LAT tk (Gareth) 
[2.25 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
NYT 14:10 (Eric) 
[3.39 avg; 14 ratings] rate it
USA Today tk (Darby) rate it
Universal (Sunday) 8:19 (Jim P) 
[2.92 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
Universal tk (Norah) [3.50 avg; 1 rating] rate it
WaPo 4:27 (Matt G) [2.83 avg; 6 ratings] rate it
John Kugelman’s New York Times Crossword “Arranged Marriages” — Eric’s Review
John Kugelman’s New York Times Crossword “Arranged Marriages” — 7/27/25
Five grid-spanning answers are separated in the middle by an extra-heavy black line (a grid that’s 22 columns wide accommodates that). Those lines plus the title let me know as soon as I’d gotten half the first theme answer that the two parts of each theme answers were anagrams of each other:
- 24A [Forgiving middle-aged dads for their dad jokes, say?] EXONERATING GENERATION X
- 47A [Attire for Larry Page and Sergey Brin when visiting Google incognito?] TECHNOCRATS’ TRENCHCOATS
- 71A [“You think that hunk of junk’ll pass inspection? Please!”?] STREET-LEGAL? LET’S GET REAL
- 99A [Real chess playa?] CHECK-MATING CHICK MAGNET
- 126A [Greeting from a famous Italian character to a famous Italian American actress?] MARISA TOMEI, IT’S-A ME, MARIO The O in TOMEI helped me realize that the “famous Italian character” wasn’t “MARIA” but the video game plumber. I know that tag line only from crossword puzzles.
I typically struggle with anagrams that are longer than six or seven letters, but these were relatively easy. For the most part, I was able to get the second half without really thinking about the letters in the first half, in some kind of gestalt.
This is one of those themes that if you find it moderately amusing, you’ll enjoy the puzzle. If the theme answers don’t amuse you at all, you probably won’t like the puzzle. I found them amusing enough and impressive anagramming.
Most of the clueing is on the easy side, which contributed to a quick-for-me solving time.
Other stuff:
- 22A [Ralph Ellison novel about a nameless protagonist’s journey in racist America] INVISIBLE MAN I think I read this decades ago, but given my uncertainty, I should probably read it (again).
- 26A [Picket line?] FENCE Cute clue that took me a bit to make sense of.
- 53A [Down Easter] MAINER As in someone who lives in Maine.
- 62A [Much-maligned 2019 movie about which one review said “It’s ‘Battlefield Earth’ with whiskers”] CATS I hadn’t heard that pan and was unreasonably slow in connecting it to the flop adaptation of the Broadway hit (neither of which I’ve seen).
- 63A [One of classical music’s Three B’s] Johannes BRAHMS A gimme for me. I credit There Will Be Blood for making me a Brahms fan; the gory climatic scene is set to the third movement of Brahms’ violin concerto. The other two B’s are Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.
- 105A [James who played Scotty on “Star Trek”] DOOHAN He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia. Yes, that accent was faked.
- 110A [Plunderers of Rome] GAULS I lost a half a minute by putting GOTHS first.
- 130A [DC power player in the late 1800s?] THOMAS EDISON When I was solving, I thought this was part of the theme and didn’t notice the lack of an anagram. “DC” here is “direct current,” not “District of Columbia.”
- 93D [Brian who co-founded the Long Now Foundation] ENO I didn’t know about this organization that fosters long-term thinking, but a three-letter “Brian” is almost always ENO.
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Captain Obvious Gets a Car” — Matt’s Review
Evan Birnholz’ Washington Post Crossword “Captain Obvious Gets a Car” solution, 7/27/2025
Captain Obvious is back this week in the Post. For my money, the fun of Evan’s schtick here is (1) the various phrases that can be reparsed into the topical theme (today, “cars”) and (2) the fun in the clues of a non-idiomatic interpretation. And yes, I did love Amelia Bedelia as a kid.
- 23a [“___? Then you may have changed from park to reverse”] SWITCHED GEARS
- 32a [“___? Then you might get in an accident if you don’t wake up!”] ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL
- 50a [“___, and your car will climb that barrier”] DRIVE UP THE WALL
- 71a [“___, and your car will come to rest over that little coin”] STOP ON A DIME
- 91a [“___, and you’ll overshoot your destination by 5,280 feet”] GO THE EXTRA MILE
- 104a [“___, and you’ll go left or right on that bit of foliage”] TURN OVER A NEW LEAF
- 120a [“___? Then you should avoid that piece of silverware”] FORK IN THE ROAD
Pleasantly groan-worthy throughout. I wonder if Evan considered a play on the Nissan Leaf for the entry at 104a, rather than foliage.
