LAT 11:47 (Kyle) 
[3.50 avg; 3 ratings] rate it
NYT 10:50 (Nate) 
[2.67 avg; 27 ratings] rate it
USA Today untimed (ZEB) rate it
Universal (Sunday) untimed (Jim P) [2.75 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
Universal 5:11 (Adam S) 
[4.25 avg; 2 ratings] rate it
WaPo 14:53 (Eric) 
[2.88 avg; 4 ratings] rate it
Kim Alswager’s New York Times crossword, “Down the Tubes” — Nate’s write-up
07.26.2026 Sunday New York Times Crossword
It’s a Mario tribute puzzle, and as this constructor’s debut NYT puzzle. Wow! I imagine this will play super quick / friendly / and nostalgia-forward to those who know, and could be potentially trickier to those who don’t. First, let’s break down all the fun thematic elements:
First, the puzzle’s theme, as depicted in the central down entry:
41D IT’S A ME, MARIO
[Catchphrase of this puzzle’s subject]
Then, it’s main cast of characters:
24A PRINCESS PEACH [Whom this puzzle’s subject must save!]
122A LUIGI [Brother of this puzzle’s subject]
38A YOSHI [Green friend of this puzzle’s subject]
88A WARIO [Antagonist of this puzzle’s subject] (This crossing MARIO was a nice touch!)
110A BOWSER’S CASTLE [Enemy lair where 24-Across is held captive]
A few other related bits:
71A NES [Platform with a “Super” popular character, in brief?]
86D MAMMA MIA [Catchphrase of this puzzle’s subject]
A really neat demonstration of how Mario is able to warp through pipes from one location to another, highlighting more of the power items in the game:
14D WARP PIPE [What this puzzle’s subject uses to travel to a new location]
82D (warping through the pipe into 31D) FIRE F/LOWER [With 31-Down, power-up that lets this puzzle’s subject throw flames]
87D (warping through the pipe into 30D) MUSH/ROOM [With 30-Down, power-up that supersizes this puzzle’s subject]
And then the other items Mario sometimes gets when he smashes a ? boxes, represented as these vertical entries ‘growing out’ of the illustrated ? boxes:
4D COIN [Collectible item from the box below]
7D VINE [Green transport from the box below]
64D ONE UP [“Extra life” item from the box below]
I really appreciate that this wasn’t just a “list as many things about Mario as possible” puzzle and that the constructor had fun with the ? boxes and WARP PIPE. (I bet the constructor also tried to sneak Toad into that SE corner, off the T in BOWSER’S CASTLE, but couldn’t get satisfactory fill.) Bonus points to the NYT graphics team for rendering this puzzle to look like a proper Mario level, bricks and all!
The fill felt quite clean, especially with everything going on! Sure, there were some proper nouns that might not have been as familiar to everyone (CHACHI, DEREK, ELBERT, OSSIE, HAMMON, ARNE), but they felt quite fairly crossed and I was glad to learn about the ones I didn’t know!
It took me a bit to get on the constructor’s cluing wavelength but, going back through the grid, it all feels super fair. I will admit to being afraid at what people might have tried to enter at 120A [Striking feature of Jessica Rabbit], but I was quite glad to see that it was just RED HAIR! Overall, a lovely Sunday puzzle! What did you think? Let us know in the comments – and let’s congratulate the constructor on a wonderful NYT debut!
