Ulta competitor / FRI 10-29-21 / Rhyming ice cream treat / Shield adorned with Medusa's head / NBA team coached in the '70s by Bill Russell / Virtuosa's display

Constructor: Aimee Lucido

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: none 

Word of the Day:"DOUBLE DARE" (51A: Nickelodeon's longest-running game show) —

Double Dare is an American television game show in which two teams compete to win cash and prizes by answering trivia questions and completing messy stunts known as physical challenges. It originally ran from 1986 to 1993. A revival ran in 2000, and the most recent revival ran from 2018 to 2019.

Hosted by Marc Summers, the program originally premiered on Nickelodeon on October 6, 1986, as its first game show. The series saw many adjustments in scheduling and titling throughout its run. Almost immediately after its debut, Double Dare had more than tripled viewership for Nickelodeon's afternoon lineup, becoming the most-watched original daily program on cable television. The program was a major success for Nickelodeon, helping to establish the network as a major player in cable television and to revitalize the genre of game shows for children. Double Dare remains Nickelodeon's longest-running game show. In January 2001, TV Guide ranked the show number 29 on its list of 50 Greatest Game Shows. [...] 

As Double Dare grew messier, a green slime substance became more commonly used in physical challenges and obstacles. Slime was originally introduced on another Nickelodeon program, You Can't Do That on Television. Double Dare's high viewership led to greater visibility for Nickelodeon's association with slime and saw it featured in promotions for the network in the late 1980s. The substance proliferated further, including annual slimings on the Kids' Choice Awards, a slime geyser at Nickelodeon Studios, and slime-based segments on other game shows including Wild & Crazy Kids and Figure It Out. The relationship between Nickelodeon and slime still lasts on the network. (wikipedia)

Delightful Friday work. Huge Friday vibe. Tons of bouncy, original answers, very little that was obscure or gruelingly hard. From CHOCOTACO to MADHATTER ... that's a pretty good gamut. This is how I like OLDTIME—as an answer, not a descriptor for the fill. This is also how I like CHUCKLE—as an answer, not as the highest aspiration of a corny pun theme. There was one weakish section, starting near the middle of the grid, around RIAL/EMIRS (super common short fill), and bleeding down to the eastern edge of the puzzle, through GOA to ASNAP (50A: Easy-peasy), which I got easily enough, but only because I've seen this sort of wonky thing before, where a phrase (with indefinite article up front) stands in for an adjective. The real screamingly outlier part of this weaker section is SANSA. It's the only niche proper noun in the whole puzzle. All the other proper nouns, from HENDRIX to ANKA to "DOUBLE DARE," are well in the mainstream consciousness and accessible even by people who don't listen / watch / etc. It's always so depressing to see constructors go to the "Game of Thrones" well for names. That show was so rape-y I couldn't keep watching past the first few episodes, but now I'm expected to know every damned made-up pseudo-medieval name in the entire Stark clan and whatever other characters were on that show? Look, it was a famous show, so if you want me to know "GAME OF THRONES" or even "G.O.T." (which is weirdly in today's puzzle as a regular word) or STARK or NED or, I don't know ... is WESTEROS a thing? Yes. See, these are all things that non-HBO-havers might know. SANSA is not, Emmy nomination notwithstanding. I actually had to run the alphabet at _ANSA / _ASS because SASS is bizarrely misclued (33A: Ask "Why should I?," say). There is absolutely nothing SASSy about the question "Why should I?". It's an ordinary, if skeptical and somewhat oppositional, question. Still, just a question. I can see some petulant kid saying it defiantly, with a SNEER, but that kid knows nothing of real SASS, which is an art form and should contain at least a modicum of humor or cleverness. So I was slightly bummed that one square ("S") consumed so much of my attention / energy, because, as I say, almost everything about the rest of the grid ruled.