Constructor: Eric Warren
Relative difficulty: Medium
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THEME: none
Word of the Day: KAMAL Haasan (40D: ___ Haasan, Indian megastar in over 200 films) —
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This seems like a solid enough puzzle, but there were a few moments of clunkiness that kind of overshadowed the puzzle's stronger features. I never really got that whoosh whoosh zoom zoom feeling today, but I did stop several times and go "really?" and there were only a handful of answers that really shined. My feelings toward the puzzle started turning tepid right away, not because the fill was bad, but because, first, I did understand the clue on BEEP (3D: Caller's signal). Is this where you leave a message "after the BEEP"? Or is it the '90s and your BEEPer is going off? Who is doing the calling and what kind of call are we dealing with? If it's an answering machine thing, I thought you left your message after the tone. Anyway, I needed every cross there and even then (and still now) ... not sure what the specific frame of reference is supposed to be. Also, OCEANOLOGY? I have no doubt that that is a thing, but if you're doing "work [...] in the trenches" I assume you are doing the much better known word, OCEANOGRAPHY. The Village People taught me OCEANOGRAPHY, whereas they were mute on the subject of OCEANOLOGY.
Relative difficulty: Medium
Word of the Day: KAMAL Haasan (40D: ___ Haasan, Indian megastar in over 200 films) —
Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali films. He has been recognised as an influence for actors and filmmakers in the Tamil film industry. He is also known for introducing many new technologies and cosmetics to the Indian film industry. He has won numerous accolades, including Four National Film Awards, Nine Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, Four Nandi Awards, One Rashtrapati Award, Two Filmfare Awards and 17 Filmfare Awards South. He was awarded the Kalaimamani Award in 1984, the Padma Shriin 1990, the Padma Bhushan in 2014 and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier) in 2016. // Kamal Haasan (born 7 November 1954) is an Indian actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, playback singer, television presenter and politician who works mainly in Tamil cinema and has also appeared in some Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada and Bengali films. He has been recognised as an influence for actors and filmmakers in the Tamil film industry. He is also known for introducing many new technologies and cosmetics to the Indian film industry. He has won numerous accolades, including Four National Film Awards, Nine Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, Four Nandi Awards, One Rashtrapati Award, Two Filmfare Awards and 17 Filmfare Awards South. He was awarded the Kalaimamani Award in 1984, the Padma Shriin 1990, the Padma Bhushan in 2014 and the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Chevalier) in 2016. // Haasan started his career as a child artist in the 1960 Tamil-language film Kalathur Kannamma, for which he won the President's Gold Medal. His breakthrough as a lead actor came in the 1975 drama Apoorva Raagangal, directed by K. Balachander, in which he played a rebellious youth who falls in love with an older woman. He won his first National Film Award for his portrayal of a guileless school teacher who cares for a woman who suffers from retrograde amnesia in Moondram Pirai (1982). He was noted for his performances in K. Viswanath's Swathi Muthyam (1986), Mani Ratnam's Nayakan (1987), and S. Shankar's Indian (1996). Since then he has appeared in films including Hey Ram (2000), Virumaandi (2004), Dasavathaaram (2008) in which he played ten roles, Vishwaroopam (2013) and Vikram (2022). His production company, Raaj Kamal Films International, has produced several of his films.
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RIB TICKLER is a fine answer but it's got an avuncular folksy Ned Flanders-y quality that rubs me the wrong way. But that's not the puzzle's fault. What is the puzzle's fault is KAMAL / KATANAS, which I got because I knew KATANAS, but ... does everyone know KATANAS? (40A: Swords used by Leonardo in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" cartoons). Because I guarantee you a decided minority of you know KAMAL Haasan, who is more than welcome in the puzzle, of course, he just needs fair crosses. This looks like a bad cross, but maybe KATANAS are a much more well-known thing than I think they are. Or maybe everyone knows KAMAL, or knows that KAMAL is the only reasonable guess for -AMAL. If I hadn't known KATANAS, I can easily see myself having written in HAMAL or something like that. So that cross didn't hurt me, but it did make me wince, the way you might wince imagining someone else getting hurt by some danger you managed to avoid. The one answer that really made me wince, though, was ON CASSETTE. It's just such a horrible prepositional phrase and it's not even properly in the language. "Videocassette" would've been distinguished from mere "cassette" (an audio format), we mostly called them "tapes," and anyway, stuff was released simply "on video," or maybe "ON VHS" (or maybe ON BETAMAX if it's the early '80s). The combo of prepositional phrase and language awkwardness really marred that NE corner for me.
I liked BEER FRIDGE OK, though it took me a while to get it (clue gets cute with "Bud" there). I guess CYBERSQUAT is original, but it's such an ugly word that I can't say I was happy to see it. My favorite stuff was probably CLOWN MAKE-UP and BEAR SPRAY. I saw Cocaine Bear yesterday and am now realizing that no one, literally no one in that movie, not even the park ranger, carries BEAR SPRAY. It ... might've helped, although ... you know, if the bear is on cocaine, who knows if the BEAR SPRAY would even register. I struggled a few times in this puzzle, most notably with SWEAT / SEATS (21A: Show nerves, say / 14D: Rears). This is because I had [Show nerves, say] as SWEAR, initially. Maybe that is just how *I* might "show nerves." Also fell into the (in retrospect, obviously designed) trap at 36D: Perfect. I thought it was an adjective and so wrote in A-ONE. But it's a verb and it's HONE. Great. I think I've heard of LARB (44D: Lao meat salad) but still wanted LAMB there at first (even though the clue was asking for the "meat salad," not the meat itself). Never happy to see KETO , a fad "diet" / marketing scheme that we are going to be stuck with forever because of its favorable letter pattern :( (34A: Regimen with so-called "fat bombs"). No idea what the "R" in J.R. Ewing was (and I lived through "Who Show J.R.?" madness), but ROSS was easy enough to guess. I don't know ... I just wasn't feeling the Friday excitement today. Again, it's a well-made puzzle. It just didn't have enough sizzle. Easier to ignore the clunkers when there's sizzle.