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword “Strange Brew” — Eric’s Review
Evan Birnholz’s Washington Post Crossword “Strange Brew” — 7/26/26 (Click to Enlarge)
Each theme answer has several contiguous circled letters, but as read left-to-right, they don’t spell anything (which isn’t surprising given the puzzle’s title). But the revealer clears things up, as each them answer contains a scrambled beverage:
- 23A [“Swim Good” musician with a body of water in his name (soda)] FRANK OCEAN Coke
- 29A [Hawaiian animal attraction (Greek liqueur)] HONOLULU ZOO Ouzo
- 36A [A series of unfortunate events, maybe (brew from roasted beans)] DOMINO EFFECT Coffee
- 57A [Tactical attack unit (fermented milk beverage)] STRIKE FORCE Kefir
- 67A [Musician’s timbre (Mexican liquor)] TONE QUALITY Tequila
- 76A [“We’ve got nothing to worry about” (anise-flavored spirit)] IT’S IN THE BAG Absinthe
- 97A [Maximum amount that can be charged for a product (frozen beverage)] PRICE CEILING ICEE
- 102A [1989 sports comedy with the tagline “When these three oddballs try to play hardball, the result is totally “screwball” (beer)] MAJOR LEAGUE Lager
- 114A [Beverage that hints at each scrambled circled word, and a description of the beverage formed by the first letters of the unscrambled circled words] MIXED DRINK
The first letters of the unscrambled beverages spell out COCKTAIL. I didn’t make sense of the circled letters until I read the revealer clue, so I mostly solved it as a themeless puzzle. And several of the theme answers are fun to see in a grid, especially DOMINO EFFECT and IT’S IN THE BAG.
And as often is the case, I’m impressed by Evan’s ability to make the meta aspect (COCKTAIL) work.
Other stuff:
- 40A [Parts of course schedules] TEE TIMES Nice clue; I definitely thought of an academic course long before I realized it was golf.
- 85A [“You are so right!”] SPOT ON This kind of conversational clue and answer often gets me because neither the clue nor the answer is something I can imagine saying. Not so here; I’ve used SPOT ON many times.
- 119A [Composer of the chorus “Va, pensiero”] Guiseppe VERDI I’m not a huge opera fan, but I do have a few recordings of that piece from Nabucco, so this was a gimme. It’s also known as the “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves.” (My opera knowledge only goes so far; I would have sworn that piece was from Aida.)
- 1D [President who was an intramural wrestling champion at Yale] William Howard TAFT I lost some time guessing that this was Gerald FORD, who got his law degree from Yale.
- 6D [Play house?] ARCADE Cute clue.
- 15D [Hunting dog that’s the mascot of Southern Illinois University] SALUKI I shouldn’t have needed any crosses here, as my brother’s wife worked at SIU in the 1990s.
- 78D [Houston’s cosmic nickname] SPACE CITY Another answer that should have been a gimme but wasn’t; I started with STAR ______.
- 107D [Closed-book ___] EXAM That’s not a term I remember from my long-ago school days. “Open-book exam,” sure. But the opposite was just an “exam.”
Mike Graczyk’s Universal Crossword “Themeless Sunday 193” – Adam S’s write-up
Mike Graczyk’s Universal Crossword “Themeless Sunday 193” – 7/26/26
Brief one today as I recover from jet lag.
I found this a good, well-constructed puzzle. My favorite entries were GRAND SLAM with its excellent clue [Fourscore?]. GIVE IT A GO, TRUE BLUE, TIRE SWING, WHOA NELLY appropriately next to THINK AGAIN, and RIGHT ON CUE.
A few notes:
- 1A UGLI [Jamaican fruit also called a uniq] and 1D UGGS [Trendy boots] Fun combo to start off the puzzle
- 55A BLANK [Useful Scrabble tile (though it’s pointless!] Fun!
- 57A OMELET BAR [Where a cook gets cracking] Nice clue! Oddly, this is the third OMELET BAR I’ve seen this weekend, with it coming up in both the NYT and LAT yesterday (the latter also in a Mike puzzle, making him a heavy favorite for the prestigious American Egg Board constructor of the week award).
- 3D LAVA [“Said one volcano to the other, ‘I ___ you’” (dad joke)] Thought about blowing my top about this clue, but decided to be magma-nimous.
