Emily Rourke’s New York Times crossword— Sophia’s write-up
Theme: HELLO DOLLY – each theme answer is a type of doll clued by the date of its debut.
New York Times, 02 10 2025, By Emily Rourke
- 17a [Redhead introduced in 1918] – RAGGEDY ANN
- 24a [18-inch figure introduced in 1986] – AMERICAN GIRL
- 39a [Adoptable playmate introduced in 1982] – CABBAGE PATCH KID
- 50a [Fashionable pair introduced in 1959 and 1961, respectively] – BARBIE AND KEN
- 64a [Classic Broadway musical about an N.Y.C. matchmaker… or how one might respond to the introductions of 17-, 24-, 39- and 50-Across] – HELLO DOLLY
As I solved this puzzle I could tell that the theme answers were all types of dolls, so when I got to the revealer and saw the word “musical” I immediately went to answer “Guys and Dolls”! (I think BARBIE AND KEN as the last answer before the revealer also led me this way). Luckily it didn’t fit, and I was able to quickly think of HELLO DOLLY, which of course makes a lot more sense given the clues. I think AMERICAN GIRL might play the hardest here for folks, but not for me since I had two growing up (Samantha and Nelly, for those curious.) BARBIE AND KEN also feel topical after last year’s smash hit Barbenheimer summer, one of my personal favorite movies of 2023.
Fill highlights: GLAD I ASKED, SUBMARINES (although does anyone actually call sandwiches that anymore? I feel like I only hear “subs”)
Clue highlights: [Tweety, Woodstock or Woody Woodpecker] for BIRD, [One favoring a black wardrobe] for GOTH, [PlayStation pro, e.g.] for GAMER (the Playstation Pro is also a specific console, I believe). Nice tie-in reference to SONY as well.
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “It’s Growing on Me”—Jim’s review
Theme answers are familiar(ish) words and phrases that hide sizes within.
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “It’s Growing on Me” · Mike Shenk · Mon., 2.10.25
- 17a. [2017 Dua Lipa song] LOST IN YOUR LIGHT.
- 22a. [In a really bad way] ABYSMALLY.
- 45a. [Discount chain with over 19,000 stores] DOLLAR GENERAL.
- 60a. [Harness race horses] BELGIAN TROTTERS.
Solved while watching the big game (i.e. Puppy Bowl XXI) so my attention was divided. I didn’t know the first or last theme entry, but it didn’t take too long to piece together. The set is missing a “medium” entry, but I doubt a proper one actually exists.
Not a lot of sparkle in the fill, but it is still smooth enough for a quick solve.
Clue of note: 49a. [Reply to “Madam, I’m Adam”]. EVE. Seems like EVE could come up with a more elaborate palindrome than that.
Annemarie Brethauer’s Los Angeles Times crossword — Stella’s write-up
Los Angeles Times 2/10/25 by Annemarie Brethauer
Not the fault of the constructor, but I think this puzzle might have made a bit more sense in December or January. Not like it’s super warm right now, but we’re moving toward spring rather than away from it. This puzzle is firmly anchored in cold weather: The revealer at 58A [Combination weather that makes travel difficult, and what the ends of 17-, 24-, 36-, and 49-Across comprise] is WINTRY MIX, because the last word in each of the theme answers is a type of winter weather:
- 17A [“Softens as it cleans” classic detergent brand] is IVORY SNOW.
- 24A [McFlurry competitor] is a DQ BLIZZARD.
- 36A [“The Road Not Taken” poet] is ROBERT FROST.
- 49A [Rapper whose debut studio album was 1990’s “To the Extreme”] is VANILLA ICE.
Unusually for a Monday, all four themers are proper nouns, and I quite like them (especially VANILLA ICE, hi, I’m Gen X, nice to meet you). Evocative is always good! The grid has some ups and downs. Ups: POPSICLES (which, besides being a fun word, fits in with all the cold theme answers), L-BOMB, the easy yet evocative NW corner with CHISEL, DIVIDE, SPONGE. I wasn’t as crazy about some of the 3s, particularly RES, WPA, ONT, SLR.
Matt Revis’ Universal crossword, “Bit Part” — pannonica’s write-up
Universal • 2/10/25 • Mon • “Bit Part” • Revis • solution • 20250210
- 58aR [Garnish, perhaps … or a hint to 16-, 24-, 34- or 51-Across] FINISHING TOUCH.
- 16a. [Take retail therapy to an extreme] SHOP TIL YOU DROP.
- 24a. [Do an cannonball, say] MAKE A SPLASH.
- 34a. [What Jamaica’s Asafa Powell ran in a record 9.09 seconds] HUNDRED YARD DASH. Surely it’s the hundred meter dash? I solved ignoring thoughts of any theme, so I kind of wanted HUNDRED-YARD STARE.
- 51a. [Pro tip] HELPFUL HINT.
So. Drop, splash, dash, hint. All as described by the revealer, for a cooking or cocktail recipe, say. It’s a perfectly fine theme, if a little >heh< insubstantial.
- 1d [Opposite of trans] CIS. Or, arguably, its complement. But opposite is probably stronger.
- 7d [“ABC (Nicer)” singer] is the mononymic GAYLE. That’s the title of the radio edit; the original is “ABCDEFU” which who knows may be in a crossword at some point.
- 12d [Pollution penalty, essentially] ECO TAX. For many corporations it’s merely part of the cost of doing business. Better incentives (or punishments) are necessary.
- 17d [Michigan is a great one] LAKE. 50d [Mississippi and Missouri] STATES.
- 48d [Clay oven?] KILN. It’s an oven for producing pottery. A tougher-pitched puzzle could readily have dispensed with the question mark.
- 7a [Move on from] GET OVER. Was considering GET PAST.
