BEQ 8:51 (Eric) 
[3.00 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
Fireball untimed (Jenni) 
[3.63 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
LAT 5:04 (Gareth) [2.86 avg; 7 ratings] rate it
NYT 10:42 (ZDL) 
[2.30 avg; 15 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:10 (Eric) [3.00 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
USA Today 6:41 (Emily) rate it
WSJ DNF (Jim) 
[1.61 avg; 9 ratings] rate it
Mike Shenk’s Wall Street Journal crossword, “No Kidding!”—Jim’s review
Wall St Journal crossword solution · “No Kidding!” · Mike Shenk · Wed., 6.25.25
This one falls under the category of “Just because you can make that puzzle, doesn’t mean you should.”
I found this one to be in such incredibly poor taste, I stopped when I hit the revealer, MISSING CHILDREN. We’re talking about children taken from their parents here. Abducted children. If you think that maybe they’re using some sort of alternate meaning to the phrase, they’re not. The clue is [Their faces used to appear on milk cartons (and what will explain 12 of the Down answers)]. As a parent, I can’t begin to imagine the trauma of having my child disappear. Making light of such a horrific situation is unconscionable.
In 2007 my cousin vanished as a teenager/young man. While he wasn’t exactly a child, he was still the son of my aunt and uncle, and I know they went through hell when faced with the uncertainty of what happened to him. We don’t think it was a case of abduction; he was a capable swimmer and fisherman and loved to camp out at the beach solo, despite his parents’ protestations. He went out one evening and never came home. No clues or body was ever found, and my aunt and uncle were eventually forced to declare him dead. Can you imagine having to do that for your missing child? That’s why this is such a disgusting idea for a puzzle.
For the record, the Across theme answers all have the letters TOT in them, except those letters are ignored in the Down direction. So even better, we’re left to imagine missing 2- and 3- year-olds. Yay for that.
What a terrible idea for a puzzle. 0 stars.
Jim Quinlan’s Fireball Crossword, “Strike Up the Band” – Jenni’s write-up
Team Fiend’s own Jim Q checks in with a puzzle that had me scratching my head until the very last square. It was fun to solve and fun to figure out the theme!
Each theme answer has a bunch of Xs.
Fireball, June 25, 2025, Jim Quinlan, “Strike Up the Band,” solution grid
- 17a [Character component in “Inside Out”] is COXXXEMORY. I might have had an easier time of it if I’d seen either of the “Inside Out” movies.
- 25a [All but the latest New Yorker] is BACXXXXUE.
- 40a [Sack of surprises] is GRXXXXG.
- 51a [Cover for a lid] is EXXXHADOW.
- 64a [Sponge] is FREXXXADER.
The last one I filled in was 40a and for once I was grateful for a Roman numeral clue. I knew the answer was supposed to be GRAB BAG and the crossing told me that the third letter couldn’t be an A so it had to be an X. I thought each answer had three Xs because I clearly hadn’t looked closely at 25a. The revealer didn’t help all that much. 65d [Struck, like each of 17 boxes in a correct solution to this puzzle] is XED. I had it right and was still sort of stumped, and then I looked at 40a again and realized the Xs stood in for ABBA. So we have CORE MEMORY with REM Xed out, BACK ISSUE with KISS missing, EYE SHADOW with YES gone, and FREELOADER with ELO in the wind. Very fun! The X crossings were all fair and the fill didn’t suffer despite the plethora of theme material.
What I didn’t know before I did this puzzle: that DALI had a perfume called La Belle et l’Ocelot. I did know he had an ocelot, which helped.
Guilherme Gilioli’s Universal Crossword “Location Is Everything” — Eric’s Review
Guilherme Gilioli’s Universal Crossword “Location is Everything” — 6/26/25
When I finished, I felt like I missed something with this theme (which happens more than I’d like to admit). There are some well-known phrases using ordinal numbers, arranged in the correct order from top to bottom:
- 17A [*Math, art, English, science] FIRST CLASS
- 30A [Location, *site, spot, position] SECOND PLACE
- 44A [MBA, J.D., *Ph.D., B.S.] THIRD DEGREE
- 60A [Fire, stucco, climbing, *brick] FOURTH WALL I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to this clue and was mildly annoyed when FOURTH ESTATE didn’t fit.
After the second theme answer, I knew how the others would start, which probably shaved a few seconds off my solving time.