- 9D TABLETS [See 32-Across] and 32A [Mount where Moses received two 9-Down]. This is a minor point, but if we must have cross-referenced clues like this, I much prefer the substantive clue to be positioned at the first answer where possible. Here 9D, which the vast majority of solvers will hit first of the two clues, could have been something like [Pair received my Moses at Mount 32-Across] and 32A [See 9-Down].
- 31 DOT TO DOTS [Activities that foster connection?] Liked this one, too.
Zhouqin Burnikel’s LA Times crossword “9 TO 5” – Kyle’s write-up
LA Times solution grid “9 TO 5” – Zhouqin Burnikel – Sunday 07/26/2026
Thanks Zhouqin for today’s LAT puzzle. Apologies as I’m getting to this review a bit later than usual, so this will be a short write-up.
- 123A [Start of a spelling rule, or a rule to keep in mind whil answering the starred clues] I BEFORE E. The answers to thematic clues are entered with one “E” changed to an “I” creating a different word or phrase (not wacky).
- 23A [*Command to turn] FACELIFT (face left)
- 29A [*Recovers somewhat] FEELS BITTER (feels better)
- 45A [*Flourishing] LIVING WILL (living well)
- 49A [*Perform a daring act] BILL THE CAT (bell the cat). Bill The Cat is the feline character in the comic strips Bloom County, Outland and Opus. The idiom “bell the cat” has an interesting origin.
- 70A [*Makes explicitly clear] SPILLS OUT (spells out)
- 94A [*Person who works a lot?] AUTODIALER (auto dealer). Hmm, this feels like one of those crossword tropes where you stick an -er onto a random verb.
- 96A [*Ink-filled tool for illustrators] DRAWING PIN (drawing pen). “Drawing pin” is another term for thumbtack.
- 112A [*Places to drop envelopes] LITTER BOXES (letter boxes)
Purists might argue that the theme answers shouldn’t include any unaffected E’s, as several here do.
Lots of interesting mid-length to long fill including LEAD TIME, “REAL TALK”, BOAT RACES, ICE SKATE, “AND SCENE”, TEST RIDE, SLY FOXES, SITS STILL, ULYSSES. Cluing overall felt on the easier side.
Kareem Ayas’s Universal Sunday crossword, “Animal Style”—Jim P’s review
Theme answers are familiar avian-related similes. The revealer is FOUL LANGUAGE (117a, [Profanity … or a phonetic hint to six similes in this puzzle]).
Universal Sunday crossword solution · “Animal Style” · Kareem Ayas · 7.26.26
- 23a. [Jubilant] HAPPY AS A LARK.
- 34a. [Insightful] WISE AS AN OWL.
- 50a. [Agile] GRACEFUL AS A SWAN.
- 66a. [Smug] PROUD AS A PEACOCK.
- 87a. [Bare] NAKED AS A JAYBIRD.
- 102a. [Kaput] DEAD AS A DODO.
Well, the title leads us to believe there are more types of animals than just birds in this theme and certainly not all of these birds are considered fowl (only two are, by my count), but it’s a lovely grid and super smooth; everything fell into place quite easily. A fun solve. I also like the consistent one-word clues.
May I ask why we single out the poor jaybird out as being naked when every other bird, nay, every other creature on Earth besides humans is just as naked? Why not “naked as a mole rat” or “nude as a nudibranch” or “bare as a…bear”? Apparently, the phrase evolved from “naked as a robin” which makes no more sense. I guess people just liked the playful sound of it.
Back to the grid, we’ve got some highlights to hit such as CODENAMES, SORCERY, SERENADE, GUARDIANS, BARN DANCE, TABLE READ, SYMMETRY (which this grid fully employs, I note), and NEGATORY. I enjoyed uncovering all of those. Oh, and there’s theme-adjacent (and symmetrical) BROODING and AVIATION, though neither is clued with relation to bird-like behavior. I was surprised to see both RENEE and RENE, though they’re very far apart in the grid, as well as NEE.
