Portmanteau in 2010s fandom / FRI 8-25-23 / Nickname that drops -an / Most populous majority-Hispanic county in the U.S. / fries Krusty Krab menu item / Spice used as a breath freshener / Dish flavored with tamarind paste and fish sauce

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That was a very charming way to open the puzzle. Maybe you "opened" differently, but for me, I'm always attacking the short Downs in the NW first on a Friday (or Saturday, or most days, really), so I got "HI, MOM!" straight away. Much nicer tone-setter than its 1-Across counterpart (HELLSCAPE!). Did not like how trivia-y the puzzle became shortly thereafter, with both MIAMI-DADE and ILHAN OMAR clued like.. well, trivia questions (with superlative, Guinness-Book-type words opening the clues: "Most...""First..."). They're fine answers, though, and not hard, in the end, but something about stacking proper nouns with very similar trivia-clue phrasing made rubbed me wrong. But after that, the puzzle ended up not being any more trivia-testy than your average crossword. It was trying a Little too hard to be youthful, but Rafa is youthful, so I can't fault that. Also, probably not "youthful" so much as "more youthful than I"—I, who missed the "Spongebob" craze entirely (people my daughter's age really really really seem to know this show ... though not my daughter, so much, as she never watched much TV). Original BELIEBERS are probably getting old now, so not exactly "youthful" anymore. Maybe I'm imagining things and this puzzle wasn't youthful at all. "TOO REAL!" feels like a youthful expression, and it crosses BELIEBERS, which crosses the Krusty Krab KELP fries; I think that density of (relatively) youth-oriented answers screwed up my overall perspective. Looking it over, the puzzle actually seems largely generationally neutral. It's just not dripping in old, familiar things, which is undoubtedly to its credit. I didn't find anything about the grid particularly scintillating, but I liked it overall, and it did give me a bit of that "whoosh-whoosh" feeling that I'm always chasing on Fridays, with NO PAIN, NO GAIN and the very surprising PORTA-POTTIES zing-zinging across the center of the grid pretty quickly (I actually no-looked PORTA-POTTIES today ... I would not recommend dealing with PORTA-POTTIES this way irl). 

There's one clue I feel like I'm not getting, and that's 16A: Like something wicked and dark? (UNLIT). I don't know what "wicked and dark" is supposed to be a reference to? What is the wordplay? Why is there a "?" on this clue. If something is dark, it's UNLIT, OK, but the phrase "wicked and dark" just doesn't register with me, so I'm obviously missing the "?" joke. I had UPLIT here, imagining someone telling ghost stories with the lights off and only a flashlight illuminating their face from below. Or something like this:

That definitely seems "wicked and dark" to me. There’s also this picture my wife sent me last night from downstairs… 

When I google ["wicked and dark"] I just get references to *this* crossword, so ???? I'm at a loss. There's a horror movie called The Dark and the Wicked (2020), but that seems an unlikely reference here, if only because "dark" and "wicked" have switched places in the clue. I'm sure one of you will explain what the hell this clue is about, thank you in advance. [UPDATE: “wicked” = having a wick (!?!), so the clue is referring to a candle… wow that is awful]

Hardest part of the grid for me was the NE, where I could not for the life of me think of something you might "shuck" besides corn. This is probably (definitely) because I saw the musical "Shucked!" last weekend, and, well, let me tell you what the musical was about. One word:

I was staring at that initial "O" at the answer for 21A: Shuck it! and thinking "... but CORN doesn't start with an 'O'." And then the only thing I could think of that one might shuck was clothes, so I tried to make that "O" into some species of OUTERWEAR, but that didn't work. I do not eat OYSTERs, nor do I shuck them. But I am aware that people do (and do), and so when I finally (literally finally) got the answer: D'oh. I tried to come into that NE corner from below, to no initial avail, since I wanted "I GOT THAT" instead of "I'LL TREAT" (12D: "It's on me!"). The phrase is usually "MY TREAT!" so that clunked in my ear, for sure. Also no idea who ELI Apple is. I read his wikipedia page and ... again, I do not get this (apparent) trend of including the names of professional athletes who haven't done anything of note besides be professional athletes, something that would mark them as truly exceptional, such that someone who is not a hardcore fan might have heard of them. I'm sure ELI Apple is very good at his job, but no records, no league-leading stats, no Pro Bowls, no championships. Why is he crossworthy? Is the idea that he was once a #1 draft pick for the New York Giants, and so, by the power of the puzzle's New York provincialism, he's fair game? It's kind of baffling.

Round up:

• 19A: What ties can get you into, for short (OTS)— if the score is tied, you (sometimes) head into "overtime" (OT).
• 39A: Heads outside? (PORTA-POTTIES)— "Head" is an old-fashioned (military? nautical?) word for "toilet," kids.
• 27A: Small grouse (SNIPE) — I continue to think that SNIPEs are fictional because of that one "Snipe Hunt" episode of "Cheers." Every time I'm reminded that they're real, I'm taken aback.
• 36A: Certain page with blanks (MAD LIB) — I've never accepted this term in the singular and I'm not gonna start now. MADLIB is an exceedingly accomplished DJ / producer / rapper, try him next time you need to go with an "S"-less MADLIB.

• 39D: Spelling Bee feature (PANGRAM) — found this bit of NYTGames self-referentialism kinda smarmy, actually. (In the "Spelling Bee" game, if you find a word that uses all of the letters, that's called a PANGRAM)  
• 41A: Note-taking spot? (ATM) — so, banknotes. I thought it was cute.
• 50A: Flat-bottomed boat (SCOW) — can't stop spelling this word SKOW. Would love to, but somehow can't. Now I'm off to sing "Flat-bottomed boat, you make the rockin' world go round!" for the rest of the day. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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