#SPEED OF SOUND NAME CROSSWORD TV#

Actually, MNEMO is just the first five letters of 'mnemonic,' so it felt right. I thought the muse was MNEMO ( 41A: Muse of memory), which is what happens when your brain crosses 'mnemonic' with Mets outfielder Brandon NIMMO. Beyond that little bit of resistance, the grid doesn't put up much of a fight. The only difficulty in this puzzle was coming up with the themers, which are somewhat hard to see when you don't know the gimmick yet, as the grid phrases are nuts and the base phrases can only be grasped after you've filled in the grid phrases. You get one good longer answer, ' I CAN'T EVEN!' and you get Natalie PORTMAN (who I forgot ever won an Oscar, sorry, Natalie, my bad), and then you get, what, HONOREE? CAR LOAN? Somebody named BEA HERO? Oof, BE A HERO, that has some big EAT A SANDWICH energy ( BE A HERO! EAT A SANDWICH! There's your new slogan, delis of the world! It's all yours!). If we could find ATON and SCAD, we'd have a Crosswordese Amounts basketball team! You've got General MEADE and his STENO and of course MNEMENEMEMEMENMO or whatever Her name is, wow, yeah, and then the TEA RAT, yuck, those are the worst, I take my tea without rats, thanks.

And sure enough, the short fill continued in this vein, despite the theme's not being particularly dense or otherwise tricky to pull off. TAD ASAHI OHOHOH REHEM OMANI is *not* promising stuff, especially when that section of the grid isn't even compromised by a theme answer. This was one of those where I knew I was in for a rough ride before I even got out of the tiny NW corner. You especially have to do better than AFTER SOAVE and POD PROGRAM when the rest of your grid is so lumpy and stale. Still, you gotta do better than AFTER SOAVE or POD PROGRAM. I don't know how hard it is to find words that will let you change them into other words by making an 'H' an 'O,' but I'm guessing pretty hard. And I don't mind a throwback theme if you can do something great with it, if you can make your tiny changes yield genuine LOL wackiness. This is a simple letter swap-a theme as old as the hills. The theme itself is so slim that the funniness payoff needs to be big, and it isn't. There are a lot of 'ugh's and frowny faces in the margins of this one. The result is this book, in which Kahn reports on a small college team's successes and hopes, a young New England ball club, a failing major league franchise, and a group of heroes on the national stage. (wikipedia) // In 1976 Roger Kahn spent an entire baseball season, from spring training through the World Series, with players of every stripe and competence. Roger Kahn (Octo– February 6, 2020) was an American author, best known for his 1972 baseball book The Boys of Summer.

Word of the Day: Roger KAHN ( 66A: Roger who wrote 'A Season in the Sun').

#SPEED OF SOUND NAME CROSSWORD TV#

POD PROGRAM (59A: TV show about a group of whales?) (.FIRESIDE COAT (46A: Blazer worn next to a blaze?) (.MARCO MADNESS (29A: Fervor over Senator Rubio?) (.AFTER SOAVE (18A: Seeking a dry Italian wine?) (from 'aftershave').or a phonetic hint to this puzzle's theme) - simple letter swap: 'H' goes 'to' 'O,' wackiness follows: THEME: H2O (69A: Fire fighter, familiarly.

Speed of sound name crossword