Rhyming title character who plays the tuba in Cuba, in a Rudy Vallee song / MON 2-15-21 / Windsurfing locale NE of Honolulu

Constructor: Meconya Alford

Relative difficulty: Challenging (for second week in a row, the Monday puzzle is more like a Tuesday/Wednesday puzzle)

THEME: WHITE HOUSE DOGS (56A: What the starts of 21-, 26-, 40- and 50-Across)— first words of familiar phrases / names are all also the names of presidential pooches:

Theme answers:

• BUDDY COP MOVIES (21A: "Rush Hour" and "21 Jump Street" [Clinton])
• BARNEY FIFE (26A: TV deputy of Mayberry [Bush 43])
• BO TREE (40A: The Buddha is often depicted meditating under it [Obama]
• MAJOR SCALE (50A: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C, e.g. [Biden]

Word of the Day: BO TREE (40A) —

The Bodhi Tree or Bodhi Fig Tree ("tree of awakening") -- also called the Bo Tree -- was a large and ancient sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa) located in Bodh Gaya, Bihar, India.  Siddhartha Gautama, the spiritual teacher who became known as the Buddha, is said to have attained enlightenment or Bodhi circa 500 BCE under it. In religious iconography, the Bodhi Tree is recognizable by its heart-shaped leaves, which are usually prominently displayed. 

The proper term "Bodhi Tree" is also applied to existing sacred fig (Ficus religiosa) trees, also known as bodhi trees. The foremost example of an existing tree is the Mahabodhi Tree growing at the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, which is often cited as a direct descendant of the original tree. This tree, planted around 250 BCE, is a frequent destination for pilgrims, being the most important of the four main Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

Other holy bodhi trees with great significance in the history of Buddhism are the Anandabodhi Tree at Jetavana in Sravasti in North India and the Sri Maha Bodhi Tree in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Both are also believed to have been propagated from the original Bodhi Tree. (wikipedia)

I will start by saying I really like this theme, and I'm especially impressed that the dogs all appear in chronological order, going through Presidents 42, 43, 44 ... skipping the *$%^ing monster at 45, whom you wouldn't trust to take care of a chia pet let alone an actual sentient creature ... and ending at 46. I feel a little bad for CHAMP, who should've at least been given a walk-on role as part of the fill, come on, have a heart. So, hurray theme. I do think there are some issues with theme execution, and I emphatically assert that this is not a Monday puzzle. The execution issues and the day-of-the-week issues are semi-related. I'll start with the difficulty issue—like last week, this puzzle was off the charts in terms of my normal Monday times. It is oversized, but even allowing for that, high 3's is a full minute slower than normal, and a full minute, when you typically take just under 3 minutes to finish, is a *ton* of time. While the puzzle felt very Mondayish in places, there is one place in particular where it felt closer to Saturday, and that problem area has *everything* to do with theme execution (i.e. what themers you use and where you place them). So the problem, for me, was YUBA (!?!?!?!), which all on its own is a total mystery, but crossing BO TREE (literally no idea) and KAILUA (rings a bell, but ???), yeah, YUBA was a nightmare. It was made more nightmarish by its actually not-at-all-helpful clue, 27D: Rhyming title character who plays the tuba in Cuba, in a Rudy Vallee song. "Rhyming title character" ... what? Rhyming with what? I assumed this meant it rhymed with itself, i.e. internally, so, having YU, I wrote in YUYU. I see, now, that the clue has "helpfully" included "tuba" and "Cuba" in the clue, but those did not At All register as rhymes for the actual answer when I read the clue. I was so stuck through that area: three answers that I've never heard of, all crossing, on a Monday. Insanity.