Clues of note:
- 12a. [Hija de los abuelos]. TIA. My rudimentary Spanish includes “abuelos” (“grandparents”) but doesn’t include “hija” (“daughter”).
- 106a. [Poker player’s headwear item]. VISOR. Got this easily, but why? Why do we associate VISOR wear with poker playing?
Smooth grid with a straightforward but enjoyable theme. 3.5 stars.
Faren Roth’s USA Today Crossword “Outer Ear” – Zachary Edward-Brown’s write-up
Faren Roth’s USA Today Crossword “Outer Ear” – 7/26/26
19A – [“Chill out, buddy”] = EASY TIGER
35A – [Enthusiastic go-getter] = EAGER BEAVER
56A – [Follow Jewish dietary restrictions] = EAT KOSHER
The letter string EAR is split up by themers today. EAR has some pretty gentle letters, and it’s only 3 letters long, so we get some fun themers in the mix which is nice.
In the fill, I quite like the top-left and bottom-right corners, especially with I HEAR IT, NONSENSE, and RUSH HOUR. I’m bummed that the clue for MEMENTO doesn’t reference the 2000 Nolan movie, but I was excited to see some fun food references in the puzzle today, like [Dim ___] for SUM and [Like some Takis] for SPICY. Plus [“Catch ya later!”] for PEACE is a fun clue.
Favorite clue: 42A [Go screen-free for a day, maybe] UNPLUG
4.5 stars
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Knowing how wildly protective and litigious Nintendo is with their IP, I wanted to log my score early in case they send a cease and desist to the NYT.
https://www.suedbynintendo.com/
Anyway… a fun theme for me as my kids have started exploring Super Mario games. The rest of the fill was OK, although I didn’t like a couple of naticky crosses like GESTE/ELBERT and ENTHALPY/ELAL.
I knew GESTE, but ELBERT also crossed BOWSER, one of my thematic nonfinishes. ENTHALPY in due course came back to me from physics, and I’ve known EL AL as long as I can remember. Then again, I could say the same about the defunct airlines that occasionally make it into puzzles.
I can see how people not familiar with Super Mario may find today’s NYTimes crossword extremely inane.
But if you’re familiar with it, the crossword plays almost like a Monday.
Obviously plenty of people are prepared to like the NYT. I found it such a slog, with so many themers, none familiar to me, some crossed by those proper names Nate mentions. I couldn’t finish without a little cheating (looking a couple of things up), and even then I had no idea what “the box below” clues meant or what to make of the grid art (question marks, green plug-like shapes, bricks).
I just kept telling myself that there had better be a nice big aha moment when I finally get this, and of course there wasn’t. I’m in the camp that would give it a zero if I could.I don’t come to crosswords for a miserable experience like this. But I guess just great for Mario followers.
I’m in the same boat wrt NYT and Mario. I got through the puzzle with a couple of lookups and Mario-fan knowledge derived from other reluctantly-solved crosswords, e.g., PRINCESSPEACH and WARIO. Not fun.
Oh, I have MOM for razor blades. Is that right? How so?
It’s MOW
I ended up in the same place, which initially stopped me from completing the puzzle.
It’s incorrect; the answer is MOW, crossing WARIO.
Oh, well. One my thematic nonfinishes, then, in a frustrating puzzle. Not sure I quite get this one, as the answer doesn’t seem to match the clue, either exactly in sense but also in part of speech and number as well, no? Seems to me that MOW is a verb and razor blades a plural noun.
Razor can be a verb too
Ah, I didn’t know. But then blades can’t be a verb, no?
Blades is the noun. Razor blades = cut grass.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
I felt it was way too niche. Probably left out many of my (senior) generation.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Stupid ridiculous piece of trivia junk. Wish I could give it a ZERO. Way to ruin my Sunday morning, NYT
NYT: Not too many years ago, the only crossword I solved regularly was the Sunday NYT (I had a Sunday-only home delivery subscription). Back then, had I discovered a puzzle themed entirely around a video game, about which I know almost nothing, I would have been really disappointed – basically, there would have been no crossword that week.