Other highlights: sneaky trap at 61a, where [Drummer Carpenter] is not the inimitable Karen but ISAAC, now with Guns N’ Roses // I never before now noticed the common letter string in CADET and “academy,” which appears in its clue. And I suppose it was fine I didn’t, as they do not share an etymology // [Money in Matsuyama] uses a Japanese city I’m less familiar with – it’s on Shikoku, across the Seto Inland Sea roughly from Hiroshima // STEPHON Marbury is a throwback for my low-level basketball fandom. He’s as notable to me for his lengthy career and fame in China as for anything in the NBA // A bit confused by the clue [Like a human mouse] for TIMID. Is “human mouse” a turn of phrase to refer to some people that I’ve never heard? // I didn’t realize KOI had “varieties,” but of course they do. The “Kohaku variety” clued here is the classic white-and-red fish
Adrian Johnson’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Inner Confidence”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar phrases that all feature the letter string U_ME. Take the individual letter following each entry’s U to find the hidden word. The revealer is BETWEEN YOU AND ME (111a, [“Entre nous …,” or a phonetic hint to finding the secret in this puzzle]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Inner Confidence” · Adrian Johnson · 7.27.25
- 22a. [*Platinum, palladium, etc.] PRECIOUS METALS.
- 29a. [*Lists of affordable foods] VALUE MENUS. An extra U gets thrown in here, but it’s easily discounted.
- 46a. [*Golden State college athletes with a feline name] UC MERCED BOBCATS. Whew, that’s a deep cut. I grew up in California and am currently helping my daughter in her college search, and I had no idea UC Merced even existed. I expect most solvers never heard of the city of Merced nor of the school’s mascot and needed nearly all the crossings for this one. (Turns out, I did know this school existed. See next paragraph.)
- 61a. [*”Bon appetit!”] “ENJOY YOUR MEAL.”
- 82a. [*Colorful “Yellow Submarine” villains] BLUE MEANIES.
- 91a. [*Gathering where Brownies earn badges] GIRL SCOUT MEETING.
The hidden word is SECRET, of course. Pretty good, eh? But I sure felt like I’d seen this before, and sure enough, I have. Three years ago, Ross Trudeau did this exact theme with a few of the same theme answers and a nifty rule-breaking portion of the grid to enter the hidden word. Now I know it happens that different constructors can come up with the same idea, and sometimes it inevitably leads to some of the same theme answers when a theme is this tight. But here’s the thing, Ross’s puzzle was in this very same venue, the Universal Crossword Sunday. If it was a different publication, I wouldn’t have minded, but re-purposing the same theme in the same publication is just not done. I guess the folks at Universal feel otherwise?
Also, this puzzle lacks any sort of symmetry, which I honestly didn’t notice during the solve, but now it’s glaringly obvious. Giving the constructor the leeway to place black squares anywhere they want looks like it leads to a lot of fun long fill like SPOILER ALERT, SILVER MEDAL, EASY READER, JUNK ARTISTS, MANSIONS, STEELHEAD. and “BEER ME.” But now that I know that all that good stuff is there only because the grid is non-symmetrical feels like a cheat.
In the end, I don’t mind some rule-breaking as long as it’s only on occasion. Universal can dispense with the symmetry rule as long as it’s used sparingly and leads to good results. But re-running a theme in only three years’ time shouldn’t happen anywhere. At best, it demonstrates a lack of due diligence in realizing they ran this very same theme before. At worst, well I suppose it shows a lack of care for their audience, but I would hope that’s not the case.
Two stars.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
I spent 5(!!!) minutes looking for a typo until, much like Eric, I realized “It’s-a me, Marie” didn’t make any sense. The theme was actually the reason I finally found the typo when I realized I didn’t have an O on that side.
Some of the other anagrams were meh, but CHECKMATINGCHICKMAGNET is one of my favorite entries of the year.
My experience with “It’s a me” included wondering a long time what I had wrong, but there was no enlightenment. Eventually I just came here. Oh, and some felt backward. Isn’t an actress greeting Mario rather than vice versa?
I kept thinking the puzzle’s idiom was far more contemporary than I am. I couldn’t get my head around how we get from the clue to the chick magnet either. I just gave up and assumed it’s something I don’t know. So I never enjoyed the puzzle, much as I love anagrams. (My favorite puzzles are variety cryptics.)
Really fun; I’m not sure which entry I realized they were anagrams, but it was a pleasure when I did.
I guess it’s having a millennial kid, but I’ve been through so many iterations of “It’s a-me, Mario” that there is no truer gimme.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Printing out the puzzle, there were no dark black lines separating the theme answers, nor did I look at the puzzle title. But that only made it a more satisfying solve. I had a good time with the fun answers, which were all doubly lively, meaty, action packed.
