Category: Robin Stears

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Constructed by: Robin Stears
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme: Reindeer Games

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! Themed answers each include the name of one of Santa’s REINDEERS:

• 23A Men’s clothing retailer : HABERDASHER (giving “Dasher”)
• 28A Elton John hit with the misheard lyric “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” : TINY DANCER (giving “Dancer”)
• 49A Fitness method with “a springy, rhythmic way of moving forward” : PRANCERCISE (giving “Prancer”)
• 58A Mythological fox destined never to be caught : CADMEAN VIXEN (giving “Vixen”)
• 82A Celestial object next visible from Earth in 2061 : HALLEY’S COMET (giving “Comet”)
• 92A Connie Francis hit with a rhyming title : STUPID CUPID (giving “Cupid”)
• 115A Thor’s son in the role-playing game Scion : ERIC DONNER (giving “Donner”)
• 122A German roadster that once held the world speed record : BLITZEN BENZ (giving “Blitzen”)

We get the names for Santa’s reindeer from the famous 1823 poem called “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, although we’ve modified a couple of the names over the years. The full list is:

• Dasher
• Dancer
• Prancer
• Vixen
• Comet
• Cupid
• Donder (originally “Dunder”, and now often “Donner”)
• Blitzen (originally “Blixem”)

Rudolph was added to the list by retailer Montgomery Ward, would you believe? The store commissioned Robert L. May to create a booklet that could be handed out to children around Christmas in 1939, and May introduced us to a new friend for Santa, namely Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

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

Bill’s time: 13m 03s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

21 Awkwafina’s real first name : NORA

“Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens” is a sitcom that first aired in 2020. It stars actress, rapper and comedian Awkwafina as a woman named Nora Lin who is spreading her wings in Queens, New York. “Awkwafina” is the stage name of Nora Lum.

23 Men’s clothing retailer : HABERDASHER (giving “Dasher”)

Back in the 14th century, a haberdasher was a dealer in small wares. By the late 1800s, the term had evolved to mean a purveyor of menswear, and in particular was associated with the sale of hats.

25 Action in Uno : DRAW

UNO is a card game that was developed in the early seventies and that has been sold by Mattel since 1992. It falls into the shedding family of card games, meaning that the goal is to get rid of all your cards while preventing opponents from doing the same.

26 Sicilian volcano : ETNA

Mount Etna on the island of Sicily is the largest of three active volcanoes in Italy, and indeed the largest of all active volcanoes in Europe. Etna is about 2 1/2 times the height of its equally famous sister, Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Etna is home to a 110-km long narrow-gauge railway, and two ski resorts. It is sometimes referred to as “Mongibello” in Italian, and as “Mungibeddu” (sometimes “Muncibeddu”) in Sicilian. The English name “Etna” comes from the Greek “aitho” meaning “I eat”.

28 Elton John hit with the misheard lyric “Hold me closer, Tony Danza” : TINY DANCER (giving “Dancer”)

The 1971 Elton John song “Tiny Dancer” was written by John himself, with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. Apparently the “tiny dancer” in the song is a character reminiscent of the young ladies that Taupin met in California in 1970.

44 Hanover Ivy : DARTMOUTH

Dartmouth College is an Ivy League school in Hanover, New Hampshire. It was established in 1769 as a school designed to educate Native Americans in the English way of life and in Christian theology.

48 __ alai : JAI

Jai alai is a game that derives from Basque pelota, and is known as “cesta-punta” in the Basque language. The name “jai alai” translates from the original Basque as “merry festival”.

49 Fitness method with “a springy, rhythmic way of moving forward” : PRANCERCISE (giving “Prancer”)

Prancercise is a fitness regime that was introduced in the early 1990s. It sort of looks like dancing while walking.

53 UPC bar code developer : IBM

The initialism “UPC” stands for Universal Price Code or Universal Product Code. The first ever UPC-marked item to get scanned in a store was on June 26, 1974 at 08:01 a.m. at Marsh’s supermarket in Troy, Ohio. It was a 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit chewing gum.

