LA Times Crossword 22 Nov 24, Friday

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Constructed by: Joe Marangell
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: Movin’ on Up

Themed answers are common phrases, but with the word “ON” MOVED UPWARD in the grid:

• 66A “The Jeffersons” theme song, and an apt title for this puzzle : MOVIN’ ON UP

• 17A Stay vigilant : BE (ON) THE BALL
• 21A Punctual : RIGHT (ON) TIME
• 39A Comedy routine with peculiar names : WHO’S (ON) FIRST?
• 60A “Pick up the pace!” : GET (ON) WITH IT!

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 7m 10s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 “The Raven” opening : ONCE …

The first verse of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is:

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

5 Literary captain who inspired Captain Hook : AHAB

Captain Ahab is the obsessed and far from friendly captain of the Pequod in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick”. The role of Captain Ahab was played by Gregory Peck in the 1956 John Huston film adaptation. Patrick Stewart played Ahab in a 1998 miniseries in which Peck made another appearance, as Father Mapple.

Captain Hook is the bad guy in “Peter Pan”, the famous play by J. M. Barrie. Hook is Peter Pan’s sworn enemy, as Pan had cut off Hook’s hand causing it to be replaced by a “hook”. It is implied in the play that Hook attended Eton College, just outside London. Hook’s last words are “Floreat Etona”, which is Eton College’s motto. Barrie openly acknowledged that the Hook character is based on Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab from the novel “Moby Dick”.

14 Radish, e.g. : ROOT

Radishes are edible root vegetables that are commonly grown for use in salads. Gardeners also use radishes as companion plants as the odor given off can deter pests such as aphids, ants and cucumber beetles.

19 “Blonde” writer Joyce Carol __ : OATES

“Blonde” is a 2022 biographical film about Marilyn Monroe. It is a fictionalized account of the actress’ life, and is based on Joyce Carol Oates’ 2000 novel of the same name. Monroe is played by Ana de Armas.

25 Co-star of Betty, Rue, and Estelle : BEA

“The Golden Girls” is a sitcom that originally aired in the eighties and nineties. The show features Bea Arthur, Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty as four older women who share a house in Miami.

Bea Arthur an American actress and comedian who rose to fame in the 1970s with her iconic roles in the hit TV shows “Maude” and “The Golden Girls.” Prior to launching her acting career, Arthur served in the US military. In 1943, at the age of 21, she joined the US Marine Corps Women’s Reserve, where she worked as a typist and truck driver.

Comic actress Betty White was been at the top of her game for decades. White started her television career with an appearance with high school classmates on a local Los Angeles show back in 1939. Her most famous TV run was co-hosting the Tournament of Roses Parade, a gig she had for nineteen years in the sixties and seventies. Given her long career, White held a number of records in the world of entertainment. For example, she was the oldest person to host “Saturday Night Live” (at 88) and she was the oldest woman to win a Grammy (at 90).

Actress Rue McClanahan was best known for her television sitcom roles, as Vivian Harmon on “Maude” and as Blanche Devereaux on “The Golden Girls”.

Actress Estelle Getty was best known for playing Sophia Petrillo on “The Golden Girls”. Bea Arthur played Sophia’s daughter on the show, even though Estelle was actually a year younger than Bea in real life!

35 “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” writer Anita : LOOS

Anita Loos was an American screenwriter and author who was most famous for her novel “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” that was first published in 1925. “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” was originally published as a series of short stories in “Harper’s Bazaar”. The heroine of the story was Lorelei Lee, a “flapper” who was less interested in marriage than she was in collecting expensive gifts from her many gentleman admirers. Loos also adapted Colette’s novel “Gigl” for the Broadway stage in 1951.

39 Comedy routine with peculiar names : WHO’S (ON) FIRST?

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made up the comedy duo Abbott and Costello who were immensely popular in the forties and fifties. Even when I was growing up in Ireland and knew nothing about baseball, I was rolling around the floor listening to Abbott and Costello’s famous “Who’s on First?” comedy routine. Can you name all the players?

First Base: Who
Second Base: What
Third Base: I Don’t Know
Left field: Why
Centerfield: Because
Pitcher: Tomorrow
Catcher: Today
Shortstop: I Don’t Care/I Don’t Give a Darn

42 Hyundai rival : KIA

Kia Motors is the second-largest manufacturer of cars in South Korea, behind Hyundai (and Hyundai is a part owner in Kia now). Kia was founded in 1944 as a manufacturer of bicycle parts, and did indeed produce Korea’s first domestic bicycle. The company’s original name was Kyungsung Precision Industry, with the Kia name introduced in 1952.

43 Rhetorical question from Caesar : ET TU?

Julius Caesar was assassinated on the 15th (the ides) of March, 44 BC. He was attacked by a group of sixty people in the Roman Senate, and was stabbed 23 times. The first to strike a blow was Servilius Casca, who attacked Caesar from behind and stabbed him in the neck. In Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, Casca utters the words “Speak, hands, for me!” just before making the fatal blow. The following line, uttered by Caesar, is more famous though: “Et tu, Brute?”

48 Small lifeboat : DINGHY

Our term “dinghy” comes from the Hindi “dingi”, a word meaning “small boat”.

53 Best of “House of the Dragon” : EVE

Eve Best is an actress from London who perhaps is best known for playing Wallis Simpson in the marvelous 2010 film “The King’s Speech”. More recently, she joined the cast of “House of the Dragon”, playing Princess Rhaenys Targaryen.

64 Kurosawa who received an Academy Honorary Award in 1990 : AKIRA

Akira Kurosawa was an Oscar-winning Japanese film director. His most famous movie to us in the West has to be “The Seven Samurai”, the inspiration for “The Magnificent Seven” starring Yul Brynner, and indeed a basis for “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”.

