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Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

21 Pixar clownfish : NEMO

“Finding Nemo” is a 2003 animated blockbuster from Pixar. The film was the winner of the Oscar that year for Best Animated Feature. Believe it or not, “Finding Nemo” is the best-selling DVD of all time and, until 2010’s “Toy Story 3”, it was the highest-grossing, G-rated movie at the box office.

Clownfish are very colorful, attractive-looking fish. They are orange and often have broad strips of white and black on their bodies depending on species. Clownfish spend their lives in a symbiotic relationship with sea anemones.

22 [Bee home + Venus + heron kin] : HIVE GODDESS EGRET (sounds like “I’ve Got a Secret”)

“I’ve Got a Secret” was a fun panel show that originally aired in the fifties and sixties. “I’ve Got a Secret” was a spin-off of the very successful panel show “What’s My Line?”

25 Crime film genre : NOIR

The expression “film noir” has French origins, but only in that it was coined by a French critic in describing a style of Hollywood film. The term, meaning “black film” in French, was first used by Nino Frank in 1946. Film noir often applies to a movie with a melodramatic plot and a private eye or detective at its center. Good examples would be “The Big Sleep” and “D.O.A”.

26 In the same place, in footnotes : IBIDEM

Ibid. is short for the Latin word “ibidem” and is typically found in footnotes and bibliographies. Ibid. is used to refer the reader to the prior citation, instead of giving the same information all over again (title, author etc.).

29 NFL ball carriers : RBS

< Running back (RB)

30 E Street Band guitarist Lofgren : NILS

The musician Nils Lofgren was a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for over 25 years. Lofgren provided vocals and played guitar, and was hired as the replacement for Steven Van Zandt.

The E Street Band is the backing group for Bruce Springsteen. The band came together in 1972 but didn’t take a formal name until two years later. The keyboard player in the original line up was David Sancious, and his mother allowed the group to rehearse at her home. That home was on E Street in Belmar, New Jersey, and that’s where the band got their name.

31 Actor Davis : OSSIE

Ossie Davis was a very successful actor, but also a director, poet, playwright and social activist. One of Davis’s better known performances was in the 1993 movie “Grumpy Old Men”, in which he played the owner of the bait shop by the lake.

37 City near Düsseldorf : ESSEN

Essen is a large industrial city located on the River Ruhr in western Germany. The city experienced major population growth in the mid-1800s that was driven by the iron works established by the Krupp family.

Düsseldorf lies in the west of Germany, fairly close to the border with France. The city is located on the River Rhine.

39 [“Star Trek” villain + mailed + light beam + take pains to avoid] : KHAN SENT RAY SHUN (sounds like “Concentration”)

“Concentration” is a TV game show that first aired in 1958. There was a reformatted version of the show called “Classic Concentration” that aired in the 1980s and 1990s and was hosted by Alex Trebek.

41 Anderson of “WKRP in Cincinnati” : LONI

Loni Anderson’s best-remembered role was Jennifer Marlowe on the sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati”. Anderson has been married four times, most famously to actor Burt Reynolds from 1988 to 1993.

The sitcom “WKRP in Cincinnati” was produced by MTM, the production company established by Mary Tyler Moore and her husband for the “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. “WKRP” was a successful enough show when it originally aired, but then became a blockbuster in syndication. It became MTM’s most-watched program, even outstripping the original “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”.

45 Org. funded by FICA : SSA

The Social Security Administration (SSA) was set up as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. The first person to receive a monthly retirement benefit was Ida May Fuller of Vermont who received her first check for the sum of $22.54 after having contributed for three years through payroll taxes. The New Deal turned out to be a good deal for Ms. Fuller, as she lived to 100 years of age and received a total benefit of almost $23,000, whereas her three years of contributions added up to just $24.75.

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax (FICA) was introduced in the 1930s as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. FICA payments are made by both employees and employers in order to fund Social Security and Medicare.

48 Ward on TV : SELA

Actress Sela Ward turns up in crosswords a lot. Ward played Teddy Reed in the TV show “Sisters” in the nineties, and was in “Once and Again” from 1999-2002. I don’t know either show, but I do know Ward from the medical drama “House” in which she played the hospital’s lawyer and Greg House’s ex-partner. That was a fun role, I thought. More recently, Ward played a lead role on “CSI: NY” and was a very welcome and much-needed addition to the cast. And, Ward played Dr. Richard Kimble’s murdered wife in the 1993 film version of “The Fugitive”.