57 “Orinoco Flow” singer : ENYA

“Orinoco Flow” is a song by Irish singer Enya that she released in 1988. It’s the one that goes “sail away, sail away, sail away …”

58 Mythological fox destined never to be caught : CADMEAN VIXEN (giving “Vixen”)

The Teumessian fox (sometimes “Cadmean vixen”) is a figure from Greek mythology. He was an enormous fox sent by the gods to prey upon the children living in the city of Thebes.

64 Agnus __ : DEI

“Agnus Dei” is Latin for “Lamb of God”, The expression is used in Christian traditions to describe Jesus Christ, hence symbolizing his role as a sacrificial offering (sacrificial lamb) to atone for the sins of man.

65 Org. created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome : EEC

The Treaty of Rome is the international agreement of 1957 that established the European Economic Community (EEC). The original signatory countries were Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany. The EEC, also called “the Common Market”, was a NAFTA-like structure that was eventually absorbed into today’s European Union.

67 Physicist Newton : ISAAC

Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most influential people in history, and the man who laid the groundwork for all of classical mechanics. The story about an apple falling on his head, inspiring him to formulate his theories about gravity, well that’s not quite true. Newton often told the story about observing an apple falling in his mother’s garden and how this made him acutely aware of the Earth’s gravitational pull. However, he made no mention of the apple hitting him on the head.

72 Longtime PBS “Mystery!” host Diana : RIGG

Diana Rigg was a marvelous actress from England who was best known for playing Emma Peel on the hit sixties show “The Avengers”. Rigg also won an Emmy for her performance in a 1997 television adaptation of “Rebecca”. In my humble opinion, she was also the best-ever Bond girl (opposite George Lazenby, the worst-ever Bond guy), in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” …

76 Digital asset: Abbr. : NFT

Non-fungible token (NFT). I admit it, I don’t understand NFTs (or the related cryptocurrencies).

80 Office supplier : STATIONER

“Stationery” is a noun describing writing materials and office supplies, items that are sold by a stationer. Centuries ago, a stationer was someone who sold goods from a shop or a “station”, from a fixed, “stationary” stall.

82 Celestial object next visible from Earth in 2061 : HALLEY’S COMET (giving “Comet”)

Edmond Halley was an English astronomer who lived at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1705 he declared that comet sightings recorded in 1456, 1531, 1607 and 1682 were in fact observations of the same comet returning to fly by Earth at regular intervals. He predicted that this comet would return in 1758. Hally was right, and so the comet was named after him. Sadly, Halley didn’t live long enough to see that his prediction came true.

89 Singer DiFranco : ANI

Ani DiFranco is a folk-rock singer and songwriter. DiFranco has also been labeled a feminist icon, and in 2006 won the Woman of Courage Award from the National Organization for Women.

90 “Middlemarch” novelist : ELIOT

George Eliot’s novel “Middlemarch” was first published in installments in 1871-72. The storyline is set some fifty years earlier, in the fictional English Midlands town of Middlemarch.

91 Polish tennis champ Swiatek : IGA

Iga Swiatek is a professional tennis player, and the first from Poland to win a major singles title (the French Open in 2020).

92 Connie Francis hit with a rhyming title : STUPID CUPID (giving “Cupid”)

“Stupid Cupid” is a song co-written and recorded by Neil Sedaka. Sedaka released his version in 1959, a year after the song was recorded by Connie Francis. It was a big hit for Francis, and helped launch her career as an international recording star.

Singer Connie Francis was at the height of her success in the 1950s and 1960s, and was the first female artist to get the number-one spot on the Billboard Hot 100. She suffered through at least two tragic incidents in her life. She was raped in 1974, in a motel she was using while performing at a New York music fair. She was very close to her brother George, and he was murdered by Mafia hitmen in 1981. Despite it all, Connie Francis earned recognition as the “First Lady of Rock & Roll” in some circles, and was described by fellow singer Gloria Estefan as “the first female pop star worldwide”.