66 “The Jeffersons” theme song, and an apt title for this puzzle : MOVIN’ ON UP

“Movin’ on Up”, the theme song to The Jeffersons, was written by Ja’Net Dubois and Jeff Barry. It was performed by Ja’Net Dubois and became someone of a hit, reaching #5 on the Billboard R&B chart.

68 Vessel opener : STENT

In the world of surgical medicine, a stent is an artificial tube inserted inside a vessel in the body, say an artery, in order to reduce the effects of a local restriction in the body’s conduit.

71 Stuffed bear : TEDDY

The stuffed toy known as a teddy bear was introduced in the early 1900s and was named for President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. The toy was inspired by a political cartoon that was drawn in 1902 showing President Roosevelt on a bear hunt and refusing to kill a black bear cub. That event is celebrated annually on September 9th as National Teddy Bear Day.

72 June honorees : DADS

Father’s Day was added as an official holiday in 1972, although bills to create the holiday had been with Congress since 1913. By rights, the holiday should be called “Fathers’ Day” (note the punctuation), but the bill that was introduced in 1913 used the “Father’s Day” spelling, and that’s the one that has stuck.

Down

1 Traveling Wilburys member : ORBISON

Roy Orbison had to be one the sickliest looking performers I’ve ever seen. Orbison had a very sallow complexion, pock-marked from teenage acne. The yellowish skin tone came from a severe bout of jaundice as a child. Perhaps poor nutrition affected him and his siblings, because all of them had very poor eyesight, with Roy almost blind and wearing very thick lenses from a very young age. He was also very ashamed of his head of hair, which was almost a ghostly white color, and so he dyed it jet black even when he was young. Despite all this, he was immensely popular in his heyday with teenage girls, particularly in Canada and Ireland for some reason. On a tour of Ireland in 1963, the Irish police had to stop one of his performances in order to pull a bevy of local lasses off poor Mr. Orbison …

The Traveling Wilburys were a supergroup consisting of Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and George Harrison. The group formed in 1988. The name “Wilbury” came from a line uttered by Harrison to Lynne referring to errors created by faulty equipment during a recording session, i.e. “We’ll bury ‘em in the mix.”

3 Vrbo category : COTTAGE

VRBO is an online marketplace for vacation rentals. The initialism stands for Vacation Rentals by Owner. VRBO was founded in 1995, and is headquartered in Austin.

5 BOLO kin : APB

An All Points Bulletin (APB) is a broadcast from one US law enforcement agency to another.

A BOLO is a police alert, with the acronym standing for “be on the look-out”. A BOLO can also be called an APB, an “all-points bulletin”.

7 Improv technique : AD-LIB

“Ad libitum” is a Latin phrase meaning “at one’s pleasure”. In common usage, the phrase is usually shortened to “ad-lib”. On the stage, the concept of an ad-lib is very familiar.

8 Complete nonsense : BILGE

The bilge is the lowest internal part of a ship. The water that collects in there is called bilge water. The term “bilge” is also used as slang for nonsense talk.

24 Farm structure : SILO

“Silo” is a Spanish word that we absorbed into English. The term ultimately derives from the Greek “siros”, which described a pit in which one kept corn.

29 Bouquet : NOSE

“Bouquet” comes from the French word for “bunch” in the sense of “bunch of flowers”. In French, the term is derived from an older word describing a little wood or small grove of trees. We started using “bouquet” to mean “perfume from a wine” in the early 1800s.

31 Cards with pics : IDS

Identity document (ID)

32 Primary action : VOTE

The US is one of just a few countries that uses primary elections, selections of party candidates by popular vote. In the runup to most national elections outside of the US, political parties select their own candidates. Indeed, primaries weren’t introduced into the US until relatively recently. The first presidential primary took place in 1920, in New Hampshire.

37 “Star Wars” antagonists : SITH

The Sith are characters in the “Star Wars” universe who use the “dark side” of “the Force”, and as such are the antithesis of the Jedi Knights. Members of the Sith use the title “Darth” before their name, as in Darth Vader. The last made of the six “Star Wars” movies is called “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith”.

45 Entourage : RETINUE

A retinue is a body of aides who attend an important person. The term “retinue” comes from the Old French “retenue” that had the same meaning, although the literal translation is “that which is retained”. The idea is that the aides are retained to attend the VIP.

47 Highest-order angels : SERAPHS

A seraph is a celestial being found in Hebrew and Christian writings. The word “seraph” (plural “seraphim”) literally translates as “burning one”. Seraphs are the highest-ranking angels in the Christian tradition, and the fifth-ranking of ten in the Jewish tradition.

56 Sportscaster Rashad : AHMAD

Ahmad Rashad is a former football player who launched a career as a sportscaster after he retired from the game. Rashad proposed marriage to actress Phylicia Ayers-Allen on national television in 1985. Ayers-Allen, who played Bill Cosby’s wife on “The Cosby Show”, accepted the proposal and became Rashad’s third wife.

57 Dry Spanish wine : RIOJA

Rioja wines come from the province of La Rioja in Northern Spain. In my days living back in Europe, Rioja wines were noted for their heavy oaky flavors and it wasn’t uncommon to order a “rough Rioja” when out for dinner of an evening.

59 Golf garment : SKORT

The garment called a “skort” is a hybrid between a “skirt” and “shorts”.

67 Agcy. that investigates tax fraud : IRS

Tax evasion is illegal, and tax avoidance is legal. Evading taxes involves dishonest tax reporting, whereas avoiding taxes uses the tax laws as written to reduce the amount of tax owed. Both evasion and avoidance might be regarded as noncompliance, because tax avoidance often involves legal manipulation of the system (using “loopholes”) in a manner that subverts the intent of the tax code.