Monday, March 19, 2018

Monday, March 19, 2018, Andrea Carla Michaels and Michael Wiesenberg

0:08:42 (paper)

A colorful RAINBOW theme today with all seven ROY G. BIV colors represented. I suppose it would have been impossible to put them all in the proper order... but still, I love it! All the theme answers are decent, except maybe VIOLETRAY (35D: *Antique medical device used for electrotherapy), which seems a little too obscure. I suppose some would argue that GREENARROW (60A: *DC Comics superhero with the sidekick Speedy), but since I have actually watched several episodes of the recent GREENARROW TV show, and therefore got the answer off the clue, I can't really comment on that. Also, I can't really recommend the show, either. It started off all right, but boy, it got pretty bad after a season or two.


The clue for DILL (34D: It's in a pickle) is odd, isn't it? I mean, I guess it's right, because the essence of dill somehow gets into a pickle, but is it really in there? Or has the pickle just been transformed somehow by the dill? OK, probably not worth thinking too much about...

How strange that DUMA (40A: Russian legislature) and ITI (43D: "Lord, is it ____?": Matthew 26:22) are in again today after showing up with essentially the same clues just yesterday!

The theme is really thick today - what is that, 72 squares of theme? - and I think the rest of the fill suffered a bit because of it. AROAR and ASEA always seem a little BLAND, and LIII, ACS, and EEG are crutches. Still, there's some fun with ZAPPED, OUZO, and MONORAIL. I love the theme, and I guess that's enough today.

- Horace

3 comments:

  1. 5:50
    Everyone loves a RAINBOW, and a MONORAIL (and MALTS, for that matter). That's from an earlier "Simpsons" season, isn't it? I seem to remember watching that on the TV. VIOLETRAY is completely unknown to me, and definitely the weakest of the themers. Nice to see Goldie HAWN in the grid; I don't remember her in one before. Loved the ZING/ZAPPED cross.

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  2. 4:37
    So much theme made some of the fill not great. I almost made an error with PAPPa, but corrected with PONY. Anyway, it was fine.

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  3. 8:09 (typical for Monday).

    MONORAIL might be my favorite. For aoso reason, just really striking me as something both futuristic and old-fashioned.

    But lots of other fun answers too, like all those colors or a fun clue for MATE.

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