50 Lennon’s love : ONO

Yoko Ono is an avant-garde artist. Ono actually met her future husband John Lennon for the first time while she was preparing her conceptual art exhibit called “Hammer a Nail”. Visitors were encouraged to hammer in a nail into a wooden board, creating the artwork. Lennon wanted to hammer in the first nail, but Ono stopped him as the exhibition had not yet opened. Apparently Ono relented when Lennon paid her an imaginary five shillings to hammer an imaginary nail into the wood.

52 [Sass, in slang + inferno + turkey + Babe with a bat] : ‘TUDE HELL DUD RUTH (sounds like “To Tell the Truth”)

“To Tell the Truth” is a TV game show that first aired in 1956. Four celebrity panelists are tasked with identifying which of three contestants are telling the truth about their occupation or an experience they’ve had.

57 Flavor : SAPOR

“Sapor” is another word for “flavor, a quality that can be tasted”. “Sapor” is Latin for “taste, flavor”.

62 O.T. book after Amos : OBAD

The Book of Obadiah is the shortest book in the Hebrew Bible. It consists of just one chapter that is divided into 21 verses.

66 Harry Potter’s forte : MAGIC

The author of the amazingly successful “Harry Potter” series of books is J. K. Rowling. Rowling wrote the first book when she was living on welfare in Edinburgh in Scotland, and in longhand. She would often write in local cafes, largely because she needed to get her baby daughter out of the house (she was a single mom), and the youngster would tend to fall asleep on walks. Within five years, the single mom on welfare became a very rich woman, and is now worth about $1 billion!

71 Gladiator’s venue : ARENA

The term “gladiator” means “swordsman”, and comes from “gladius”, the Latin word for “sword”.

72 Has too much, for short : ODS

Overdose (OD)

73 Aretha’s queendom : SOUL

I think that Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul”, had a tough life. Franklin had her first son when she was just 13-years-old, and her second at 15. In 2008, “Rolling Stone” magazine ranked Franklin as number one in their list of the greatest singers of all time.

75 Lazy __ : SUSAN

A lazy Susan is a circular tray at the center of a dining table that can be rotated by those partaking in the meal. The term “lazy Susan” was introduced in the early 1900s, first appearing in an article in the magazine “Good Housekeeping”. Before this designation, the device had been called a “dumbwaiter”, a term we now use for a small elevator used for transporting food from a kitchen to a dining room.

76 [Legume + yank + pound sound + bee product] : PEA PULL ARF HONEY (sounds like “People Are Funny”)

“People Are Funny” is a radio and television game show that aired from 1942 until 1960. The show featured contestants who carried out stunts to prove that people are indeed funny.

81 Wray of “King Kong” : FAY

Fay Wray was a Canadian-American actress who is best known for her starring role in the classic 1933 film “King Kong”. When Wray passed away at the age of 96 in 2004, the lights of the Empire State Building were extinguished for 15 minutes. That fine gesture was a nod to the celebrated Empire State Building scene in “King Kong”.

When RKO released the 1933 movie “King Kong”, the promotional material listed the ape’s height as 50 feet. During filming, a bust was created for a 40-foot ape, as well as a full-size hand that went with a 70-foot Kong.

85 Suffix with cannon : -ADE

A cannonade is a bout of very heavy artillery fire. The term “cannonade” may also describe a harsh attack on someone, either verbal or physical.

86 Level between kingdom and class : PHYLUM

Biological classification is a method used to group organisms by biological type. The method uses a hierarchy of nested classes, with an organism being classified with reference to evolutionary traits. The major taxonomic ranks used are:

• Life
• Domain
• Kingdom
• Phylum (plural “phyla”)
• Class
• Order
• Family
• Genus (plural “genera”)
• Species

90 “The Raven” writer : POE

“The Raven” is a narrative poem by Edgar Allan Poe that tells of a student who has lost the love of his life, Lenore. A raven enters the student’s bedchamber and perches on a bust of Pallas. The raven can talk, to the student’s surprise, but says nothing but the word “nevermore” (“quoth the raven, ‘Nevermore’”). As the student questions all aspects of his life, the raven taunts him with the same comment, “nevermore”. Finally the student decides that his soul is trapped beneath the raven’s shadow and shall be lifted “nevermore” …

93 [Cutlet meat + statute + quartet + goatee site] : VEAL LAW FOUR CHIN (sounds like “Wheel of Fortune”)

Contestants have been spinning the “Wheel of Fortune” since the game show first aired in 1975.