95 Wall St. takeover : LBO

A leveraged buyout (LBO) is a transaction in which an investor acquires a controlling volume of stock in a company, but buys that stock with borrowed funds (hence “leveraged”). Often the assets of the acquired company are used as collateral for the borrowed money. There is a special form of LBO known as a management buyout (MBO) in which the company’s own management team purchases the controlling interest.

100 Tungusic people of northeast China : MANCHU

Manchuria is a region in Northeast China. It is home to the Manchu people, after whom the area gets its name.

111 __ Bora: Afghan region : TORA

The famous cave that almost certainly housed Osama Bin Laden for a while was in Tora Bora in eastern Pakistan. Tora Bora is not far (~ 30 mi) from what used to be an even more famous spot, the Khyber Pass. “Tora Bora” is a Pashto name which translates to “black dust”.

115 Thor’s son in the role-playing game Scion : ERIC DONNER (giving “Donner”)

Scion is a series of role-playing games, the first of which was released in 2007. The roles played are mortal descendants of gods.

118 Greeted with a ceremonial bow : SALAAMED

The word “salaam” is an Anglicized spelling of the Arabic word for “peace”. The term can describe an act of deference, and in particular a very low bow.

120 Dublin Murder Squad series novelist French : TANA

Tana French is an American-born Irish author who has earned the moniker “First Lady of Irish Crime”. Her first novels fall into a series known as the “Dublin Murder Squad”. The BBC and RTE (the Irish national station) commissioned a TV series based on the novels called “Dublin Murders”, which began broadcasting on both sides of the Atlantic in 2019.

121 “Shining Vale” actress Sorvino : MIRA

Mira Sorvino is an American actress, and a winner of an Oscar for her supporting role in the 1995 Woody Allen movie “Mighty Aphrodite”. Sorvino also played a title role opposite Lisa Kudrow in the very forgettable “Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion”.

“Shining Vale” is a comedy-horror TV show that has quite the cast, including Couteney Cox, Greg KInner and Mira Sorvino. Horror, so I haven’t seen it …

122 German roadster that once held the world speed record : BLITZEN BENZ (giving “Blitzen”)

The Blitzen Benz is a racing car built by Benz in 1909. Six Blitzens were produced, one of which broke the world land speed record in 1914, reaching just under 125 mph.

126 U.S. passport holder : AMER

As a result of a League of Nations conference in 1920, passports are usually written in French and one other language. French was specified back then as it was deemed the language of diplomacy. US passports use French and English, given that English is the nation’s de facto national language. Spanish was added as a language for US passports in the late nineties, in recognition of Spanish-speaking Puerto Rico.

127 Flood defense : LEVEE

A levee is an artificial bank, usually made of earth, that runs along the length of a river. It is designed to hold back river water at a time of potential flooding. “Levée” is the French word for “raised” and is an American term that originated in French-speaking New Orleans around 1720.

130 Turner and Knight : TEDS

Ted Turner’s big initiative in the world of business was the founding of CNN, the first 24-hour cable news channel. Turner never graduated from college as he was expelled from Brown University for having a female student in his dormitory room. Years later, in 1989, Brown awarded him an honorary B.A.

Ted Knight was the actor best known for playing the slow-witted news anchor Ted Baxter on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. Knight’s most famous role on the big screen was Judge Elihu Smails in the 1980 comedy “Caddyshack”.

Down

1 Aramis companion : ATHOS

Alexandre Dumas’ “Three Musketeers” are Athos, Porthos and Aramis, although the hero of the novel is the trio’s young protégé D’Artagnan. A musketeer was an infantry soldier who was equipped with a musket. Funnily enough, the three “musketeers” really don’t use their muskets, and are better known for prowess with their swords.

2 “Great show!” : BRAVO!

To express appreciation for a male performer at an operatic performance, traditionally one calls out “bravo!”. Appreciation for a female performer is shown by using “brava!”, and for more than one performer of either sex by using “bravi!”

