Saturday Themeless by Kelly Morenus
Kelly provided a lot of nice treats and very few tricks with this fun puzzle.
1. Prince William, to Eddie Redmayne, at 51-Down 51. College founded in 1440: ETON.: SCHOOL MATE - The arrows point out Eddie and William, who is the very image of his mother.
11. Ask: POSE.
15. "This is news to me!": I HAD NO IDEA.
16. Quechua-speaking highlander: INCA.
17. Feeling that all roads lead to roam?: WANDERLUST.
18. Some Ivy Leaguers: ELIS.
19. Combine: ADD.
20. Some are plant-based: DIETS - Neither we nor our kitty Lily will ever be vegans
21. Winnow: SIFT - Letting a breeze help winnow the wheat from the chaff
22. Skye of "La Brea": IONE - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think you can pick out Ms. Skye below
24. Prince of Moscow from 1325 to 1340: IVAN I.
26. "And there it is!": BOB'S YOUR UNCLE.
31. Helps out with a job: ABETS.
32. "Waiting for Godot" role: ESTRAGON - As I mentioned last week, Godot is a no show
35. "You don't say!": GOSH.
36. San Juan's __ de la Princesa: PASEO - A PASEO is a tree-lined public walkway
36. San Juan's __ de la Princesa: PASEO - A PASEO is a tree-lined public walkway
38. Took home: MADE - I took home less than $400/month in my first year of teaching
39. Reserved: SET APART - My son-in-law's architecture firm got four $2,300 reserved seats from a construction firm for a Husker VB earlier this month and took the entire family. The tix came with great parking and a prime rib buffet.
41. Many a "Hacks" guest star: COMIC - Here's a list. I don't know a lot of them.
42. Fixes a situation: STACKS THE DECK.
45. Needle: TEASE.
46. Strong: HALE.
47. Farm youngster: CALF.
48. Peter __ Steak House: LUGER - Here's the menu
51. Federal org. with a flower logo: EPA.
54. Dance in "Lilo & Stitch": HULA.
55. Topic for discussion: AGENDA ITEM.
58. Cartel headquartered in Vienna: OPEC.
59. List of attractions: PLACES TO GO.
60. Forward: PERT.
61. Fatal attractions?: SIREN SONGS - Sail on Odysseus!
Down:
1. "Boomerang" singer JoJo: SIWA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2. African lake in four countries: CHAD.
3. Assistance: HAND.
4. Suspicious: ODD - Don't we all know this Sesame Street Song: "Three of these belong together, three of these things are kind of the same..."
5. Number of former public defenders who have served on the Supreme Court: ONE.
6. "Perish the thought!": LORD NO!
7. Environs: MILIEU - Not a word you might use in every environ
8. Together, musically: A DUE.
9. Try out: TEST.
10. Starts to consume: EATS INTO.
11. Dishes that can be both hot and cold: PIES ALA MODE 😀
12. Minecraft, e.g.: ONLINE GAME - The ORE elements of this game are regularly used here.
13. "Dune" realm: SCI FI.
14. From Armenia to Azerbaijan: EAST.
22. "Oh, yeah?": IS THAT A FACT.
23. Kvetching cries: OYS.
25. Home entertainment staple, once: VCR.
26. Secures: BAGS - Hunters around here try to BAG a deer in season
27. Prominent instrument in "Swan Lake": OBOE - Here it is (1:01)
28. Novelist's goal: BEST SELLER.
29. Sits for a spell: RESTS.
30. Mistreat, maybe: USE.
33. Like much of Pindar's work: ODIC - I wonder if they were BEST SELLERS
34. Ukulele part: NECK.
36. Warmup stretches: PACE LAPS - The PACE CAR at the Indy 500 race a few years ago
37. Synagogue fixture: ARK.
40. Some med. professionals: PAS - My doctor and her PA are both former students
41. Film frame: CEL - The practice of making hand painted CELS ended in the late 1990's
43. From that point on: THENCE - As used by Emily Dickinson
44. Firm up: HARDEN.
45. Neutral tone: TAUPE.
47. Lamb cut: CHOP - Remember?
49. Citrus hybrid: UGLI.
50. Neutral, for one: GEAR.
52. Simon of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise: PEGG.
52. Simon of the "Mission: Impossible" franchise: PEGG.
53. "The West Wing" actor John: AMOS.
56. Donkey: ASS.
57. Manga artist Junji: ITO ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm off to get out the bags of candy for tonight's 250+ trick or treaters who I don't think will look much like ITO's images!
Well, in spite of what
ReplyDeleteI said earlier about maybe “skipping”
Saturday crosswords, I couldn’t resist trying this - and guess what? I got it!
So what’s this “Bob’s your uncle” business ?
Anyway, FIR, so I’m happy.
I know, I know. H. Gary explained it. But it still seems mighty obscure to me!
ReplyDeleteGood morning!
ReplyDeleteI was chugging right along until I stopped cold in the SE. Finally AGENDA ITEM occurred to me and broke the logjam. Whew. Thanx, Kelly and Husker. (We'll keep the lights off tonight. There are very few Trick-or-Treaters around here. The houses are too far apart. It's not efficient.)
Had to walk away and come back to finish. Favorite answer: PIES ALA MODE.
ReplyDeleteThis was a fun Saturday puzzle.
FIR. Not too difficult for a Saturday presentation. All the cluing seemed fair and the perps were there to assist.
ReplyDelete"Bob's your uncle" is an English phrase that I know from enjoying British comedy, and having once been married to an English woman in another life.
Overall an enjoyable puzzle.
Just an FYI Heads Up, I haven't done the puzzle yet, but wanted to post this before I forgot...
ReplyDeleteI often read the IMDB listings of Actors, many of which are impressive.
With the help of A.I., here is an even more impressive listing (although very incomplete)
R.I.P. Patrick Stewart
Missed it by one box. I never sat through "Waiting for Godot" and I've never heard the word "odic". So I had "estragen " and "edic". I actually guessed "i had no idea" and "wanderlust" with no cross words.
ReplyDeleteI FIR, but the SE needed some looking up since there were three names I didn’t know like ITO, PEGG, and AMOS. Other unknown names were SIWA, LUGER, IONE. Too many.
ReplyDeleteFor some reason I knew BOB’S YOU UNCLE. I liked the SIREN SONGS clue.
Thank you HG. Nice review with good info.
DNF, filling in 54, 50 correctly. Everything south of the 50 yard line was correct except for PEdG x PLACES TO dO. Should have known better - it's "people to do, PLACES TO GO. Up north I missed Help and IONa, and left a lot empty.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like "neutral, for one" for GEAR. "Neutral" is "out of gear." Good fill, bad clue. "Bulldog, for one" would have been a good Saturday clue.
You know it's Saturday when ITO is clued as something that doesn't contain Midori, OJ or Lance.
Thanks to Kelly for the challenge, and to H.Gary for another fine explanation. My best freebie sports outing was as a trailing spouse in Dallas. Top executives weren't much interested in preseason NFL games, so my wife and other lower-level execs entertained their customer's peers and spouses in the company's luxury suite at Cowboys games. Great parking, private elevator, indoor and outdoor seating, open bar and gourmet finger food were great, but the best thing was the suite's own bathroom.
I've been a guest in a few luxury suites at Dolphins and Panthers games, and can concur that a private bathroom was worth the price of admission!
DeleteGood Morning:
ReplyDeleteAlthough this was a tad too easy for a Saturday, some of the fill was so fresh and lively, the solve was fun and rewarding. I particularly liked Bob’s Your Uncle, Is That A Fact, Places To Go, and I Had No Idea. Words such as Wanderlust, Siren Songs, Milieu, Thence, etc., added some whimsy, as well. Estragon, Paseo, Ivan I, needed the helpful and generous perps. Overall, a pleasant and satisfying Saturday solve with lots of treats and no tricks.
Thanks, Kelly, and thanks, HG, for the analysis and the personal asides. Good luck with the onslaught of ghosts and goblins tonight.
I forgot to humor Mr. G so this Anonymous is Irish Miss. Have a great all and Happy Halloween! 👻💀🎃☠️
Overall a quicker solve than many Saturdays - but it had a lot of variation so fast/slow/fast/slow. Very Saturday cluing for LUGER- never heard of that steakhouse- but the times I've gone to New York I'm usually watching Broadway shows, and as a rule, given my location in beef country, I don't get steak or BBQ when I'm traveling.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the San Juan street - but PASEO is a major street in Kansas City where I grew up and my dad graduated from PASEO High School so once it had a PA from crosses I took it from there
Thanks HG for the interesting blog and Kelly for the puzzle!
Great day! Darn pest autocorrect!
ReplyDeleteHard to believe but I managed to FIR on a Sat puzzle. The NW fell fast, with the unknown SIWA easily filled via perps. The center is what really took some guessing and luck. I've never heard BOBS YOUR UNCLE, guessed PASEO and IVAN-I, and no nothing about Waiting for Godot", other than its name. ESTRAGON was 100% perps.
ReplyDelete"Hacks' was unknown but after two perps, COMIC was easy to fill.
Finishing in the SE?; the four stacked proper names should not be allowed. ITO, ETON, PEGG, & AMOS- I knew ETON with the others filled by perps.
The final guess was for either PACE TAPS or LAPS to complete the unknown LUGER steak house. It was between physical exercises or auto races. The race won and so did I today.
Took 9:55 today to get the bag full of candy.
ReplyDeleteI knew the Actress of the Day (Ione), but not her show. I didn't know: odic, Estragon, Ito, paseo, Ivan I, Luger, and adue. I agree that the intersection of "odic" and "Estragon" should've been avoided.
I guess I heard "Bob's your uncle" at some point. I luckily guessed "wanderlust" off the clue. "Siren songs" was a good clue.
I once hired a calculus teacher from Scotland, who frequently used the "Bob's your uncle" phrase. Including in class. He would fill the blackboard with a proof, ending it with a triumphant "Ta ta; Bob's your uncle!"
ReplyDeleteThe kids would come complaining to me; not only did they have a difficult time with Willy's Scottish accent, but he kept bringing up out of the blue someone named Bob who he indicated was their uncle.
Willy ended up being voted Teacher of the Year many times over. Word would be passed from his students to the next years' batch that their beloved math--or maths, as he put it--instructor was the best ever. And to just deal with the Scottish brogue--with the attendant peculiar expressions.
“Crickets”during the first “across” run through, quite discouraging plus waaaay too many proper names. Was about to pack it in. But with a few more tries got an anchor in the SW. Then while “roaming” my brain suddenly came up with WANDERLUST in the NW and eventually shocked myself with a FIR. Too many inkovers to list.
ReplyDeleteAlthough BOBS not MY UNCLE I seem to recall this phrase as a CW clue or answer a while ago.
Never heard of Peter LUGER 🔫: Will he shoot you if you complain about the steak? 😄. The hunter SECURES a deer? Only ONE “public defender” on the SCOTUS?
Any way. Have a happy All Hallows Eve 🎃
I found Kelly's offering to be a bit challenging. I never made sense of BOB'S YOUR UNCLE until I got here.
ReplyDeleteI haven't watched Hacks, so I assumed a guest star would be a CELEB or a CAMEO.
Thanks, Gary, for filling in all the blanks. When I was a kid in Upstate NY, our door never closed as a sea of Trick-or-Treaters flowed by. Now, in my present neighborhood, it's trickled down to a handful. Happy Halloween everyone!
Hola! Shockingly I finished a Saturday puzzle in a short time! Thank you very much, Kelly Morenus! My one big change was CLASS MATES to SCHOOL MATES. Then I just sashayed my way through the grid. I've heard BOB'S YOUR UNCLE only on TV.
ReplyDeleteit's been many, many years since I read "Waiting for Godot" in lit class but ESTRAGON perped. The unknown names PEGG and SIWA, which I got from ALEXA, filled nicely and though I know who John AMOS is, I don't recall him from The West Wing, but that was a long time ago, too. BTW, I heard a rumor that it might be coming back.
R.I.P. Patrick Stewart, from me, too. He will be missed.
Happy Halloween, everyone! No trick or treaters in our community tonight.
11:42. Fun puzzle all the way around but a bit too easy. Some of the long answers were fabulous.
ReplyDeleteTypical Saturday for me. Got a bit in the SW, but after that not much was happening and I threw in the towel.
ReplyDeleteToo hard for me. I gave up.
ReplyDeletePretty impressive grid layout with the two triple stacks of 10’, adjacent verts of 10’s and 11’s, with the two across 13’s. For all the unknowns, SIWA, LUGER, PEGG, AMOS, BOBS YOUR UNCLE, and ESTRAGON to name a few, I was able to FIR w/out help in a little over 20 minutes. I thought ‘Godot’ was referring to ‘Gal’ (wrong spelling), and I was hoping for a pic of her in the blog. IVANI made no sense till Gary parsed it correctly in the review 🤦♂️. Thanks Kelly for the fun solve, and to HG for the follow up.
ReplyDeleteWell it wasn’t easy for me!! Bobs your uncle, My Butt!! I had ‘set aside’ for too long instead of set apart. Never saw waiting for Godot, so no clue there. The SE actually got done first and schoolmate wasn’t too tough. And never having been to NY, Luger steak house was no clue! Going back to perps for Uncle Bob, both bosh and posh could fit for you don’t say and nabs and bags for secures. So I’m in the minority (and oys is also spelled ois (as Ted lasso points out frequently albeit not Yiddish).
ReplyDeleteOnly ONE public defender ever on the Supreme Court indeed is significant. Glad you noticed that Ray-O. Do others understand the significance? I am sure it was included in the puzzle for a reason.
ReplyDeleteI have eaten at Peter Lugers, absolutely amazing! (The sauce is top notch too!) they say the secret is leaving the meat out for two weeks... turns out, it is more like a month!
ReplyDeleteOh, and if you ever had an uncle named Bob, you would remember...
FWH via the usual m.o. when I’m confronted with a pile of obscure names (look up the unknown and continue…). Once a foothold got established in the SW, it was a bottom-up build to the finish. The “theme” of the long fills became clear once some perps were in place, so those then came fairly easily. Having hung out at the track with a lot of Brits, BOBSYOURUNCLE was a slam-dunk, as was PACELAPS. But, as @Jinx pointed out, neutral is not a gear (I initially had “wire”…). And yeah, that 3-column names bit that @Big Easy griped about irked me too; should be a CW no-no. GOSH for “Y’don’t say!”, meh. Other’n those isolated items, Ms. Kelly’s puzzle was, while quite crunchy, still a fun solve. My final fix was up in the 20A area; I had MEATS for the “plant-based” deal, but when LORmNO appeared, the ol’ V-8 can hit, and viola 🤣
ReplyDeleteI think the phrase is “Places to go, things to do”…or is it “People to see, things to do”?
Thanks for the cheap entertainment, Husker Gary — geeez that’s one ancient pace car you found in the Indy 500 archives! These days, it’s a new Corvette (they need a fast pace car to lead those racers 😎). And that Betamax ad was quite the blast from the past; I ended up with one of the original RCA VT100 VCR’s…and I still have the bloody thing! I keep thinking I oughta plug it in and see if it still runs.
Good luck tonight with your 250+ Halloween guests, Gary! We get Ø in our ‘hood…
====> Darren / L.A.
Saturday puzzles always make me work harder, and this one had a nice seasonal bite to it. I appreciated that the theme held together without forcing any awkward fill.
ReplyDeletehttps://gosolvedaily.com
Ojai Guy. Wasn't in love with this CW but it's a Saturday. My eraser got a workout but the pencil finally prevailed.
ReplyDelete