These days, I solve maybe ten puzzles a week, from various outlets. So this morning, this very quickly turned into “I have an extra half-hour to spend on my current woodworking project” – because there was little point in trying to do the crossword. I’m sure it’s a well-constructed puzzle – and congratulations to Ms Alswager on her debut – but for me, this was like trying to solve a crossword in Spanish. I know some basic vocabulary and enough grammar to order a simple meal in a restaurant and get directions to the restroom – but after that, I’m struggling.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
NYT
After countless puzzles over decades l found this Sunday’s theme was the most foreign to me. I imagine most solvers over 30 feel similarly.
A video game lacks the gravitas to be a theme for the high-minded NYT.
Come on – are you being serious? I didn’t realize crosswords were only for the “high-minded”. LOL
Ah yes, people over 30, famously a group that has never played video games before.
Everyone knows video games came into being circa 2000 when that group was old enough to play them.
My wife and I spent many hours playing Super Mario with our son (who is himself now pushing 40). We both loved today’s puzzle. Solvers over 30 with kids are likely to make your hunch wrong.
+1
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3 stars
Everything I know about Super Mario, I learned from crossword puzzles. (This is true of many subjects.) So I recognized some of the theme fill and made educated guesses on the rest; but this struck me as a niche puzzle. It was well done (except for that firef/lower break), but too narrow a theme to be enjoyable.
Definitely “niche”!!!
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
Love it as a Gen Xer.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
I think this maybe the first time in almost 50 years of solving the NYT that I just gave up because I couldn’t help thinking “who gives a fuck”.
Of course I’ve heard of the game but know nothing about it and don’t want to. There wasn’t enough else going on that was interesting that compelled me to even try.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 5 stars
NYT gets 5 stars from me. I know nothing about Marioworld, but I enjoy learning new stuff (it’s one of the reasons I do crosswords). And my grandsons enjoyed showing off their knowledge and helping me out.
NYT: really fun Sunday, and clever. I was genuinely surprised with how much I knew about Super Mario, having played the first three games about 40 years ago and not really since. I can understand it not being for everybody, but it’s not exactly like Super Mario is obscure. I’m glad those who enjoyed it, enjoyed it, and for everyone else, Evan always does an excellent Sunday puzzle too :-)
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4.5 stars
Wow, I’m nearly 69 years old and I found this puzzle to be fun, what’s wrong with me? I knew all of the references so it played fairly easily. (I, too, had to scour for MOM to MOW, realizing the crossing clue did say antagonist.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
I don’t play video games. This was total trash for me.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 2.5 stars
Not a fan of anagrams. Especially when they servo no purpose other than to clutter the grid with unnecessary circles.
“No purpose”?! Bah! The anagrams are performing exactly as both the title and the revealer suggest they will. I’ve been reading blog comments for 20 years and by far the most common remark about the Hidden Word theme type is: All the components of a theme entry should be involved in the hidden word; there shouldn’t be any dangling words just “sitting there”. A close second would be: Each theme entry should definitely be In The Language (as opposed to being obviously contrived just to serve the theme) and preferably be at least a somewhat interesting entry in and of itself. This puzzle could serve as a go-to example of how to do this theme right. This is elegance. And then, on top of that, it’s got that Birnholz meta thing goin on. This is the raised bar.
Thank you. Frank doesn’t comment here very often but pretty much every time he does it’s to say how much he doesn’t like anagrams. I can almost respect the commitment to the bit.
Puzzle: WaPo; Rating: 4.5 stars
I’ll see your comment and raise you one… Not being able to see Evan’s writeup, I don’t know if this was intentional or not but:
“Strange Brew” is a song by Cream, and the next line refers to “what’s inside of you.” I would actually *assume* that was intentional, given it’s Birnholz. This was a really fun puzzle.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Channeling John McEnroe: You Can Not Be Serious. Reason number 406 whu Will should get the axe.
