A Riot a Minute: The first word of each theme answer, including the unifier, is a description of a type laughter. Several of these terms seemed a bit antiquated to me.
17-Across. Canned responses featured on many classic sitcoms: LAUGH TRACKS.
. 
28-Across. Alcohol, in 1920s speakeasy slang: GIGGLE WATER. I was not familiar with this term. It even predates my parents.
46-Across. Egg, in diner slang: CACKLEBERRY. I was not familiar with this term, either. Apparently, Cackleberry is a slang term for a hen's egg because it is a combination of the word "cackle" (the sound a hen makes), and "berry", which is roughly the shape of an egg.
And the unifier:
59-Across. Bozo, and a feature of 17-, 28-, and 46-Across: CHUCKLEHEAD. Also known as a blockhead.
Any other laughs?
Across:
1. Curved segments: ARCS.
5. Happy shout: HOORAH!
11. Scoreboard figs.: PTS. As in Points.
14. Actress Petty: LORI. Lori Petty (b. October. 14, 1963) was in many films in the 1990s.
 |
| Then and now. |
15. Saint of Ávila: TERESA.
16. Nev. neighbor: ARI. Arizona is the neighbor of Nevada. The Hoover dam is on the border of these two states. Hi, Lucina!
19. Bled, as dyed fabric: RAN.
20. Fix a sloppy cartographer's work: REMAP.
21. Generic painkiller: ASPIRIN. The active ingredient of aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. It is derived from willow bark and has been known to relieve pain for over 3,500 years. Aspirin, that we purchase from the drug store was developed in the late 1890s by chemist Felix Hoffmann (Jan. 21, 1868 ~ Feb. 8, 1946) at Bayer. Aspirin taken in large quantities, however, can cause gastric bleeding.
23. Fictional lion whose name is Turkish for "lion": ASLAN. Aslan is a major character in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis (né Clive Staples Lewis; Nov. 29, 1898 ~ Nov. 22, 1963).
24. Course for intl. students: ESL. As in English as a Second Language. This has become a crossword staple.
26. Shape of a tornado: CONE.
27. Cowboys, on scoreboards: DAL. Think football and the Dallas Cowboys.
32. Attempt: STAB.
34. "__ too shabby!": NOT.
35. Rather thick: DENSE.
36. Share a border with: ABUT.
38. Needs one more candle on one's cake: AGES.
39. Jackrabbits, e.g.: HARES. Jackrabbits are hares, but are not rabbits.
41. Peach or coral: HUE.
42. Milky gemstone: OPAL. Everything you ever wanted to know about opals.
49. Quaint "Hurry up!": HIE.
50. Rich person's suffix: -AIRE. Hand up if you are a Billionaire.
51. Stat that may increase with a homer: ERA. As in Earned Run Average.
52. Love, in Torino: AMORE. Today's Italian lesson.
54. Before daybreak: PRE-DAWN.
57. Striped African antelope: ELAND.
58. Touchdown hr.: ETA. Not football, but flying in a plane. Estimated Time of Arrival.
63. Oil field structure: RIG.
64. Force: COMPEL.
65. Buy in, in poker: ANTE. // And 66-Across. Call, in poker: SEE. // And 1-Down. Winner takes __: ALL.
67. __ rasa: blank slate: TABULA. Today's Latin lesson.
68. "Stay" singer Lisa: LOEB. Stay is career-making song Lisa Anne Loeb (b. Mar. 11, 1968). The song was from the movie Reality Bites, and was the first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 for an artist without a recording contract.
Down:
2. Greets like a tiger: ROARS AT.
3. Villain de Vil of "101 Dalmatians": CRUELLA.
4. Greek letter on the AutoSum button in Excel: SIGMA.
5. URL intro: HTTP. We had this recently. HTTP stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
6. Poetic "above": O'ER.
7. Pop star Rita: ORA. Rita Sahatçiu Ora makes frequent guest appearances in the puzzle. She is a British singer, actress, television personality, and fashion icon. She was born in Kosovo in 1990.
8. Think back to: RECALL. Do you have total recall?
9. Gives a proper "Jeopardy!" response: ASKS.
10. Locking device: HASP.
11. Colorful, chatty birds: PARROTS.
12. Company noob: TRAINEE.
13. One seeking redemption: SINNER.
18. Put up, as art: HANG.
22. "Just watch me!": I CAN SO!
23. Some Super Bowl highlights: ADs.
24. Awards "quadruple crown": EGOT. The EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) Awards is often seen in the puzzles.