3 Rum-soaked cakes : BABAS

Rum baba (also “baba au rhum” in French) is a small yeast cake saturated in rum, and sometimes filled with whipped cream. Rum baba is derived from the recipe for the tall “babka” yeast cake that was introduced to the world by the Polish communities. The Polish words “baba” and “babka” mean “old woman” or “grandmother” in English. I guess someone must have thought that all grandmothers were saturated in rum!

4 Tribute in “Antigone” : ODE TO MAN

“Antigone” is a tragedy written by Greek playwright Sophocles and first performed in 442 BC. The title character is the daughter of King Oedipus of Thebes, and was born out of the incestuous relationship of the king with his mother Jocasta.

5 Hatcher of “Lois & Clark” : TERI

Teri Hatcher’s most famous role is the Susan Mayer character on the TV comedy-drama “Desperate Housewives”. I’ve never seen more than a few minutes of “Housewives” but I do know Teri Hatcher as a Bond girl, as she appeared in “Tomorrow Never Dies”. More recently, she portrayed Lois Lane on the show “Lois & Clark”.

“Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” is a television show that aired originally from 1993 to 1997. The storyline focuses as much on the relationship between Clark Kent and Lois Lane as it does on Kent’s life as Superman. Clark and Lois are played by Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher.

6 Fashion house whose logo is two interlocking C’s : CHANEL

The House of Chanel has its origin in a millinery shop in Paris that Gabrielle “CoCo” Chanel opened in 1909. The shop was on the ground floor of the home of socialite Étienne Balsan, of whom Chanel was his mistress. Using her connection to Balsan, Chanel met many women who lived extravagant lifestyles in Paris in those pre-war years, and hence was able to establish her reputation as a hatmaker. Chanel built on that reputation, and within a few years opened her first dress shop in Paris.

7 Oft-baked potato : RUSSET

The full name of the potato that we commonly refer to as a “russet” is a “russet Burbank”. The russet is probably a mutation of the Burbank potato. One Luther Burbank developed the Burbank potato as a disease-resistant Irish potato, and gave the strain its name. The russet Burbank is a relatively large potato. As such, it is the favored potato for restaurant chains like McDonald’s as it can produce long French fries.

11 Home to more than 1.4 billion people : INDIA

AS of 2023, the two most populous nations in the world are India and China, with both being home to more than 1.4 billion people (India overtook China as the most populous in 2023). The third most populous country is the USA, with about 340 million people.

16 Campus mil. group : ROTC

Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC)

17 Celebrity chef Burrell : ANNE

Anne Burrell is co-host of the show “Worst Cooks in America” that airs on the Food Network. Here’s a Burrell quote:

I always use my “Holy Trinity” which is salt, olive oil and bacon. My motto is, ‘”bacon always makes it better”. I try to use bacon and pork products whenever it can.

18 King who says to Cordelia, “Nothing can come of nothing” : LEAR

“King Lear” is one of William Shakespeare’s tragedies. Lear’s three daughters figure prominently in the story line. The three are, in order of age:

• Goneril
• Regan
• Cordelia

32 “Rugrats” mom : DIDI

“Rugrats” is an animated TV series created for Nickelodeon. The series focuses on a group of toddlers; most prominently—Tommy, Chuckie, Angelica, and twins Phil and Lil. “Rugrats” was the longest-running Nickelodeon animated series until that record was surpassed by “SpongeBob SquarePants” in 2012.

38 “Stronger than dirt” brand : AJAX

Ajax cleanser has been around since 1947, and it’s “stronger than dirt!” That was the most famous slogan over here in the US. On my side of the pond, the celebrated slogan was “it cleans like a white tornado”.

41 Name in fine china : SPODE

Spode is a brand of pottery made in Stoke-on-Trent in the north of England. The company was founded by Josiah Spode in 1770. Spode is noted for its fine bone china, and indeed Josiah Spode came up with the first successful formulation for bone china. Bone china is so called because one of the main components is bone ash derived from animal bones.

