Houston-based food giant / MON 5-18-20 / Three goals by same player / British heavy metal band named for torture device

Constructor: Christina Iverson

Relative difficulty: Easy? Medium? People seem to find it easy, but I'd never heard of one of the themers, and therefore I was Way over my average ... 

THEME: MONOPOLY tokens (64A: Game whose tokens have included the starts of 16-, 20-, 26-, 49- and 55-Across) — themers start with tokens (former and current)

Theme answers:

• BOOT CAMP (16A: Where Army recruits go to start training)
• HAT TRICK (20A: Thre goals by the same player)
• THIMBLERIG (26A: Shell game)
• IRON MAIDEN (49A: British heavy metal band named for a torture device)
• DOG TIRED (55A: All tuckered out)

Word of the Day: THIMBLERIG (26A: Shell game) —

The shell game (also known as thimblerig, three shells and a pea, the old army game) is portrayed as a gambling game, but in reality, when a wager for money is made, it is almost always a confidence trick used to perpetrate fraud. In confidence trick slang, this swindle is referred to as a short-con because it is quick and easy to pull off. The shell game is related to the cups and balls conjuring trick, which is performed purely for entertainment purposes without any purported gambling element. (wikipedia)

What's stunning is that this theme seems not to have been done before (???). It is the oldest-feeling theme I can imagine, and yet a cursory search of the databases isn't turning up much. I guess it doesn't matter if it has been done; it *feels* like it's been done (to death), and wasn't really interesting to me at all. None of the themers are particularly interesting, except THIMBLERIG, which is "interesting" only insofar as I've never seen that word before in my life (or, if I have, forgot it immediately). Very very very familiar with "shell game." No idea who calls it THIMBLERIG. A Victorian bootblack, maybe? So the theme was not terrible, just stale-feeling (to me). Also slightly dated, as the boot and the thimble both got ... the boot a few years back. The fill also feels dated. Very. Nothing from this century. Even ICEPOPS strikes me as old-fashioned. Lots of super-common short stuff, and the four 7+ non-theme answers don't add much life. In fact, they pretty conspicuously add death, in the form of SHARK OIL, clued as a cosmetics ingredient, which ... why would you do this? Why would you put this in your grid? Can you really not build that NE corner without referring to the slaughter of endangered species for the making of medically dubious "health" and "beauty" products. I mean, you *know* it's gross. You put "controversial" in there to try to cover your ass. Boo. Serious boo. On Mondays, as on every day, I like my sharks alive and swimming and my THIMBLERIGs, whatever those are, non-existent.


There was some THIMBLERIG-adjacent stuff that screwed me up too. Just couldn't process "I RULE!" (a crossword answer whose time has come and gone) without the "I" (which was in THIMBLERIG). And then I couldn't figure out GAUDY (38A: Ostentatiously ornamented). Started out with SHOWY, and then when I got the "G" from TOGAS, I completely and utterly forgot how to spell GAUDY. This is what I wanted: GAWDY. Like BAWDY. Lawdy lawdy. Oh, and U.S. MAP also took me a few beats (8A: Many an electoral chart, in brief). Brain registered only "chart" and wanted something like "... pie?" Hope for something more modern and snappier tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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