99 Instrument with movable frets : SITAR

The sitar has been around since the Middle Ages. It is a stringed instrument that is played by plucking, and is used most often in Hindustani classical music. In the West we have been exposed to the instrument largely through the performances of Ravi Shankar and some music by George Harrison of the Beatles, a onetime student of Shankar.

A fret is a metal strip embedded in the neck of a stringed instrument, like a guitar perhaps. The fingers press on the frets, shortening a string and hence changing the note played. The note increases by one semitone as a finger shortens a string by one fret.

103 Poker pros, say : CARD SHARPS

A “card sharp” is someone who is skilled and deceptive with playing cards, particularly when playing gambling games like poker. It seems that the term “card sharp” predates the related “card shark”, both of which have the same meaning.

106 “Scream” star Campbell : NEVE

Neve Campbell is a Canadian actress whose big break in movies came with the “Scream” horror film series, in which she had a leading role. I don’t do horror films, so I haven’t seen any of the “Scream” movies. Nor have I seen the TV series “Party of Five” that launched the acting careers of both Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt in the nineties.

107 Opposite of COD : PPD

Prepaid (PPD)

Cash on delivery (COD)

108 “This Is India” novelist Santha Rama __ : RAU

Santha Rama Rau was a travel writer from India who lived much of her life in the US. As well as writing her own books, Rau also adapted the E. M. Forster novel “A Passage to India” for the stage.

109 Raggedy dolls : ANNS

Raggedy Ann is a rag doll that was created by Johnny Gruelle in 1915 for his daughter, Marcella. He decided to name the doll by combining the titles of two poems by James Whitcomb Riley, “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphan Annie”. Gruelle introduced Raggedy Ann in a series of books three years later. Sadly, Marcella died at 13 years of age with her father blaming a smallpox vaccination she was given at school. Gruelle became very active in the movement against mass vaccination, for which Raggedy Ann became a symbol.

112 Author Dinesen : ISAK

“Isak Dinesen” was the pen name of the Danish author Baroness Karen Blixen. Blixen’s most famous title by far is “Out of Africa”, her account of the time she spent living in Kenya.

114 [Utter + cherish + old laundry detergent + harm] : SAY LOVE DUZ INJURY (sounds like “Sale of the Century”)

Duz was a laundry detergent that was formulated as a competitor to Tide. Strangely enough, both Duz and Tide were manufactured by Procter & Gamble. We had a detergent in the British Isles called “Daz”, and my guess is this was the same product as Duz, but with a slightly different name.

“$ale of the Century” is a TV game show that first aired in 1969.

117 __ stick : POGO

What we know today as a pogo stick was invented in Germany by Max Pohlig and Ernst Gottschall. The name “pogo” comes from the first two letters in each of the inventors’ family names: Po-hlig and Go-ttschall.

120 Itinerary abbr. : RTE

Route (rte.)

121 Fed. power dept. : ENER

The US Department of Energy (DOE) came into being largely as a result of the 1973 oil crisis. The DOE was founded in 1977 by the Carter administration. The DOE is responsible for regulating the production of nuclear power, and it is also responsible for the nation’s nuclear weapons. The official DOE seal features a lightning bolt and symbols denoting five sources of energy: the sun, an atom, an oil derrick, a windmill and a dynamo.

122 “Napoleon Dynamite” sidekick Sánchez : PEDRO

“Napoleon Dynamite” is a comedy film released in 2004 that stars Jon Heder in the title role. The movie was a commercial success above and beyond expectations. “Napoleon Dynamite” was made on the relatively low budget of about $400,000, and yet grossed almost $45 million within a year. The title character is a nerdy high school student who spends much of life living in his fantasy world.

124 Slalom segment : ESS

“Slalom” is an anglicized version of the Norwegian word “slalam” that translates as “skiing race”. There is a longer version of the traditional slalom that is called giant slalom

Down

1 Female surfer : WAHINE

“Wahine” is the word for “woman”, in both Hawaiian and Maori.

2 Suspects’ stories : ALIBIS

“Alibi” is the Latin word for “elsewhere” as in, “I claim that I was ‘elsewhere’ when the crime was committed … I have an ‘alibi’”.