I almost gave up on the NYT but kept slogging away and managed to finish, taking full advantage of things I’ve picked up from other crosswords. But I had no idea what the grid design meant.
I imagine Shortz and his team knew this one would be divisive. Unless they really believe that every solver has played the video game at some point, in which case they are seriously mistaken.
Congrats to the constructor on her first publication, but this was an odd choice of theme to begin, IMO.
I, too, am completely at a loss about what the grid design means — brown bricks and whatever those two green things are supposed to be.
I still haven’t a clue.
Puzzle: LAT; Rating: 4 stars
I was familiar with the phrase “Bell the Cat”, and knew that it involved some sort of risky task (in my case it’s “Clip the Cat’s Toenails), but I was unfamiliar with the fable. Glad to have looked it up!
From a very young age, I was always a good speller – I seemed to have an instinct or ability to visualize words. However, several years ago I read somewhere that there were more exceptions to the “I before E” rule than true applications and ever since then words that have “ei” or “ie” completely stump me. Somitheng broke, I guess.
We (my wefi and I do these puzzles together) got the edia of the I/E switch pretty quickly but didn’t know how to emplimint it. I thought it might be a rebus (e.i., “Essie” going down but “Feels Better” going across, but that didn’t hold true puzzle-wedi. After we feneshid, my wefi figured out the “9 to 5” connection.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1.5 stars
What an unfun slog.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 4 stars
Very enjoyable puzzle. One that I wish I’d thought of. But there’s one glaring missed opportunity. Instead of the usual NYT jingle after successfully solving the grid, they should’ve played this.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
Worst puzzle ever. A slog for anyone over the age of 14.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 1 star
NYT: My husband and I hated it. I wouldn’t have minded the Mario theme if the rest of it had been more accessible. I had “hot” for 19D and had never heard of “vinyasa” or “Princess Peach,” so that section was a total disaster. Same for 99D and 110A– never heard of either one. 69A “enthalpy” is awful, but at least we were both able to get it from the crossings. I almost never rate puzzles, but feel strongly enough about this one to do so.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 3.5 stars
Thought for sure this would be the end of my streak as I know next to nothing about Super Mario. Assumed I was supposed to be doing something with the ? boxes and had no idea what. So when I filled in that last letter and the music popped on, I literally shouted. The surprise of that moment earned an extra star from me.
Puzzle: NYT; Rating: 2 stars
I finished the puzzle dutifully but had several letters wrong because I have never played Super Mario in my life (and don’t feel I’ve missed out on anything). I still don’t understand why the bricks, tubes, and questions marks are placed where they are, but I guess gamers get it. This puzzle was one of the least satisfying solves in my many years of doing NYT crosswords. I hope the constructor didn’t lie awake all night thinking of this one–she will have missed a good night’s sleep.
Curious how many of the pithy yet scathing comments about the NYT seem to be from people who rarely or never post here. I would like to think if a theme hit one of my cultural blind spots (mythology, opera, etc.) I would just do my best and not crap all over the whole puzzle.
I am one who seldom posts on this site. I usually do so on Saturdays, but rarely other days, mostly because I only tend to work puzzles on the date that they are published on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday is the Newsday Stumper and I regularly post on that one. Sunday is the NYT puzzle and I rarely comment on that one because there’s usually nothing to comment on about it. It’s usually fairly straightforward and I don’t feel the need to say something about it or rate it. I did about this one. As I said in my post, I wouldn’t have minded the Mario theme, even if it might be considered one of my “cultural blind spots” — it was the obscure other stuff that I used examples of in my post that made the puzzle almost pure pain. If it had been relatively straghtforward other than the Mario theme, I wouldn’t have cared one iota.