:12. I mean, really, BOBBY SHERMAN. I had the SHERMAN and, sincerely and truly, wrote in ALLAN, who is, I'm sorry, the more famous first-name-five-letters-last-name-SHERMAN. Blah. Good day.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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