3 New Jersey NHL team : DEVILS

The New Jersey Devils are the professional ice hockey team based in Newark. The club was founded in 1974 in Kansas City, originally as the Mohawks, and then quickly renamed the Scouts. The franchise moved to Denver in 1976, becoming the Colorado Rockies. The move to Newark happened in 1982, when the team was renamed the New Jersey Devils.

4 “Parsley, __, rosemary … ” : SAGE

“Scarborough Fair” is a delightful ballad that originated in Yorkshire in the North of England. Simon & Garfunkel recorded a famous version of the song in 1966, setting it in counterpoint with one of Simon’s own creations called “Canticle”.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Remember me to one who lives there,
She was once a true love of mine.

6 Mil. roadside hazard : IED

Improvised explosive device (IED)

7 Hyphen cousin : EN DASH

In typography, there are em dashes and en dashes. The em dash is about the width of an “m” character, and an en dash about half that, the width of an “n’ character. An en dash is used, for example, to separate numbers designating a range, as in 5-10 years. The em dash seems to be going out of style, and indeed the application I am using to write this paragraph won’t let me show you one!

8 Lydia’s sugar substitute on “Breaking Bad” : STEVIA

Stevia is a natural sweetener and sugar substitute. It is extracted from the leaves of the Stevia rebaudiana, a plant in the sunflower family that is native to Brazil and Paraguay. The active compounds in Stevia are many times more sweet than sugar, but are not metabolized by the body. As such, stevia has zero calories.

12 Kebab holder : SKEWER

The term “kebab” (also “kabob”) covers a wide variety of meat dishes that originated in Persia. In the West, we usually use “kebab” when talking about shish kebab, which is meat (often lamb) served on a skewer. “Shish” comes from the Turkish word for “skewer”.

13 Body shop fig. : EST

Estimate (est.)

14 Spike TV, once : TNN

Spike TV was a 2003 relaunch of The Nashville Network (TNN) and was marketed as the first television channel for men. The station owners ran into trouble though as the director Spike Lee sued, claiming that viewers would assume he was associated with the channel because of the use of “Spike”. The suit was settled when Lee concluded that there was no intention to trade on his name.

16 1929 title words following “Now he’s gone, and we’re through” : AM I BLUE?

“Am I Blue?” is a song from the 1929 movie “On with the Show”. “On with the Show” is noted as the first all-talking and all-color feature ever to be released.

20 Original D&D co. : TSR

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a complex role-playing game (RPG) introduced in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules Incorporated (TSR). Dungeons & Dragons was probably the first of the modern role-playing games to be developed, and the most successful. It is still played by lots of people today, including my youngest son …

23 Ford flop : EDSEL

The Edsel brand of automobile was named for Edsel Ford, son of Henry. Sadly, the name “Edsel” has become synonymous with “failure”, which was no fault of Edsel himself who had died several years before the Edsel line was introduced. When the Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel on 4 September 1957, Ford proclaimed the day to be “E Day”.

35 Work on galleys : TYPESET

Galleys are the metal trays into which a printer would arrange type to make up a page. The galleys had clamps that could be used to hold the loose type in place. Even in today’s world of electronic publishing, apparently the term “galley proof” is still used as the name for some version of a layout that is not yet final.

38 Quick snack : NOSH

Our word “nosh” has been around since the late fifties, when it was imported from the Yiddish word “nashn” meaning “to nibble”. We use “nosh” as a noun that means “snack”, or as a verb meaning “to eat between meals”.

42 Maiden name preceder : NEE

“Née” is the French word for “born” when referring to a female. The male equivalent is “né”.

45 Plant pores : STOMAS

Stomata (the usual plural of stoma, not “stomas”) are pores found under almost every leaf, clearly visible under a simple microscope. The stomata take in air rich in carbon dioxide. Through the process of photosynthesis, the plants generate oxygen, which is released back into the air though the same stomata.

46 Outback automaker : SUBARU

Subaru is the automobile division of the Japanese company, Fuji Heavy Industries. The name “Subaru” is the Japanese name of the Pleiades star cluster. As a result, the Subaru logo is also a cluster of stars.

53 Minneapolis suburb : EDINA

Edina, Minnesota is an affluent suburb of Minneapolis that lies just to the southwest of the city. The town takes its name from Edinburgh, the capital city of Scotland. The name was suggested by a Scottish mill owner at the time the new village was founded in 1888.

55 Moving brand : U-HAUL

The U-Haul company was started by married couple Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington in 1945. The Shoens used $5,000 of seed money to build trailers in their garage, and then cleverly recruited gas station owners as franchisees with whom they would split the rental revenue. There are now about 15,000 U-Haul dealers across the country.