EXONERATE, GENERATION X, TECHNOCRAT, TRENCH COAT, STREET LEGAL, LET’S GET REAL, CHECKMATE, CHICK MAGNET, MARISA TOMEI, ITSA ME MARIO. Is this not a treasure trove of richness?
The word I was looking for to describe the texture of those words and phrases is “crunchy”
NYT: I knew I had seen MARISATOMEI/ITSAMEMARIO before. Rex Parker points out that I saw it before **in a New York Times crossword puzzle** from February 8, 2018 by Erik Agard.
That’s bad. IMO, you can’t lift a theme answer anagram directly from another crossword in the same publication 7 years earlier. I don’t blame the constructor. I knew I had seen it before, but I didn’t remember where; that was probably true for the constructor, who’s had 12 prior NYT crosswords and is unlikely to be purposely lifting stuff off of other constructors. I also wonder whether he used AI to generate the anagrams, not knowing that this one is not original. But the NYT crossword editorial team should have picked that up along the way. The original appearance wasn’t that long ago, and I would also think there would be something in the process that would involve looking at prior clues for the same theme answer. Will Shortz was obviously there in 2018, and I think some of the others and testers were there as well.
I knew immediately that the anagram appeared in Erik’s HOLLYWOOD SHUFFLE puzzle and was disappointed to find it in this grid. It almost feels like that discovery belongs to Erik.
honestly in retrospect i feel like i should have shared the byline with Peter Broda on that 2018 puzzle – it was him that added ITSAMEMARIO to his (free!!) wordlist which i merely trawled for anagrams. incredibly brilliant and generous guy, i miss when he was around more on the puzzle scene.
Talent, grace, and humility. We need more like you
+1 on that. A very gracious response from Erik, and also a confirmation that today’s constructor likely had no idea that the anagram had appeared in a NYT puzzle before.
I still think that such a long and distinctive anagram shouldn’t be re-used as related to the theme for a Times crossword. But I realize that there are differences of opinion, and that others don’t agree.
The earlier puzzle’s theme was anagrams of movie stars. “It’s a me, Mario” was the clue and MARISA TOMEI was the entry. Today’s theme involves both anagrams as the entry and they’re not all about movie stars. So the themes are very different.
Themes get reused all the times, with much more egregious duplication of theme entries than this. It never would have occurred to me that this duplication (had I remembered it) was an issue, much less a reason to reject the puzzle.
No disrespect to Erik Agard, who is a clever guy, but is there any reason to believe that he came up with the MARISA TOMEI anagram?
I’m not going to look at Agard’s 2018 puzzle (I don’t think I have solved it, but I expect to reach 2018 in the NYT archives in a few years). Martin’s description makes it sound as if the themes are very different.
I really don’t see a problem, even if the NYT editors remembered or uncovered Agard’s puzzle in the process of editing this one. I’m sure that many people solving today’s puzzle didn’t do (or don’t remember) the earlier one.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
NYT: It helped to be a huge Nintendo fan!
Like yesterday’s puzzle, a bit light on the challenge, but I had a lot of fun.
Way light on the challenge to the point of boring.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 4.5 stars
When I saw the title, I knew I was going to love it and I was right. The Captain always cracks me up and, as usual, Evan’s fill and clues prove to me how much he wants his solvers to have a good time. Thanks, Evan.
Yep! Very fun Sunday from Evan.
PlEASE TELL ERIC THAT ACCOMMODATE IS DOUBLE M AND DOUBLE C
Odd enough that you feel the need to post a correction of a basic typo, but do you really need to shout it (except for the “l” in PLEASE for some reason)?
I would argue that your outraged response fails to meet the requirements of a grammatically correct sentence.
Yeesh.
I wonder whether Francine is as offended by all typos or if “accommodate” is especially triggering for some reason.
Thanks for the correction.
NYT: John Kugelman’s name is misspelled in the Diary heading above the puzzle. Haha, I just noticed that there’s a conversation about misspellings just above my comment. I didn’t mean to pile on, but I’m not sorry. Eric writes carefully in general.
Misspelling Mr. Kugelman’s name embarrasses me more than misspelling “accommodate.” I perpetually see my own surname misspelled and try to be very careful with constructors’ names.
For almost 30 years, everything I wrote that would be read by a wide audience was professionally edited and proofread. One gets used to having that kind of backup.
Thanks, Lois, for the gentle correction.
Eric – you are a breath of fresh air to this website and you really make it a pleasure to read your reviews. Keep up the great work!
Thank you.
Puzzle: Universal (Sunday); Rating: 4 stars
I don’t care about crossword-grid symmetry, and I enjoyed this fun puzzle. (To boost the ratings closer to the average 3-stars, I’m giving this one 4 stars.