25. PD rank: SGT. As in Sergeant in the Police Department.
29. Occupied: IN USE.
30. Groundskeeper's tool: EDGER.
31. Tiny: WEE.
33. Spoke in a husky voice?: BARKED.
37. "The Fresh Prince of __-Air": BEL. A Will Smith sit-com that ran in the 1990s.
38. Subtle glow: AURA.
39. Scrunchie, for one: HAIR TIE.
40. Farm measure: ACREAGE.
41. Feminine pronoun: HER.
43. Bus. card info: PHONE NO.
44. Broadcast time: AIR DATE.
45. Gymnast Suni: LEE. Suni Lee (née Sunisa Phabsomphou Lee; b. Mar. 9, 2003) is an American artistic gymnast. In the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, she was the all-around gold medalist and won the bronze medal on the uneven bars bronze medalist.
46. Tangy buds in chicken piccata: CAPERS. Everything you ever wanted to know about capers.
47. Deaden: BE NUMB.
48. Ivy university featured on "Gilmore Girls": YALE. I never watched Gilmore Girls, but Yale was an obvious fit.
53. Taj __: Indian tourist site: MAHAL.
55. Bank holding: Abbr.: ACCT. As in Account.
56. "OMG!" kin: WHOA. Really?
57. Purnell of "Yellowjackets": ELLA. Ella Summer Reed Purnell (b. September 17, 1996) is a British actress who began her career as a child model.
60. PC core: CPU. As in Central Processing Unit.
61. Kenan's former comedy partner: KEL. Kenan and Kel was a sit-com from the late 1990s that starred Kenan Thompson (b. May 10, 1978) and Kel Mitchell (né Kel Johari Rice Mitchell; b. Aug. 25, 1978). Kenan later went on to star on Saturday Night Live.
62. "Smitten Kitchen Every Day" cookbook writer Perelman: DEB. I am not familiar with Smitten Kitchen Every Day. Apparently, the Smitten Kitchen began as a cooking blog.
Here's the Grid:
חתולה
White Rabbit on this First Day of July.
43 comments:
I think we need to get Subgenius an alarm clock
I changed “hooray” to
“hoorah.” Otherwise, I didn’t have too much trouble with this “funny” puzzle.
FIR, so I’m happy.
This was an almost a very easy puzzle, with GIGGLE WATER , CACKLEBERRY , DEB Pereleman and ELLA PURNELL complete unknowns. I have never seen the name Pereleman spelled that way before. RITA ORA along with DUA LIPA appears very often here. I like her on MASKED SINGER . Susan your cartoons were great as always and I enjoyed the blast from the past white rabbit, white rabbit. Robin is also a very dependable puzzle setter, thanks.
Good morning!
Like S-G, I used my Wite-Out to correct HOORAy to HOORAH. Otherwise, it was a smooth glide, top to bottom. Thanx, Robin and Hahtoolah.
I figured we could all use a laugh (or four) these days! Some of these theme entries may have been unfamiliar to some solvers, but I didn't have to look up a single one. I remembered cackleberries from my days as a short order cook in a diner ("Wreck 'em with Murphy and whiskey down!"). Of course, "giggle water" was in the title of a famous Prohibition Era bartender's guide, which I once spotted behind the bar where I was working, and yes, it was a very VERY old bar. It was also mentioned in a Fantastic Beasts film, but that was actually water that made people giggle. Such fun!
FIR, but hand up for horray->HOORAH.
As a DAL Cowboys fan, I gotta say that I think our mascot should be St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. Is it too early to start saying "just wait until next season?"
Robin made me think - ERA may increase with a homer? Oh yeah, if the batter came to the plate only because an error delayed the side out, then the homer wouldn't generate Earned Run(s). Same thing if the batter comes to the plate before an error is made, some CHUCKLEHEAD in right field drops a catchable foul ball, and the batter sails the next pitch over the center field wall. I think.
If you are a URL, you ain't squat unless you have "S" appended to that HTTP.
Thanks to Robin for the fun Tuesday workout. My favorite was "spoke in a husky voice" for BARKED. And thanks to Ha2la for another fine review and great 'toons.
Thank you, Robin. Fun stuff today.
WHOA, OMG! Already the 1st of July?
Started the puzzle and hilarity ensued. LAUGH TRACKS didn't require any perps. Not familiar with GIGGLE WATER. That one needed a lot of perps. In the last year or two, I read a couple of extensive lists of 50's diner slang, but couldn't RECALL CACKLE BERRY. I know of CHUCKLEHEAD as a non-flattering term for a person that is always joking, even at the most inappropriate times.
Didn't see many of the clues while solving. I don't like to skip clues, because they reinforce clue-to-word patterns. But sometimes the answers just keep flowing and the section gets filled, so you move on.