56 Stein’s confidante : TOKLAS

Gertrude Stein was a great American writer who spent most of her life in France. Gertrude Stein met Alice B. Toklas in Paris in 1907, and the two were life partners until Stein died in 1946. Cleverly, Stein published her own memoirs in 1933 but called the book “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas”. It was to become Stein’s best selling title.

58 2006 Supreme Court appointee : ALITO

Associate Justice Samuel Alito was nominated to the US Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. Alito is the second Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court (Antonin Scalia was the first). Alito studied law at Yale and while in his final year he left the country for the first time in his life, heading to Italy to work on his thesis about the Italian legal system.

59 Cal Poly city : POMONA

“Cal Poly” is the more familiar name for California Polytechnic State University. There are actually two Cal Poly institutions, one in San Luis Obispo (the most famous) and one in Pomona. The Pomona institution was founded in 1938 as the southern campus for Cal Poly in 1938, but became independent from the northern school in 1966.

61 Flight named for its effect on fliers : RED-EYE

A red-eye flight is one departing late at night and arriving early the next morning. The term is a reference to tired passengers disembarking with red eyes.

69 One and only fish? : SOLE

The group of flatfish known as soles take their name from “solea”, the Latin word for “sandal”. And, they do kind of have that shape.

78 Opie portrayer Howard : RONNY

Ron Howard sure has come a long way since playing Opie Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show”. He has directed some fabulous movies including favorites of mine like “Apollo 13”, “The Da Vinci Code” and “A Beautiful Mind”, the latter earning Howard a Best Director Oscar. He was credited as “Ronny Howard” when he played Opie in “The Andy Griffith Show”.

82 Asian nurse : AMAH

“Amah” is an interesting word in that we associate it so much with Asian culture and yet the term actually comes from the Portuguese “ama” meaning “nurse”. Ama was imported into English in the days of the British Raj in India when a wet-nurse became known as an amah.

86 Material for drainage lines : PVC PIPE

PVC is polyvinyl chloride, the third most widely produced plastic in the world (after polyethylene and polypropylene). PVC is resistant to corrosion from biological and chemical agents making it a favored choice these days for sewage lines, replacing the traditional metal materials. It is so chemically stable, that it will be around a long, long time …

89 Honorary law deg. : LLD

The honorary degree of Legum Doctor (LL.D.) translates from the Latin as Doctor of Laws, a plural. This practice of using the plural originated in Cambridge University in England, as one was awarded an LL.D. after having been taught both Canon Law and Civil Law.

92 Rapper Nicki : MINAJ

Nicki Minaj is a rapper from Queens, New York who was born in Trinidad.

94 The Red Baron, e.g. : WAR ACE

Manfred von Richthofen was a famous WWI fighter pilot flying for the Germans and was known as the Red Baron. Von Richthofen was credited with more kills than any other pilot fighting on either side of the conflict, recording over 80 combat victories. He didn’t survive the war though, as he was shot down near Amiens in France in 1918.

96 Suffix with Pleisto- : -CENE

The Pleistocene epoch lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, and is associated with the most recent period of repeated glaciations. The name “Pleistocene” translates as “newest”. This name was chosen as the name of the preceding Pliocene epoch translates as “newer”. The name of the subsequent Holocene epoch (which extends right up to today) translates as “entirely new”.

100 Prof’s security : TENURE

A job in a university that is described as “tenure-track” is one that can lead to a tenured position. A tenured position is a “job for life”. A person with tenure can only be dismissed for cause.

109 Fifth in NYC, e.g. : AVE

Fifth Avenue in New York is sometimes referred to as the “most expensive street in the world” as the section that runs through Midtown Manhattan is home to upscale stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue.

111 Till bills : ONES

The nation’s first president, George Washington, is on the US one-dollar bills produced today. When the original one-dollar bill was issued in 1863, it featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury.

113 “MASH” setting: Abbr. : KOR

The first Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH) was deployed in August 1945. MASH units really came into the public consciousness after publication of the 1969 Richard Hooker novel “MASH”, which spawned the hit film and TV series that were both titled “M*A*S*H”.

115 Kitchenware brand : OXO

The OXO line of kitchen utensils and housewares is designed to be ergonomically superior to the average household tools. The intended user of OXO products is someone who doesn’t have the normal range of motion or strength in the hands e.g. someone suffering from arthritis.