Then, in writing this review, I looked in vain for a clue referring to the “starred clues.” That’s when I noticed the location of the asterisk in the theme clues moving from the first to second to third to fourth word in the clue. Also, each theme answer clue consists of four words. As themes go, that works well enough for me.
Other stuff:
- 9A [The Acrosses or the Downs, for this crossword] HALF I interpret this pairing to mean that half the answers in this puzzle are Across and half are Down. Guys, I’ll take your word for it.
- 15A [Noodle dish that might be spicy] RAMEN I don’t remember instant ramen being a thing when I went to college circa 1980. But I’ve had some good spicy noodles at ski resorts (which are notorious for having bad, overpriced food).
- 37A [Reunion attendee, for short] ALUM Will it be ALUM or AUNT? Does anyone really care?
- 49A [Gen _ sis gar _ _ _] EDEN Universal puzzles are the only place I see these “fill in the missing letter clues.” I find them a bit annoying. They’re not difficult, just time-consuming.
- 66A [Irritable] TESTY See 49A.
- 10D [“Is someone else here?”] ARE WE ALONE This would have felt fresher if I hadn’t see it in a puzzle just a few days ago. So it goes.
- 27D [“Weird Al” Yankovic parody of a Michael Jackson hit] EAT IT The original is “Beat It,” if you weren’t around in the mid 1980s.
- 29D [Part of your existence that’s on display] PUBLIC LIFE I tried PUBLIC SELF first, though LIFE makes more sense.
- 35D [Stop being stubborn] SEE REASON Is anything more frustrating than trying to reason with unreasonable people?
- 39D [Space under a desk] KNEEHOLE I learned this very logical term when I worked in a store that sold office supplies and furniture during law school. That was before Staples and Office Depot ran locally-owned office supply stores out of business.
Simeon Seigel’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up
Difficulty: Average (10m42s)
Simeon Seigel’s New York Times crossword, 6/26/25, 0626
Today’s theme: ORS (Choice words … which are necessary to interpret the answers to 19-, 36- and 52-Across and 10- and 33-Down)
- H OR N BLOWER
- S OR E SPOTS
- P OR T AUTHORITY
- W OR M HOLES
- C OR D CUTTER
The revealer was disarmingly terse. Once I parsed the first theme entry, though, I immediately plunked down the rest of them sans resistance. There are a lot of possibilities following the X or Y [thing] thread (C OR N BREAD — Cash / Notes, D OR M ROOM — Den / Man cave, etc) so I appreciate the interlocking symmetry to (literally) make the theme entries more cohesive.
Cracking: OPERA CAPE, classes up the whole joint
Slacking: SAMLET, tiny version of Sam, apple of his eye
Sidetracking: PIONEERS, O, PIONEERS
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1795 Quack Wackiness — Eric’s review
Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1765 “Quack Wackiness” — 6/26/25
The title made me think the theme had to do with doctors peddling specious claims —or maybe ducks. But it’s simply goofy two-word phrases in which the first word starts with Q, the second starts with W, and the two words have some rhyming element:
- 17A [Experts at trivia?] QUIZ WIZARDS
- 27A [Interrogate the most tired?] QUERY WEARIEST
- 48A [Put a stop to doing laundry?] QUASH WASHDAYS I kinda like this one, but that might be just because there aren’t many domestic chores I enjoy doing.
- 59A [Speedy modern pagan] QUICK WICCAN I was surprised to learn just now that Wicca was only developed in the 20th century and is considered a “new religious movement.”
This is one of those themes that will either amuse you or it won’t. Because the phrases are invented for the puzzle, it’s harder to solve them by the Wheel of Fortune method. By the time I’d hit the second theme answer, the Q part of the theme was obvious (which helped with the last two theme answers).
Other stuff:
- 1A [“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” prez] FDR On the one hand, I don’t much like grid designs that make 1A a three-letter answer. On the other hand, it was a nice gimme.
- 10A [Bird call] CAW Will it be CAW? COO? AWK (which Brendan used recently)? Does anyone care?
- 14A [Hybrid waterside lodging] BOATEL We once spent the night aboard the Queen Mary, which is permanently docked in Long Beach, California. The view wasn’t much, but it was fun to stay aboard an old ocean liner.
