South American carrier founded in 1927 / FRI 12-20-13 / Mexican revolutionary of 1910 / Transport for Miss Gulch / Controversial 1715 measure of Parliament / Clueless protagonist / TV game show on the Discovery Channel, 2005-12

Constructor: Ian Livengood

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: RIOT ACT (61A: Controversial 1715 measure of Parliament) —

The Riot Act (1714) (1 Geo.1 St.2 c.5) was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain that authorised local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action. The Act, whose long title was "An Act for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies, and for the more speedy and effectual punishing the rioters", came into force on 1 August 1715. It was repealed for England and Wales by section 10(2) of, and Part III of Schedule 3 to, the Criminal Law Act 1967. (wikipedia)

This puzzle is expertly made, but left me a little cold. There aren't many longer entries, so the exciting seed answers I expect from a Friday (and especially a Friday Livengood) just weren't there. "CASH CAB" was pretty fresh. "IT WORKS" works. But most of the rest of it, while perfectly solid, felt somewhat ordinary. I also just had a hard time with this one. Well, not Hard hard. But it was slippery for me. Some "?" clues I didn't quite get (Warm up? Draft pick?). Some dull/vague clues like [Kind of figure] for CARTOON and [Jacket option] for LEATHER. Some phrases I'm not that familiar with or virtually never see (TAR OIL, CROPLAND). Again, none of these answers are bad. I just had my hopes up because of the constructor, and ultimately found this one didn't have as much kick as I'd anticipated.

Took a while to get traction, as initial entries in both NW and NE went nowhere. Gave up and went down to the east and all of a sudden got three short answers in a row (ANTE, MOHR, STET). That led me over to BICYCLE (52A: Transport for Miss Gulch, in "The Wizard of Oz"), which was the first answer to really open up the grid. SEAT BACKS was terribly easy, and helped me get into that SW corner, and my answers just percolated up from there, ending with the "D" InMUD (8D: Joe). Not many wrong answers holding me back today. Forgot how to spellVARIG (49D: South American carrier founded in 1927), so had VAREG or something like that. Had SEAL for OPAH (25D: Great white shark prey). INNIE for OUTIE (shocker!) (13D: Certain belly button). Had no idea what kind of DUCK was going to be "Chinese" (21D: Chinese restaurant staple). ROAST is undoubtedly accurate, but even with R-A-T in place, I didn't get it. I thought of the end of "A Christmas Story," when they're at the Chinese restaurant and the dad complains to the waiter that the duck is smiling at him, and then the waiter quickly beheads it, much to everyone's horror/delight. Anyway, the smiling duck in the Chinese restaurant made me think, "Is RIANT DUCK a thing?" I honestly thought this. I *might* have tried to write it in. It's all a bit hazy now.

[Warning: the opening of this scene is pretty racist]
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld