Title: So CUTE, I can BEARLY stand it!
Alan's fun gimmick is to take the names of four of the BEARS shown above and not only use them as the first word in 4 starred fills (two great vertical spanners!) but have them go DOWN the grid to complement the reveal in 55 Across - BEARS DOWN. Therefore we not only have the names of four BEARS but they are literally going DOWN. Wonderful!
Theme Reveal:
55. Focuses even harder ... and a hint to the starts of the answers to starred clues : BEARS DOWN
Theme Answers - All our ursine crossword visitors are pictured above
3. *Rhode Island school : BROWN (BEAR) UNIVERSITY
5. *Like Southern California beaches : SUN (BEAR) DRENCHED
24. *One of two cold atmospheric cyclones : POLAR (BEAR) VORTEX
11. *Title female "trying to make a devil out of me," in a Santana hit : BLACK (BEAR) MAGIC WOMAN
Across
1. "Mamma Mia!" group : ABBA - Fun music!!
5. Tunes : SONGS
10. Fundamentals : ABC'S
14. Talking iPhone feature : SIRI - "Quick, SIRI, should I hit 15 or stand?"
15. Destroyer destroyer : U-BOAT - The Imitation Game told of breaking the Enigma Code so the Allies could destroy their destroyer's destroyers
17. __ smasher : ATOM - What the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is
19. Hindu deity : RAMA - also known as Raghava, is the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, but you knew that
20. High-speed war plane maneuver : POWER DIVE
22. Hunter's device : DECOY - Some DECOYS placed near Dover made the Germans think D-Day would happen at Calais not Normandy
24. Cheat, in a way : PEEK
25. Seasonal malady : FLU
27. Find work : GET A JOB - Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip, Mum mum mum mum mum mum, GET A JOB, but you knew that
30. Shakespearean fairy queen : MAB
33. Large-leafed tree : LINDEN
35. Batman portrayer Kilmer : VAL - Everybody gets a turn
36. Skating commentator Lipinski : TARA
37. Passionate : AVID
38. Dishes for company : CHINA
40. Eagerly excited : AGOG
41. Golfer Ballesteros : SEVE - The late SEVE had every shot!
43. Ruling period : REGIME
45. Charlemagne's realm: Abbr. : HRE - According to Voltaire - Neither Holy, Roman nor an Empire
46. Avant-garde : NEW WAVE
48. Low or no follower : CAL
49. Insert for a 6-Down : REED - Double REED actually
51. Shoot well under par, in golf lingo : GO LOW - Who better to tell you how than the #1 golfer in the world Jordan Spieth?
53. Syria's Bashar al-__ : ASSAD - Many groups are waging war in his country
59. Letters after phis : CHIS
60. "The Planets" composer : HOLST - A Philistine like me (I?) needed the H in HEF to finish this
61. Texter's "If you ask me" : IMHO
62. Adorable : CUTE
63. Wipe off : ERASE
64. Dismissed, with "off" : LAID - Schools call it RIF - Reduction In Force. "Losing your job by any other name..."
65. "Until next time," in texts : TTYL - Didn't all of us know it's "Talk To You Later"? OMG, LOL!
66. Oscar's roommate : FELIX
67. Tolkien's Treebeard et al. : ENTS
Down
1. PDQ : ASAP
2. __-Honey : BIT-O - My teeth hurt just typing this
4. Pop singer Mann : AIMEE - Bassist and vocalist for 'Til Tuesday, but you knew that
6. Duck player in "Peter and the Wolf" : OBOIST - Didn't we all learn this in grade school?
8. Risk, e.g. : GAME
9. Canonized Mlle. : STE
10. Feel the same way : AGREE
12. "¿__ está?" : COMO - Adding "usted" is very formal
13. Fix, as a pet : SPAY - We paid the Lincoln Humane Society $133 for Lily which included SPAYING. What a bargain!!
21. Blow one's top : RAGE
22. Cotillion honoree : DEB
26. Iron-rich meat : LIVER - I might opt for anemia!
28. Miller's "__ From the Bridge" : A VIEW - Miller's tragic protagonist informed on people in his Brooklyn neighborhood. Later Miller himself refused to do that in front of the HUAC committee.
29. First calendar pg. : JAN
31. Food court attraction : AROMA - That food court AROMA might be coming from our sometime cwd visitor
32. Something to pick lox for : BAGEL
34. '50s political monogram : DDE
36. Label : TAG
39. "__ so?" : HOW
44. Fish caught in pots : EELS
46. Author Buntline : NED - Dime novelist NED (actually Ezra Zane Carroll Johnson) may or may not have presented Wyatt Earp with one of these Colt Buntline Specials he commissioned
47. Tennis great Andre : AGASSI
50. Studio piece : EASEL
52. "Swan Lake" swan : ODILE - But you knew that
53. Customer holding: Abbr. : ACCT
54. Closed : SHUT
55. Produced, as fruit : BORE
56. Tel Aviv airline : EL AL
57. Smidgen : WHIT
58. Quiet yeses : NODS - Subtle
60. Celeb with a mansion : HEF
Now that you have your BEARINGS, let's hear your assessment.
Husker Gary