- 23A [Taco cheese] QUESO This was surprisingly hard to get, but only because I had 2D [“Keep going”] DON’T QUIT as DON’T STOP.
- 30A [“Friendship” actor Robinson] TIM I didn’t recognize the title or the actor’s name. I see now that I saw a trailer for Friendship a few months ago and thought it looked interesting.
36A [RN’s letters] TLC I’ve spent more time than most people in hospitals, and I have enormous respect for nurses and the work they do.- 64A [Outward appearance] VISAGE That’s not the first meaning that comes to mind for VISAGE, but it’s legit.
- 3D [1965 #1 R&B hit by Fontella Bass] RESCUE ME I recognized her name and knew that I’d eventually get the song title with a few crosses. I generally find song titles and lyrics predictable as crossword answer — that is, they’re easy to come up with even when you don’t know the song. I’m curious if other solvers feel that way.
- 7D [Chichén ___ (Mayan city)] ITZÁ It was out toward the tip of the Yucatán peninsula. A gimme, though maybe only because I’d seen it in previous crosswords.
- 8D [Julie who played Catwoman] NEWMAR Pure gimme. I spent many hours watching the TV version of Batman.
- 11D [Range that runs through seven countries] ANDES I’m pretty sure I learned this geographical tidbit from crosswords.
- 34D [African cuckoo: Var.] TOURACO I got the first few letters and expected some variation on TOUCAN
-
Guinea Turaco
42D [Reality show about Kat Von D’s High Voltage Tattoo parlor] LA INK I read something about this show somewhere, but couldn’t think of the name.
- 55D [Sch. in La Jolla] UCSD I put that in and quickly took it out. I’ve only been to San Diego twice and was more interested in the zoo and the restaurants.
Norman M. Aaronson’s USA Today Crossword, “Sidesplitting” — Emily’s write-up
Ha ha!
USA Today, June 26, 2025, “Sidesplitting” by Norman M. Aaronson
Theme: each themer is contained within “S–IDE” (aka split sides)
Themers:
- 17a. [Horse-drawn winter excursion], SLEIGHRIDE
- 42a. [Reacts joyfully to a grandchild’s performance in a school musical, say], SWELLSWITHPRIDE
- 68a. [Toy that attaches to a garden hose], SLIPNSLIDE
A variety of themers in this set today. SLEIGHRIDE filled easily for me, though SWELLSWITHPRIDE needed a couple of crossings as well as SLIPNSLIDE since I thought of “sprinkler” first.
Favorite fill: SOLVE, SWIPE, IMON, and HIMOM
Stumpers: SEEP (“weap” and “leak” came to mind first), SIAM (needed crossings), and RHEA (new to me)
Quick one today for me! How’d you all do? Loved the grid design and flow with the fresh fill and fun cluing.
4.0 stars
~Emily
Roland Huget’s LA Times crossword, – Gareth’s theme summary
Roland Huget’s puzzle features the scrambled letters in the middle of long words gimmick. It’s more ambitious in one way, because, as the revealer GENETICMUTATION suggests, there are seven scrambled letters, those of GENETIC. So:
- [Technical team supervisor], PROJ(ECTENGIN)EER
- [Special occasion mailing], GR(EETINGC)ARD
- [Place of monumental achievement], A(NCIENTEG)YPT
Gareth
NYT:
47D is “puts one’s foot down,” or STEPS, and 59A is “they try to admit the worst first, informally,” or ERNURSES. They cross at the E.
I had STOPS and ORNURSES, and it took me a really long time to figure out what my error was. STOPS and STEPS are both appropriate answers for 47D. ER NURSES is better than OR NURSES for 59A, but OR NURSES could potentially do some type of triaging.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I made the same mistake, but realized OR
nurses normally only have one patient at a time to tend to. They don’t have to figure out the most critical situation and prioritize like an ER nurse.
On the other hand, SAMLET/SASSON was basically a natick.
by definition, patients in the OR are already admitted.
Puzzle: Fireball; Rating: 4.5 stars
And if there is triage to be done, it’s not done by the nurses who work in the OR.
Rating the FB because I really enjoyed it and it has no ratings yet!
Puzzle: Fireball; Rating: 4.5 stars
Hmm. Trying again
Eric,
Instant noodles were a thing when I was in college from 1967 to 1971. They had to be labeled “imitation noodles” in those days, which was always good for a laugh. I bet they were around your college. But they weren’t spicy.