46 Honor given by HM King Charles III : OBE

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry in the UK that was established in 1917 by King George V. There are five classes within the order, which are in descending seniority:

• Knight Grand Cross (GBE)
• Knight Commander (KBE)
• Commander (CBE)
• Officer (OBE)
• Member (MBE)

47 Actress Thurman : UMA

Robert Thurman was the first westerner to be ordained a Tibetan Buddhist monk. Robert raised his children in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and called his daughter “Uma” as it is a phonetic spelling of the Buddhist name “Dbuma”. Uma’s big break in the movies came with her starring role in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 hit “Pulp Fiction”. My favorite Uma Thurman film is the wonderful 1996 romantic comedy “The Truth About Cats and Dogs”.

52 Irene of “Fame” : CARA

“Fame” is a 1980 musical film that follows students at New York’s High School of Performing Arts. Irene Cara sings the hugely successful theme song “Fame”, and stars as one of the students. Cara had in fact attended the High School of Performing Arts in real life. The movie “Fame” was so successful that it led to a spinoff TV series, stage shows and a 2009 remake.

59 __ Moines, Iowa : DES

The city of Des Moines is the capital of Iowa, and takes its name from the Des Moines River. The river in turn takes its name from the French “Riviere des Moines” meaning “River of the Monks”. It looks like there isn’t any “monkish” connection to the city’s name per se. “Des Moines” was just the name given by French traders who corrupted “Moingona”, the name of a group of Illinois Native Americans who lived by the river. However, others contend that French Trappist monks, who lived a full 200 miles from the river, somehow influenced the name.

62 __ Park: Edison lab site : MENLO

Menlo Park, New Jersey is noted as the home to the laboratory belonging to Thomas Edison (TAE). We also have a pretty well-known Menlo Park out here in California, home to many of the venture capital companies that tend to make a lot of money out of Silicon Valley businesses.

63 Polynesian language : SAMOAN

The official name for the South Pacific nation formerly known as Western Samoa is the Independent State of Samoa. Samoa is the western part of the island group, with American Samoa lying to the southeast. The whole group of islands used to be known as Navigators Island, a name given by European explorers in recognition of the seafaring skills of the native Samoans.

71 Malek of “Oppenheimer” : RAMI

Actor Rami Malek’s big break came with the leading role in the television series “Mr. Robot”. In 2018, Malik gave an Oscar-winning performance playing Freddie Mercury in the hit biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody”. That marked the first time that an actor of Egyptian descent won an Academy Award for Best Actor.

“Oppenheimer” is an epic 2023 film starring Cillian Murphy in the title role. The movie follows J. Robert Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb”, from his student days right through World War II and beyond. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film has an amazing ensemble cast that includes:

• Matt Damon (General Leslie Groves)
• Robert Downey Jr. (Lewis Strauss)
• Josh Hartnett (Ernest Lawrence)
• Kenneth Branagh (Niels Bohr)
• Tom Conti (Albert Einstein)
• Gary Oldman (Harry S. Truman)

74 “Your wish is my command” speaker : GENIE

The “genie” in the bottle (or lamp) takes his or her name from “djinn”. “Djinns” were various spirits considered lesser than angels, with people exhibiting unsavory characteristics said to be possessed by djinn. When the book “The Thousand and One Nights” was translated into French, the word “djinn” was transformed into the existing word “génie”, because of the similarity in sound and the related spiritual meaning. This “génie” from the Arabian tale became confused with the Latin-derived “genius”, a guardian spirit thought to be assigned to each person at birth. Purely as a result of that mistranslation the word genie has come to mean the “djinn” that pops out of the bottle. A little hard to follow, I know, but still quite interesting …

75 Formula 1 starting positions : GRIDS

In motor racing, the designation “formula” is a set of rules that all participants and cars must abide by. The definition of “Formula One” was agreed back in 1946, with the “one” designating that it is the most advanced of the “formulae”, and the most competitive.

81 Quechua speaker : INCAN

Quechua was the Native-American language adopted by the Incan Empire and favored over other dialects. Today, Quechua is one of the official languages in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador, alongside Spanish.

