Thursday, October 9, 2025

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Jay Silverman’s Universal Crossword “Shadow Puppets” — Eric’s Review

Jay Silverman’s Universal Crossword “Shadow Puppets” — 10/9/25

I’m not sure that I’ve seen a crossword puzzle theme quite like this one. The asymmetrical grid has three pairs of theme answers, with each pair consisting of intersecting Across and Down answers:

• 1D [Puppet whose shadow is at the start of 17-Across] ALF/17A [Air France or British Airways] FLAG CARRIER A “flag carrier” is “an airline owned or formerly owned by a specified state.” I only skimmed the Wikipedia articles, but it looks like the French government still owns over 17% of Air France-KLM (the parent company of Air France) and that British Airways was fully privatized in 1997.
• 28D [Puppet whose shadow is at the start of 43-Across] BERT/43A [Staff opening?] TREBLE CLEF Bert is from Sesame Street. Cute clue on the Across answer.
• 31D [Puppet whose shadow is at the start of 58-Across] ANIMAL/58A [Protect with a layer of plastic] LAMINATE Animal is from The Muppet Show. I wonder if this pair was the inspiration for the theme, as it’s the longest and most unlikely one pair.

The puppets’ “shadows” are their names, running backwards, in the corresponding Across answers. It’s kind of a fun idea, though by the time I realized how it worked, I was done solving the puzzle as a themeless.

Other stuff:

• 14A [Canadian coin, colloquially] LOONIE Thanks, Alf, for keeping me from trying TOONIE.
• 65A [Apple product?] CORER By the time I read this attempt at misdirection, I already had the last two or three letters, so the only question was CO- or PA-.
• 9D [“Stranger Things” character with a numerical name] ELEVEN I’ve seen the first four seasons of that show and still blanked on one of the central character’s name; she’s played by the talented Millie Bobby Brown. I hate it when I do something like that.
• 12D [They get smashed at parties] PIŃATAS Cute clue. The only piñata I’ve seen broken was a four-legged animal whose body was made of corrugated cardboard under the tissue paper. Even a good whack with the broomstick failed to do much damage.
• 36D [You can kick a bad one!] HABIT True, but not always easy to do.
• 45D [Broad-minded and tolerant] LIBERAL Great clue.
• 49D [House mate?] SENATE Kind of a clever clue.

Freddie Cheng’s New York Times crossword — Zachary David Levy’s write-up

Difficulty: Easy (8m56s)

Freddie Cheng’s New York Times crossword, 10/9/25, 1009

Today’s theme: ALL THUMBS (Klutzy … and a hint to 17-, 25-, 35- and 49-Across)

• NO WAY JOSE (Two down)
• I NEED A RIDE (One out)
• NOTHING TO DO (Two moving around each other)
• WORKS FOR ME (One up)

Took me a moment to visualize NOTHING TO DO — you have to picture the fingers laced together first — whereas the other THUMBS don’t require an ensemble.

Cracking: AFRAID SO

Slacking: BLONDES cluing Dolly Parton, particularly given her famous quip: “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.”

Sidetracking: ROLODEX

Seth Bisen-Hersh’s Wall Street Journal Crossword “Joint Venture” — Jim Q’s Review

THEME: Words that can precede the word -BOW are featured in an “L” Shape

THEME ANSWERS:

• LONG(BOW)
• CROSS(BOW)
• CLARA (BOW)
• RAIN(BOW)
• [Nudge, or the circled words, phonetically] ELBOW

I probably could’ve used a nudge a bit sooner since ELBOW is one of the last entries I filled in. I figured the EL part eventually due to the shapes and then I got it.

This was fun enough to fill in with a good mix of clues and some nice entries, particularly those grid-spanners, but I solved this mostly as a themeless, especially as I didn’t grok the theme until post-solve. Not sure if knowing it ahead of that would’ve made much of a difference. I suppose consistency with the L-shape might be a bit more elegant, but how many other words can precede –BOW? Not many if xwordinfo is any indication… and here’s to hoping I didn’t raise any eyebrows in my school’s IT department when I just googled PUSSY BOW, which is on the list.