Thanks.
I’m sure you’re right. I guess I somehow managed to avoid them.
NYT was clever, but not my cup of tea.
I agree SAMLET is most unfortunate. I doubt any of the species named in the clues have ever been called samlets. It’s pretty much a synonym for the parr of Atlantic salmon, but it’s just defined as a synonym of parr so the clue is as as good as any.
When I was a kid, the movie “The Village of the Damned” scared the hell out of me. I swear it came rushing back when my brain came up with “The Hamlet of the Samlets” while I solved this puzzle. Hitchcock could have done well with it. Maybe birds dropping them on the residents?
“After seeing “The Village of the Damned”, I made a drawing of a blond kid with a brick wall floating over his head. I would have been 12 y.o. It’s amazing how well a drawing will stick in one’s memory. Drawing is a fantastic mnemonic device.
In retrospect, my drawing wasn’t accurate. It was the villagers who imagined the brick wall to prevent the weirdo kids from processing their thoughts.
The first movie that really scared the hell out of me was the transformation scene of Lon Chaney into the werewolf in “The Wolf Man”.
WSJ:
When I saw the clue for the theme at 36A, my first thought was “missing children” and my second thought was “it must be something else because there is no way they would use that in a puzzle.” I agree that this puzzle is in terribly bad taste, including, after the reveal of the theme, the awful title “No Kidding.”
Jim, I am sorry for the loss of your cousin. It’s not ok that you had to play and review this puzzle.
Thank you. I’ve pretty much lost all respect for Mike Shenk now. I’m not a prolific puzzle maker, but I won’t be submitting anything his way anymore.
Agree with both of you. Shenk is a genius, no doubt. His Friday crossword contests are always a delight. But I question the WSJ’s decision to allow him to be the editor of his own work.
Zach,
I used to draft legislative documents (bills and such) for the Texas Legislature. Everything I wrote was reviewed by at least one other attorney and edited by a professional editor.
Self-editing is rarely enough, no matter how talented a person is. This puzzle just proves it.
WSJ: In the history of crosswords, has a puzzle ever been retracted because it is too offensive?
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 1 star
I hope I missed something here
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Another unpleasant solving NYT experience. You’ve got an indecipherable theme AND junk like SAMLET, ERIEPA, RONA, PATENTEE, OTTOI.
How was the theme indecipherable?
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
I needed bloggers to explain the theme (not unusual for me.) This one should have been clear to me (there was another “x or y” theme recently), but I guess my brain doesn’t work that way. I found correlation of the clue to the fill to be a mystery. Hopefully I can recognize the next one – surely there will be another before too long.
A horrible set of puzzles across the board today IMO. NYT, LAT, Universal and [especially] WSJ should never have run. Shenk, in particular, owes an apology to the solving community.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4 stars
Mostly agree. I kinda like the LAT. I don’t dislike anagrams and seven letters seems pretty ambitious, especially since -ING was used only once
Good point. I just found the long entries boring.
I’ve experienced having a child go missing. He was found and everything was ok so my situation happily did not end in tragedy. But those were among the most excruciating hours of my life. Talking to police. Standing on my front porch helplessly staring and hoping. Imagining every terrible scenario. I don’t generally make negative comments on puzzles because as a constructor I have a lot of empathy for a stinker getting through here and there. Life is too short to get too twisted around by a puzzle.
Today’s WSJ is the exception. Shameful. Reprehensible. Inexcusable. In a world where most things are not black-and-white, this absolutely is.
I can’t imagine what it’s like for people in that situation. I’m glad yours didn’t end in tragedy
Thank you for sharing, Trent. I’m so sorry you experienced that, but am very relieved it all turned out okay.
I’m sorry this puzzle made you relive that horrible experience, Mr. Evans. (I don’t have kids and can only imagine what a parent would go through in that situation, but what you so clearly described matches my imagination.) I’m glad your experience ended well.
I’ve long had the opinion that even the most innocuous crossword entry could trigger horrible memories for some solver. But constructors and editors can’t take everyone’s heightened sensibilities into consideration, or we wouldn’t have crosswords at all.
But the WSJ puzzle is different. I don’t know why Mike Shenk thought anyone would enjoy that theme. (If you read the comments on the WSJ site, it appears some people did.)