82 Command post : HELM

In its broadest sense, the term “helm” describes the whole of a ship’s steering mechanism, including the rudder and tiller. In a more specific sense, the helm is the handle, tiller or wheel that is used to control the steering gear.

83 “Dark Angel” star Jessica : ALBA

Actress Jessica Alba got her big break when she was cast in the Fox science fiction show “Dark Angel”. Alba had a tough life growing up as she spent a lot of time in hospital and so found it difficult to develop friendships. As a youngster she twice had a collapsed lung, frequently caught pneumonia, suffered from asthma, had a ruptured appendix and a tonsillar cyst. On top of all that, Alba acknowledges that she suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder as a child.

“Dark Angel” is a sci-fi series that ran from 2000 to 2002, and gave the star Jessica Alba her big break as an actress. Alba plays a genetically-enhanced super-soldier in post-apocalyptic Seattle. The show is a creation of celebrated producer and director James Cameron.

86 Like the dinos in “Jurassic Park” : CGI

Computer-generated imagery (CGI)

“Jurassic Park” is a 1990 novel by Michael Crichton that was adapted into a hugely successful movie by Steven Spielberg in 1993. One of the main premises of the novel is that dinosaur DNA could be harvested from mosquitoes trapped in amber (fossilized tree resin), the DNA coming from the dinosaur blood consumed by the mosquitoes. The dinosaur DNA is then sequenced and used to create clones of the original beasts. Apparently, that’s a clever idea, but not very practical …

87 Texter’s “I’m out!” : TTYL!

Talk to you later (TTYL)

97 Bygone coin-op eatery : AUTOMAT

An automat is a fast-food restaurant that was popular in the first half of the 20th century. The original automat was established in Berlin, but the concept took off in the US. However, our modern fast food restaurants virtually wiped out automats starting in the fifties.

98 Boxer Max : BAER

Max Baer was an American Heavyweight Champion of the World in the thirties. Baer held the title for 364 days, and then went into the ring after hardly any training at all against the well-prepared James J. Braddock. Braddock was a huge underdog, and yet emerged victorious after 15 rounds (Braddock is the subject of the 2005 movie “Cinderella Man”). By the way, Baer’s son is Max Baer, Jr., the actor who played Jethro on “The Beverly Hillbillies”.

101 Jewel box : CD CASE

A CD case is also known as a jewel box, and I am really not sure why. I’ve heard some explanations, but not one that I really buy …

103 List : ROSTER

Our word “roster”, meaning “list, register”, actually comes from the same root as our word “roast”, would you believe. “Roster” came into English from the Dutch “rooster”, meaning “table, list”. An alternative use of the Dutch “rooster” was “gridiron”, from the “roosten” meaning “to roast”. The connection is that a roster of names is often listed on a sheet of paper that has grid lines resembling the marks left by a gridiron on roasted meat. Quite interesting …

108 How Santa dresses, mostly : IN RED

The Santa Claus with whom we are familiar today largely comes from the description in the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas”, and from the 1863 caricature created by the political cartoonist Thomas Nast. Nast is also responsible for locating Santa’s workshop at the North Magnetic Pole, a fact that he revealed to the world in a series of drawings in 1879.

112 Luxury timepiece : OMEGA

Omega is a manufacturer of high-end watches based in Switzerland. An Omega watch was the first portable timepiece to make it to the moon, Perhaps even more (!) impressive is the fact that James Bond has been wearing an Omega watch in the movies since 1995.

113 Kidney-related : RENAL

Something described as renal is related to the kidneys. “Ren” is the Latin word for “kidney”.

114 Carving tools : ADZES

An adze (also “adz”) is similar to an ax, but is different in that the blade of an adze is set at right angles to the tool’s shaft. An ax blade is set in line with the shaft.

115 Raison d’__ : ETRE

“Raison d’être” is a French phrase meaning “reason for existence”.

116 “The Addams Family” actor Julia : RAUL

Raúl Juliá was a Hollywood actor from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Julia had a very distinguished career, but is perhaps best known for portraying Gomez Addams in the two film adaptations of “The Addams Family”.