OTHER STUFF:

• [Character who croaks “You’re making such smogulous smoke!”] LORAX. Fun clue! Inferable and smile-inducing.
• [Depth charges, in military slang] ASH CANS. New to me. From Google AI: “Ash can” is a nickname for an early-style, cylindrical depth charge, so-called because of its resemblance to a large ash container. These weapons were filled with explosives and a hydrostatic pistol that would detonate them at a preset depth to damage or sink submerged submarines by shockwave rather than a direct hit 
• [On Hollywood Blvd., say] IN L.A. A bit of crosswordese that I always found strange even by crosswordese standards

***Update*** I forgot to mention the bonkers clue for MELONS, which for me was [Shoppers] (solved with .puz using scraper). Makes no sense. I didn’t notice as I figured it out with all the crosses and never looked back at the clue, so it wasn’t on my radar. Evan Birnholz posted a likely reason as to what happened in the comments below

3 stars from me!

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1825 “Ladies First” — Eric’s Review

Brendan Emmett Quigley’s Crossword #1825 “Ladies First” — 10/9/25

Four theme answers begin with HER and end with wackiness:

• 17A [Battle among Spanish brothers?] HERMANO WAR Hermano and Man ‘o War
• 23A [Sardine snapper?] HERRING CAMERA Herring and Ring Camera
• 36A [Things that get the shit out of plant museums?] HERBARIUM ENEMAS Herbarium and Barium Enemas Thanks for that image, Brendan.
• 58A [Hot pursuit of a recluse?] HERMIT HUNT Hermit and MIT Hunt The MIT Mystery Hunt is “a puzzlehunt competition that takes place on the MIT campus every year during the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend.” I’d never heard of this, but knowing that Brendan lives in the Boston area, it seems likely that this is what he had in mind. And breaking HERMIT HUNT up this way is consistent with the other theme answers.

There’s a revealer of sorts: 46A [Like the bands Blondie and the Pretenders, or an alternate title for this puzzle] FEMALE-FRONTED After seeing that the first three theme answers all began with HER, I got ahead of myself and put HER in the start of 46A. Bad move.

A theme like this is possibly more subjective than others — if the theme entries amuse you, then you might like the puzzle. I like HERMANO WAR (maybe because my limited Spanish vocabulary is big enough to include the word for “brother” or maybe because it reminds me of Dos Hermanos, a long-gone Austin restaurant that was one of the few places we knew that served gorditas). HERRING CAMERA and HERMIT HUNT are meh and HERBARIUM ENEMAS is just ugh.

Bonus points, though, for reminding me of two of my favorite 1980s bands.

Other stuff:

• 33A [Band whose fans are called Juggalos, briefly] ICP Insane Clown Posse. I’ve heard of the band but don’t know their music at all, and had no idea on “Juggalos.” Nor did the initials mean anything to me.
• 57A [Number of Oscars Stanley Kubrick won] NONE The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences often overlooks the best filmmaking, doesn’t it? Too bad the clue is technically wrong; Kubrick received the Oscar for Special Visual Effects for his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• 1D [“You nutter”] HA-HA I had no idea what that clue meant.
• 3D [Long Island village originally named Great Cow Harbour] NORTHPORT I’d never heard of it, but it looks like a nice enough place.
• 13D [Gossipy buttinsky] YENTA I lost a bit by spelling it with an E at the end.
• 24D [Jewish eve (in THE REBEL)] EREB I sometimes complain about clues with parenthetical hints that seem unnecessary. I didn’t know this word and would have needed all the crosses had it not been for the parenthetical.
• 33D [Comment from someone who is gone] I’M SO DRUNK Cute clue.
• 48D [Janelle who described herself as a “funkstress”] MONAE Is there another “Janelle” who’s well-known enough to be in a crossword?
• 51D [“The Thursday Murder Club” author Richard] OSMAN I hadn’t heard of the author or the book series.
• 55D [Paris mayor Hidalgo] ANNE Another name I didn’t know, despite her having been mayor since 2014. She was born in Spain but has lived in France since early childhood.

Dan Caprera’s LA Times Crossword – Gareth’s theme summary

Dan Caprera’s puzzle theme is a typical one for the midweek LA Times – the letters of BUNS are scrambled somewhere in four longer across answers. The main drawcard is the revealing answer of MESSYBUNS, which are different from SLOPPYJOES, I assume:

• GERMANSUB, [Vessel secretly ridden by Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”]. sn’t that a UBOAT?
• RUNSBATTEDIN, [Hank Aaron’s record 2,297
• SUNBEAR, [Ursine critter with a distinctive orange patch on its chest]
• MEANBUSINESS, [Don’t pull any shenanigans]

Gareth