It’s the first one star rating I’ve ever given a puzzle, and that’s completely because of the utterly insensitive theme.
What’s almost as shocking to me as the puzzle theme is that only a couple of the 60 commenters on the WSJ website say anything about it being completely tone deaf.
That’s not a comment section to go to if you’re looking for empathy.
Most newspaper comment sections are full of bots and trolls. There’s no upside to investing in moderators or programs to reject fake users.
Even many of the “people” in the NYT Wordplay comments are suspicious. Mostly the ones who spend less than 10 words telling us they hated the puzzle, don’t bother with any kind of grammar, and never respond to anyone.
NYT was mostly fine, except for that group of frustrating entries in the upper NE block. I know the alphabet well enough to get the answers in this situation, and it’s satisfying to solve the puzzle— but it’s a flaw in an otherwise good puzzle.
DNF on the NYT, because of the SAMLET/SASSON crossing — never heard of either. I ran the alphabet a couple of times and nothing seemed especially plausible, so I gave up. (And the N at the end of SASSON could easily be a T, except I happened to remember the guy’s name). The NE section should have been redone.
It took me quite a while to understand the theme, but even then I had difficulties. What are OTS? Why would you find a centipede in an ARCADE? I didn’t know PALOMA, as clued, but figured it out eventually.
Clearly, this puzzle was not in my wheelhouse.
This puzzle made no sense to me and I quit somewhere at 60%. I guess I’ve just never used the ‘X or Y whatever’ thing.
But I did know that CENTIPEDE was an ARCADA game! (Early 80s).
Not in my wheelhouse either, David L.
OTS is clued as “Certain rehab docs.” Is this supposed to be Occupational Therapists? They’re not typically doctors, though, so I’m not sure, either.
I think it can be a few things. A physician can certainly be involved, but there are people with doctorates in occupational therapy. They’d be OTDs usually, rather than OTs. Even chiropractors could conceivably be referred to this way. It struck me as more clunky than wrong wrong. Maybe it flew under my SAMLET radar.
I originally put PTS because they are now almost all DPTs, and I didn’t mind when I figured out the real answer. It’s a reasonable point, though.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
SAMLET crossing SASSON crossing NED is a double natick. Bad.
In an extremely rare turn of events, the best crossword of the day comes from the Los Angeles Times. Folks, please try it if you haven’t.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
SAMLET is just awful.
NYT: I enjoyed it; ended up getting the theme from the revealer, and was able to drop in those theme answers pretty quickly … which made the rest of it come together. Enjoyable solving experience all around; I guess that puts me in the minority here.
Puzzle: WSJ; Rating: 1 star
WSJ: a staggering error in judgment.
Puzzle: BEQ; Rating: 4 stars
Fun, breezy…and easy! I enjoyed it. (Psst…Eric? 17A is QUIZ WIZARDS)
Oops! A typo, I’m sure. That’s what happens when I hurry.
Thanks!
.Awful, inexcusable WSJ puzzle.
Eric,
La Jolla isn’t a city. It’s a neighborhood of San Diego.
Thanks. That shows how much attention I was paying when I visited San Diego.
My husband’s cousin and her family live in Encinitas and we had dinner with them in La Jolla (I think). But that’s been about eight years.
I went to La Jolla back in the mid-1970s, and watched hang-gliders jump off the cliff by Scripps Institute and hover over Black’s Beach. (The view on the beach was very similar to that of Venice Beach back then. Lots of bare skin.)
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
Look, I try not to be negative about crosswords. It’s great that we have so many to choose from nowadays. I don’t get mad about this stuff, these are just games and puzzles after all. But…
NYT was not pleasant. I actually dug the theme, and the clues were solid. But come on, SASSON/SAMLET/NED is just brutal. On the opposite corner we had JPOP/BEANO/OTTOI. Woof. This could’ve been avoided with some TLC. Whatever.
Then I read the WSJ section. Again, I’m quite liberal when it comes to this stuff, I think we’re too sensitive when it comes to certain clues and words nowadays, but this theme should’ve absolutely been cut on the editing floor. Like, this is an idea you come up with before you go to bed, and in the morning you wake up, ask a couple of people just to double-check and decide “yeah, I probably shouldn’t do this”. It’s amazing how this happened. What a misstep from such a respected, experienced and talented constructor.
Not a good day for crosswords.