Thank you, Hahtoolah. I look forward to your reviews for the fun and humor, and today for filling me in on the words and clues I missed along the way.
Irish Miss, from yesterday... Your first comments were in the spam filter for some unknown reason. I approved them an hour or so ago as Not Spam, so they have been posted.
Took 8:57 today for me to crack (up) this one.
I almost turfed it in the top-right, entering "atoner" before "sinner", but eventually caught my mistake.
I didn't know: one of today's actresses (Ella, I knew Lori); the cookbook writer (deb); giggle water; or, cackleberry.
Belated happy birthday to C.C.
Robin, thank you for stopping by and saying hello. It is feeling more like the olden days of the blog. Happy July all. How many buy fireworks for home use? As a child in the days before restrictions my father always put on a show for the neighborhood. It was a small town and there were no other fireworks. That was great until the year a rocket set fire to a roof. Ah well maybe some laws do make sense.
Just a quick note: I'm traveling the next few weeks with limited access, so I haven't fallen off the earth, I'm just moving around on it!
Nope. Not here. I've told the story before about my neighbors. They set off mortars every 4th. They filled 5 gallon plastic pails with concrete around a centered PVC pipe. One year, the mortar exploded in the tube. A shard of PVC embedded in the one guy's chest. The concrete shrapnel blew out the back window of the other guy's company minivan. They haven't done fireworks ever since.
Terrific Tuesday. Thanks for the fun Robin (thanks for dropping by) and Hahtoolah.
I FIRed in good time and saw the CHUCKLE theme (although GIGGLE WATER and CACKLE BERRY were new to me). I did have to change knUCKLE to CHUCKLE.
Today is Canada Day here in our strong and free country which ABUTs the USA. (We will NOT be REMAPping!). We will need 158 candles as we have AGEd.
I was ready to find a nit with ASPIRIN as “generic painkiller”, as ASPIRIN is still a trademark in Canada for the generic acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), but I see that Bayer lost the trademark in USA. Even so, like Kleenex, it is often used to cover the whole category here.
“Just watch me” reminded me of former Canadian PM, Pierre Trudeau’s comment, re his plan to invoke the War Measures Act in response to the October Crisis in 1970.
Wishing you all a great day.
Thanks, TTP, I thought I forgot to hit the publish button. It would be interesting to know what triggered a spam sentence.
Belated Happy Birthday CC!
(PSA-never try to light candles on a picture of a birthday cake...
Good Morning:
Hand up for never having heard of either Giggle Juice or Cackleberry, but both were easy to suss out. The reveal of Chucklehead was perfect. I, too, fell into the Hurray/Hoorah and Atoner/Sinner traps, and also needed perps for Deb and Ella. Otherwise, the solve was quick and smooth, as Tuesdays should be.
Thanks, Robin, and thanks for stopping by and thanks, Hatoolah, for the fun and facts, as usual. Favorite comic was the Jeopardy mice.
CEh, happy Canada Day. 🇨🇦
Have a great day.
FIR. This was a quite typical Tuesday puzzle. I had no problems today.
I got the theme early on and that helped a lot with the solve. My only mystery was giggle water. Fortunately I'm not old enough to ever remember that, not that any of us are.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Nice way to start the month with laughter aplenty. I got the theme answers pretty quickly even though I was unfamiliar with GIGGLE WATER and CACKLE BERRY.
I waited for perps before deciding on HOORAH instead of HOORAy.
When I got down to the SE I skidded to halt when I encountered 4 names I didn’t know: 57 D ELLA, 61 D KEL, 62 D DEB and 68 Á LOEB. WAGS and perps rescued me however for á FIR.
OMG kin WHOA? I don’t get it.
Happy Canada day, CanadianEh. I was visiting the Maritime provinces for CANADA DAY 150.
Thank you Hahtoolah for the nice review and Robin for explaining your theme answers.
Me either. My poor dogs wind up shaking with terror this time of year.
I'm with Monkey on the unknowns today, but still FIR, and most of it felt like Monday.
WHOA is a exclamation of amazement, much like OMG, except that for most people, OMG is used in texting. In person, few folks use the initialism. I notice younger folks writing WOAH in text and emails. Sad.
Hahtoolah, no hands up yet for BILLIONAIRE! I guess they have aides to do the puzzle for them.
Many thanks to Robin for the puzzle and for dropping by the corner. Thanks to Hahtoolah for the fine review and funnies.
