WEDNESDAY PUZZLE — It might be hard for younger generations to believe, but there was a time when television and radio programs did not just plunge headlong into the show. You would have to sit through the peppy announcer, a message from the show’s sponsor and an appearance by the host. Each sketch had a beginning, a middle and a punchline. It was all very formulaic.
That formula started to fade from existence in the late 1960s to the early 1970s — think “Monty Python’s Flying Circus,” where sketches could zig and zag around one another and characters could enter one another’s worlds. Or “Laugh-In,” which had more of a burlesque show format. One night in October 1975, I surreptitiously turned on the television in my house — my parents had long gone to bed — to stay up and watch a new show, then called “NBC’s Saturday Night.” I had heard that it was a new kind of show, aimed at young people, and it was going to turn comedy on its head.
Thank you to Joe Deeney and the puzzle editors for bringing back memories of the moment I learned more about storytelling than I did in any school course I ever took. More on this in the Theme section.
Tricky Clues
24A. “Joe and Jack, say” is asking you what you can make out of “joe” (coffee) and “Jack” (Jack Daniels whiskey). That “Joe” is a veiled capital and the answer is IRISH COFFEE.
42A. Foreign language clue! “Asti Spumante, per esempio” is Italian. It means “Asti Spumante, for example” and we need to answer in the same language, so the answer is VINO.
46A. If this “Senate rebuke” sounds odd to you, you’re not thinking back far enough. In William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar rebuked the senators who killed him, especially his protégé Brutus, by saying “ET TU?” In reality, there is no record of him saying that.
32D. Wow, a nice, fresh clue for a ubiquitous puzzle word. To ERR is, indeed, human.
36D. Watch that wordplay. “Apple pickers?” are not people who harvest fruit in this puzzle. They are people who have picked — or chosen — to use Macs (MAC USERS).
Today’s Theme
Tl;dr (Spoiler!)
The initials I C at the beginning of the two-word theme entries describe the word “icy.” Because they are at the beginning, it is a COLD OPEN.
Mr. Deeney’s theme is about the COLD OPEN for which “Saturday Night Live” is famous.
No opening titles, no announcements. Just the camera focused on the characters, who might already be in action. The studio audience is already laughing, as if they are in on a joke we have yet to learn. (For those who wondered about that, the reason people are laughing at the open is because, as the director is counting down from five, the floor manager shrieks in fake nervousness, causing the audience to crack up.) You can watch the first ever COLD OPEN of the show, featuring John Belushi and the show writer Michael O’Donoghue, here.
Wait, how did we get to COLD OPEN from IOWA CITY? Or from the IRON CURTAIN? Remember, the revealer clue wants us to look at the initials of the words in the theme entries, and those are “I” and “C.”
I … C …
Icy! That’s a good description of cold, and the initials are the opening of each word. COLD OPEN.
Kudos to Mr. Deeney for debuting INFORMED CONSENT, as well as the phrase EXTRA PAY, which we could all use right now. There is a lot of very nice fill in this puzzle.
Constructor Notes
This is the first of my puzzles to run in The New York Times since the birth of my daughter. My last New York Times puzzle ran on April 3, which was also her due date, but she stubbornly waited an extra week and didn’t join us until April 10.
I did the great April 10 Times puzzle by Byron Walden in the hospital in the wee hours of that morning while awaiting her arrival. I had quite a laugh when 18-Across [Shot in the back] turned out to be EPIDURAL. Funny how crosswords mirror real life.
I’m pretty happy with this grid, especially the 6x6 corners in the NE and SW. In hindsight, I probably created a puzzle with a Monday/Tuesday theme and Thursday/Friday fill, but I’d like to think there is room for puzzles like that occasionally. GRAYLY is a bit of a clunker, but I think most of the rest of the long fill is fun.
I can’t take credit for great clue at 36-Down (an improvement over what I submitted, “Non-PC types”).
The Tipping Point
Almost finished solving but need a bit more help? We’ve got you covered.
Warning: There be spoilers ahead, but subscribers can take a peek at the answer key.
Trying to get back to the puzzle page? Right here.
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