Constructor: Adam G. Perl
Relative difficulty: Easy
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THEME:"Little Red Riding Hood"— each word in the title is the first word of one of the theme answers. See also WOLF (1A: Villain in the tale name by the starts of 20-, 32-, 41- and 52-Across), BIG (34A: With 61-Down, description of the 1-Across) and BAD.
Theme answers:
[Warning: child using racial slurs]
• • •
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This puzzle brought to you by the year 1989. Or 1975. Or 1967. Solid. Workmanlike. Basic. And not a whiff of this century about it. Indistinguishable, in both theme and fill, from the kinds of puzzles made during the Former Administration. If you like this stuff, great. Have at it. It's certainly not a poorly made puzzle. But it plays like something that's been in mothballs for a long time. The theme phrases are nice on their own. Would be great in a themeless. As a theme, there's just not much to this. Not enough. Not even a symmetrical counterpart to WOLF. BIG and BAD are in totally random places. Shrug. I tore this puzzle up (never even saw the absurdly-placed BIG and BAD)—went so fast that I neglected to check my crosses at the very end and had to search the grid from top to bottom before I realized I'd entered ["Come to PASS"] instead of ["Come to PAPA"].
That will be all, I think.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. from a reader's email last night: "For your write up, note that scuba tanks do NOT contain OXYGEN (at least not more than about 21 percent), they contain air."
P.P.S. more reader mail: "Hello Rex Parker—Sometime in the early 1950s 30 over-achieving fifth graders plus teacher plus several mothers went by New York Central from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station, and from there via the 42nd street shuttle westward, and eventually to the New York Times building. We had the official tour, which ended with a question and answer session. Was there anything else we wanted to know, our guide asked. Yes, we chorused, one way or another, could we please meet Margaret Farrar. The guy was nonplussed. Fifth grade or not, we all did the puzzle in the daily paper and sometimes, but not always, the Sunday puzzle if our parents could be convinced to indulge us. Puzzles in those days were divided, for me at least, into three categories, easy, hard, and let my mother do them (the lady who did not only the crosswords but those awful double crosstics with a fountain pen). So except for one awful month in Melbourne, I think it is fair to sat that I have been doing the Times X-words for at least 60 years. Why am I boring you with all this? Because all you had to say about today's big bad wolf puzzle was that it was the stupidest puzzle the Times has ever printed. I like puzzles I can get, but not if I can get them in less than three minutes."
Relative difficulty: Easy
Theme answers:
- LITTLE LEAGUE (20A: "The Bad News Bears" activity)
- RED HERRINGS (32A: Supposed hints that mislead)
- RIDING MOWER (41A: Lawn tractor)
- HOOD ORNAMENT (52A: Jaguar on the front of a Jaguar, e.g.)
The Bad News Bears is a 1976 comedy film directed by Michael Ritchie. It stars Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal. The film was followed by two sequels, The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training in 1977 and The Bad News Bears Go to Japan in 1978, a short-lived 1979–80 CBS television series, and a 2005 remake titledBad News Bears.The original screenplay was written by Bill Lancaster. Notable was the score by Jerry Fielding, which is an adaptation of the principal themes of Carmen. (wikipedia)
[Warning: child using racial slurs]
• • •
That will be all, I think.
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld
P.S. from a reader's email last night: "For your write up, note that scuba tanks do NOT contain OXYGEN (at least not more than about 21 percent), they contain air."
P.P.S. more reader mail: "Hello Rex Parker—Sometime in the early 1950s 30 over-achieving fifth graders plus teacher plus several mothers went by New York Central from Poughkeepsie to Grand Central Station, and from there via the 42nd street shuttle westward, and eventually to the New York Times building. We had the official tour, which ended with a question and answer session. Was there anything else we wanted to know, our guide asked. Yes, we chorused, one way or another, could we please meet Margaret Farrar. The guy was nonplussed. Fifth grade or not, we all did the puzzle in the daily paper and sometimes, but not always, the Sunday puzzle if our parents could be convinced to indulge us. Puzzles in those days were divided, for me at least, into three categories, easy, hard, and let my mother do them (the lady who did not only the crosswords but those awful double crosstics with a fountain pen). So except for one awful month in Melbourne, I think it is fair to sat that I have been doing the Times X-words for at least 60 years. Why am I boring you with all this? Because all you had to say about today's big bad wolf puzzle was that it was the stupidest puzzle the Times has ever printed. I like puzzles I can get, but not if I can get them in less than three minutes."