Heavy-metal singer Snider / THU 10-13-11 / Viking king 995-1000 / Ancient Anatolian land / Jaipur royal / Flanged fastener / Title town 1945 Pulitzer winner

Constructor: John Farmer

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: B MOVIES (45D: Appropriate title for this puzzle?) — movie titles have "B" added to beginning of one word, creating wacky titles, clued "?"-style

Word of the Day: SATINET (46D: Imitation fabric) —

n.
A thin inferior satin or an imitation satin, especially one containing cotton. (answers.com)

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/satinet#ixzz1acnfgoX9

• • •

This is just a fat (16 wide) Wednesday puzzle. Far too easy and unambitious for Thursday fare. Nontheme fill, with the exception of the creepy-sounding CATACOMB (3D: Passage of grave importance?), is painfully familiar to the point of boring. Never heard of SATINET (46D: Imitation fabric), so that gave me a little bit of trouble, and the tricksy clue on NRA (65D: Heat org.?) slowed me down a little more (I wanted NBA, for obvious reasons), but otherwise this one had no teeth, and very little in the way of interest (outside of the mildly clever theme answers).


Theme answers:

• 18A: Film about how to win a MacArthur Fellowship? ("DO THE BRIGHT THING")
• 25A: Film about a biblical serpent? ("BEAST OF EDEN")
• 38A: Film about Ali/Foreman's Rumble in the Jungle? ("BOUT OF AFRICA")
• 55A: Film in which Moe, Shemp and Curly show their flexibility? ("HOWARDS' BEND")
• 62A: Film about earworms? ("SINGIN' IN THE BRAIN")

OLAFs are never very welcome, because of the V/F issue and because who the hell can tell their OLAF/Vs apart anyway. A most unwelcome royal. Speaking of unwelcome royals: RANEE (69A: Jaipur royal) and REY. All legit answers, but all stuff we've seen a gajillion times (which, again, makes this Not a very exciting Thursday puzzle). Lots of hoary to be found everywhere you look—fill like IONIA (Ancient Anatolian land) and OLAF I and ADANO (59A: Title town in a 1945 Pulitzer winner) and T-NUT (31D: Flanged fastener). Despite the fact that DEE is not the most scintillating fill, I appreciate the clue (5D: Heavy-metal singer Snider). So much better than a letter-of-the-alphabet clue. I also like the clue on FLAB (though I'm sure I've seen in before) (40D: Undesirable roll), and the clue on YANG (which I don't think I've ever seen) (50D: Jerry who co-founded Yahoo!). 'ROIDS is also reasonably fresh (56D: Sports no-nos, informally), though I think that's also slang for hemorrhoids, so the freshness is offset somewhat by the unintentional unpleasantness.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

Lead singer of Pearl Jam / TUE 5-17-11 / Greatest Show on Earth Star co-star 1952 / Online users self-image / Incendiary fuel Apocalypse Now

Constructor: John Farmer

Relative difficulty: Medium-Challenging

THEME: Double double — celebrities (of a sort) who have the same double-letter pair in both their first and last names


Word of the Day: BETTY HUTTON (57A: "The Greatest Show on Earth" co-star, 1952) —

Betty Hutton (February 26, 1921 – March 12, 2007) was an American stage, film, and television actress, comedienne and singer. [...] Hutton made 19 films from 1942 to 1952 including the hugely popular The Perils of Pauline in 1947. She was billed above Fred Astaire in the 1950 musical Let's Dance. Hutton's greatest screen triumph came in Annie Get Your Gun (1950) for MGM, which hired her to replace an exhausted Judy Garland in the role of Annie Oakley. The film, with the leading role retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest critical praise going to Hutton. (Her obituary in The New York Times described her as "a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm.") Among her lesser known roles was an unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Dean's girlfriend, Hetty Button. Eventually, like Judy Garland, Hutton earned a reputation for being extremely difficult. [...] Her career as a Hollywood star ended due to a contract dispute with Paramount following the Oscar-winning The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Somebody Loves Me (1952), a biography of singer Blossom Seeley. The New York Times reported that the dispute resulted from her insistence that her husband at the time, Charles O'Curran, direct her next film. When the studio declined, Hutton broke her contract. Hutton's last completed film was a small one, Spring Reunion, released in 1957, a drama in which she gave an understated, sensitive performance. Unfortunately, box office receipts indicated the public didn't want to see a subdued Hutton. (wikipedia)

• • •

Had to write to a couple of friends last night to make sure I wasn't missing anything with this theme, which seems awfully flimsy. Double-double letters in the names of random entertainment figures. Maybe the "entertainment" part was supposed to make the theme cohere more, but the assortment is so ragged that it has the opposite effect, for me. This will surely take the average person longer than usual (for a Tuesday) due to the preponderance of names, at least one of which many solvers will not know. I'm guessing that the "I know EDDIE VEDDER" / "I know BETTY HUTTON" Venn diagram shows fairly slim overlap. I've never heard of Ms. HUTTON, who was famous a good thirty years before any of these (still-living) folks were. She's the thematic ODDBALL, is what I'm saying (25D: Kook). The rest of the puzzle was interesting, with a few nice moments (KEISTER, NAMEDROP) (41D: Tush / 3D: Imply ties with V.I.P.'s), an icky moment or two ("I LIKE YOU," FUISSE), and a fascinating-sounding autobiography title that I've never heard of before ("I, FIDO").


Theme answers:

• 17A: ABC late-night host (JIMMY KIMMEL)
  
• 29A: Lead singer of Pearl Jam (EDDIE VEDDER)
  
• 44A: "Walking on Broken Glass" singer (ANNIE LENNOX)
  
• 57A: "The Greatest Show on Earth" co-star, 1952 (BETTY HUTTON)
  

HUTTON-wise, I know Lauren and Timothy. That is all. Had trouble right off the bat, as I can't keep those damn -NETA guys straight, and I can't even picture Norman MINETA (1A: Norman of the Clinton and Bush cabinets). FUISSE is too foreign and too long for what is essentially a partial (66A: Pouilly-___ (wine)). I know it only because of another crossword, which I disliked much more than this one. "I LIKE YOU" is very odd as clued (2D: A few words between friends). My wife: "Maybe if you're three." Wife also could not deal with the idea of QUINCE in a marmalade (12D: Marmalade fruit). She'd never encountered a marmalade that wasn't made of citrus. Neither had I, but I'm not so refined (or British Empire-esque) food-wise. Wife would also like you to know that there is another clue for BREE (62A: One of the housewives on "Desperate Housewives") — it's the name of the horse in C.S. Lewis's "A Horse and His Boy."

Bullets:

• 27A: Western U.S. gasoline giant (ARCO) — I was surprised to see ARCO stations everywhere in CA, since I thought they were defunct. Maybe because I read this as I was trying to write a clue for ARCO recently: "On April 18, 2000, ARCO was purchased by BP America and was completely merged into BP operations; ARCO as a subsidiary no longer exists" (wikipedia). Most interesting ARCO fact, clue-wise, is that the ARCO Arena, where the Sacramento Kings play, was renamed the Power Balance Pavilion in March of this year. Good luck getting That in a puzzle).
  
• 44D: Online user's self-image (AVATAR) — like "My Cousin Vinny," this is a movie people looooove that I have no interest in seeing.
  
• 45D: Incendiary fuel in "Apocalypse Now" (NAPALM) — ... in the morning

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]