- 54a [Making out while out, e.g.: Abbr.] PDA. Slight unsavory ambiguity here, so if I were editing I’d have gone with “… while out and about …”
- 56a [Spy’s “name”] ALIAS. Part of a “legend“.
- 68a [Judge] ASSESS. Classic s-rich final entry.
Paolo Pasco’s New Yorker crossword, “The Centenary Crossword: Playing the percentages”–Amy’s recap
New Yorker crossword solution, 2/10/25 – Pasco “Centenary Crossword”
The New Yorker marks its 100th anniversary with a 19×19 themed puzzle. Various creative works with numbers in their titles have those numbers divided by 100. The revealer, [Anniversary that The New Yorker is celebrating in 2025 . . . or what the answers to the italicized clues in this puzzle have been multiplied by], goes with times ONE HUNDREDTH rather than divided by 100, same difference.
The themers are:
- THE FOUR BLOWS: Truffaut’s film, The 400 Blows.
- A YEAR OF SOLITUDE: Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
- FIVE MILES, [Distance in the title of a hit song by the Proclaimers]: The song title is “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles).” This one’s weird since the entry plays on a parenthetical subtitle.
- NINETEEN POINT EIGHT FOUR: Just divide 1984 by 100 and Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four is 19.84.
- THREE TENTHS ROCK: The John Lithgow sitcom called Third Rock From the Sun. It’s not just Third Rock, and the clue doesn’t say “familiarly” or “for short” to justify the omission of From the Sun.
It’s a twisty theme concept, but I’m not wild about the liberties taken with FIVE MILES and THREE TENTHS ROCK.
New(ish) to me: [Icelandic dairy product similar to yogurt], SKYR. Siggi’s brand in the yogurt section is labeled “simple ingredient skyr” and I’ve eaten it, without investigating what skyr means. You can read about skyr’s history (1000 years!) and the process to make it here.
3.5 stars from me. I saw Paolo’s byline and was delighted at the prospect of a challenging themeless from him, bit of a letdown to get a big themed puzzle instead. I like what I like!
NYT: I got a sense of the theme with AMERICAN GIRL. No first-hand experience, but a former colleague had a couple of daughters who were the right age at that time, so I had heard about them. After that, the rest of the themers were pretty easy to suss out. I thought it was a cute theme with a clever revealer. More fun than the typical Monday NYT.
TNY: (No spoilers). I thought this was a clever theme, but it played like a NYT Tuesday for me. I really wish they wouldn’t do that on a Monday, when I’m relying on TNY to give me a mental workout.
The New Yorker really needs five medium-sized or larger puzzles in a week, but too bad for all of us who like different kinds of puzzles–we don’t get them any longer most of the time.
I won’t comment on TNY’s difficulty this week, because you already know I find the magazine’s style can be awfully hard for some of us not in their circle of interests, or ridiculously easy, but either way almost certainly precluding “a mental workout. You know it or you don’t.
What I didn’t expect was a Sunday-size puzzle, which I just wasn’t much motivated for slogging through. Worse that the layout in both Crossword Scraper and the Web site’s print option leave the diagram a bit large and the clues correspondingly small. So I can expect an eye test on top of a trivia contest. I’ll get to it soon.
NYT: One thing that stood out for me like a sore thumb was the clue/answer combo 54D [Makes void] for NULLS.
Yes, it’s in the dictionary as a verb, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use this verb.
Instead, at least 99.9% of the time I would hear either “anulls” or “nullifies” (if some version of NULL is used with this meaning).
It doesn’t seem like a good idea to clue such a very uncommon usage, especially on a Monday.
For this programmer, the verb “null” seems very natural. You null pointers to initialize them to avoid all sorts of weird bugs on dereferencing undefined memory locations. You null SQL columns for similar reasons. Nulling is good hygiene.
I am also a programmer, and I have used null pointers, but I have never used null as a verb.
Dan, I had the same reaction. “Null” may be used as a verb in coding and other technical areas, but I have never heard it used that way. The clue is, in fact, the precise definition of “annuls”. So that was jarring. I rolled my eyes when I saw that it had to be NULLS.
Oops, it is “annuls”, isn’t it, and *not* the above misspelling that I shall not repeat. Thanks for setting me straight.
NYT: I was racing ahead of myself with this puzzle. When I saw that the theme was a classic Broadway musical with a matchmaker, I immediately thought of Fiddler on the Roof, which fortunately did not fit the space at all. And of course Fiddler on the Roof doesn’t have anything to do with NYC, which is the part where I was racing ahead of myself.
I really enjoyed the puzzle. Fun theme and a nice Monday breeziness to it.
Uni (@pannonica): While it isn’t run in all that many competitions these days, Powell’s 9.09 second world record in 2010 is indeed for the 100-yard distance. At one time, he also held the 100-meter record (9.77, then 9.74). That record is now held by Usain Bolt (9.58) and has held up since August 2009. A 9.09 100-meter seems impossible, but then, so did 9.58 not all that long ago..
Thanks!
TNY: I think the 76A clue refers to the 30 Rock show with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. It won a Peabody award, as the clue specifies. I don’t see any sign that Third Rock from the Sun won one of those. And the arithmetic works for 30 Rock.
This is correct.
TNY: Though I didn’t know of the song until today, it’s strange that the constructor and/or editors chose to use only the parenthetical part of the song title “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”. But oddly enough, Wikipedia says that the song was re-released with the title “(I’m Gonna Be) 500 Miles”, so that probably explains it. Anyway, all ambiguity could have been avoided if they’d clued it as the 1960s folk song “500 Miles”. Per Wikipedia, It’s been covered by many people over the years and all over the world. I was introduced to it by Peter, Paul and Mary, one of my parents’ favorites back then.