Happy July the oneth to everyone! 2025 is 1/2 over. Already? Oy. I saw the theme early, with GIGGLEWATER, but that one needed several perps as I had never heard that term. 15 names, DNK 6, so I was happy to FIR in 12. Count me in with the HOORAY/HOORAH crowd. Only W/O = COERCE:COMPEL. Thanx RS for the entertainment, and for stopping by to comment. Thanx too to Hahtoolah for the terrific write-up and appropriate cartoons. You beat me to it with your "BILLIONAIRE" comment. You are correct, it is the new definition of "rich", no longer is a "MILLIONAIRE" really rich. Comfortable, yes, perhaps, but rich? Nope. Anyone heard from Picard lately?
Darn autocorrect. I took the trouble to type billionAIRE on my phone!
Picard is alive, well, and often reading along in our Corner.
I will never BEcome inured to BENUMB BEing a word.
Was this puzzle a CSO to out Tuesday blogger, HAH-toolah?
Out>our
Hola! I can say with certainty that I've never heard of GIGGLE WATER or CACKLE BERRY, but they are fun words. Thank you, Robin Stears, for the chuckles. Me too, on HOORAY/HURRAH.
My dream of someday seeing the TAJ MAJAL will remain unfulfilled.
CSO to my parish church, ST TERESA.
All in all, good fun today. Have a lovely day, everyone!
I suspect the word 3some (I deliberately "encoded" it here to prevent this comment from being deleted) caused your posting to be deleted.
I liked this puzzle even though I didn't know several of the names.
A fresh and fun puzzle and a nice introduction to July. No white-out needed. Thanks Robin.
Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦 to our northern neighbors and friends.
Delightful Tuesday puzzle, many thanks, Robin. And thanks, as always, for your helpful commentary, Hahloolah.
Well, HOORAH took me right to the LAUGH TRACKS in this puzzle, which continued all the way to that CHUCKLE at the end. So we had PARROTS as TRAINEES, but thankfully they didn't ROAR AT us, and neither did the other critters, the HARES or the ELAND, who were all pretty quiet. So we had a pretty delightful morning AURA on our ACREAGE, and lets hope we get a pleasant afternoon one too.
Have a good one, everybody.
Forgot to wish you a wonderful Canada day, CanadianEh! Hope you have a sunny and delightful one with friends and family!
Thanks, Jayce, you’re probably correct. I thought I posted this earlier, but either I’m not paying attention, or I offended Blogger again. I did use the word ri di cu lous. 😉
Happy Canada Day! to CanadianEh! and the all the other Canadians!
Just came in to sit for a spell. It is hot out there!
Jayce, I didn't see any trigger word in anything Iris Miss wrote. It was her first comment yesterday that was filtered to spam. Where did you see the word threesome?
Irish Miss, in the past week to ten days, I have also had to approve comments from both Misty and inanehiker. Both of their comments were from earlier in June, and of course neither had any trigger words in their comments.
Since Blogger started acting up, I've made it a point to check the spam filter each morning.
This happened Saturday in Summit County (Akron area) Ohio. The Fire Chief's closing comment is so true. "One second of carelessness is a lifetime of consequences,” said Fire Chief Brett Reinbolt.
https://fox8.com/news/local-man-seriously-injured-after-homemade-fireworks-exploded-inside-mobile-home/
I didn't provide a hotlink on purpose.
Guys, stop it. Not the venue.
TTP, that word appeared in Irish Miss's post of June 30, 2025 at 9:56 AM.
Jayce, thanks. I didn't't see the 9:56 comment. The one from Irish Miss that was in the spam filter that I approved was at 10:15 on June 30. It could be that CC approved the one at 9:56.
Do me a favor and submit a comment that uses threesome. If I use that word, it won't get filtered. It may get filtered if someone that is not an admin or blog author uses it.
Just write some comment like, "We played golf as a threesome, because our 4th decided not to play"
Would you have deleted the original post as quickly had I not offered a counter? If so, I'll ignore such posts and wait for you to do your thing.
I saw them at the same time. I'm not here 24x7.
Jayce went silent. Do me a favor and use threesome in a sentence without referring to anything sexual. I want to see if it gets filtered, and if I need to add it to y list of trigger words.
Thanks in advance
Sorry, been away caring for my sick wife.
Yep, "3some" seems to have been the trigger word.
Thanks, Jayce. Take care of your wife.
So I don't think it's the word threesome.
I don't recall the specifics or the dates, but Misty's comment was one sentence thanking someone, or apologizing for not wishing someone a happy birthday, and inanehiker's comment was just as innocuous. Neither of those comments should have been filtered either.
I believe it's something Blogger code is doing, but I'm not sure why.
Post a Comment