Tag: Classic Wham-O toy crossword clue

Bill’s time: 5m 14s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

6 Composer Stravinsky : IGOR

The composer Igor Stravinsky’s most famous works were completed relatively early in his career, when he was quite young. His three ballets “The Firebird”, “Petrushka” and “The Rite of Spring” were published in 1910-1913, when Stravinsky was in his early thirties.

16 Baseball Hall of Famer Slaughter : ENOS

Enos Slaughter has a remarkable playing record in Major League Baseball over a 19-year career. Slaughter’s record is particularly remarkable given that he left baseball for three years to serve in the military during WWII.

19 New Haven school : YALE

The city of New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1638 by Puritan immigrants from England. New Haven is home to Yale University. The city also initiated the first public tree planting program in the country. The large elms included in the program led to New Haven being called “the Elm City”.

20 Silent communication syst. : ASL

American Sign Language (ASL)

22 Org. with a five-ring logo : IOC

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was founded in 1894, and has its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The symbol of the Olympic Games consists of five interlocking rings, with each ring representing one of the five continents involved in the Olympics. The five continents are Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania and America (North and South combined). The symbol was designed in 1912, adopted in 1914, and introduced at the 1920 Games.

23 Christmas song : NOEL

“Noël” is the French word for the Christmas season, and ultimately comes from the Latin word for “birth” (natalis). “Noel” has come to be used as an alternative name for a Christmas carol.

25 Social media barrage : TWEETSTORM (giving “storm window”)

In the wonderful world of Twitter (said he, sarcastically), a tweetstorm is a series of related tweets by a single user on a related subject.

29 Slammin’ Sammy of golf : SNEAD

Sam Snead was probably the most successful golfer never to win a US Open title, as he won a record 82 PGA Tour events. Snead did win seven majors, but never the US Open. He was also quite the showman. He once hit the scoreboard at Wrigley Field stadium with a golf ball, by teeing off from home plate. Snead’s best-remembered nickname is “Slammin’ Sammy”.

37 Cavity filler’s deg. : DDS

Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS)

38 Home of many a blue crab : CHESAPEAKE BAY (giving “bay window”)

Chesapeake Bay is on the Atlantic coast and is surrounded by the states of Maryland and Virginia. Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the whole country, with over 150 rivers and streams draining into it, including the Potomac.

A live blue crab gets its color from pigments in the shell, which predominantly result in a blue color. When the crab is cooked all the pigments break down except for astaxanthin, a red pigment, which is why crab turns up at the dinner table looking very red.

A bay window is a window that projects outside, beyond the wall. The resulting space inside the wall forms a “bay” inside a room.

42 Trivial amount : SOU

A sou is an old French coin. We use the term “sou” to mean “an almost worthless amount”.

43 Daily grind : RAT RACE

We use “rat race” figuratively to describe an endless, pointless pursuit. The term comes from the laboratory, where one might imagine rats racing around a maze in search of some cheese.

47 Desert retreats : OASES

An isolated area of vegetation in a desert is called an oasis (plural “oases”). As water is needed for plant growth, an oasis might also include a spring, pond or small lake. We often use the term “oasis” more generally to describe a haven, a place of rest.

58 Peter of “The Maltese Falcon” : LORRE

The marvelous actor Peter Lorre was born in what is now modern-day Slovakia. Lorre’s real name was Laszlo Lowenstein. He started acting in Vienna when he was quite young, only 17 years old. When Hitler came to power, the Jewish Lowenstein headed to Paris and then London, eventually ending up in Hollywood. Lorre found himself typecast as the wicked foreigner in American movies, but I think he sneered and snarled his way to the bank.

The classic detective novel “The Maltese Falcon” was written by Dashiell Hammett and first published in 1930. The main character is Sam Spade, a character played by Humphrey Bogart in the third movie adaptation of the book, a film of the same name and released in 1941.

61 Waffle House alternative : IHOP

The International House of Pancakes (IHOP) was founded back in 1958. IHOP was originally intended to be called IHOE, the International House of Eggs, but that name didn’t do too well in marketing tests!

63 Hitchcock classic, and a hint to 17-, 25-, 38- and 51-Across : REAR WINDOW

“Rear Window” is a fabulous 1954 Hitchcock movie that is based on a short story called “It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich. Stars in the film are James Stewart, Grace Kelly, with Raymond Burr playing the “bad guy”. Great, great movie …

65 “Famous” cookie guy : AMOS

Wally Amos was a talent agent, one who was in the habit of taking home-baked cookies with him as an enticement to get celebrities to see him. He was urged by friends to open a cookie store (the cookies were that delicious, I guess) and this he did in Los Angeles in 1975 using the name “Famous Amos”. The store was a smash hit and he was able build on the success by introducing his cookies into supermarkets. The brand was eventually purchased, making Wally a rich man, and Famous Amos cookies are still flying off the shelf. Wally Amos also became an energetic literacy advocate. He hosted 30 TV programs in 1987 entitled “Learn to Read” that provided reading instruction targeted at adults.

66 Angelic aura : HALO

The Greek word “halos” is the name given to the ring of light around the sun or moon, which gives us our word “halo” that is used for a radiant light depicted above the head of a saintly person.

Down

1 Saint __: English cathedral city : ALBANS

St. Albans is a city just north of central London. The city takes its name from St. Alban, the first British martyr, who was beheaded there sometime before AD 324. If you’ve ever seen the excellent movie “Birthday Girl” starring Nicole Kidman and Ben Chaplin, it is set in St. Albans (although it was actually filmed in Australia, to suit Ms. Kidman’s schedule!).

2 Arsenic, e.g. : POISON

Arsenic is element #33 in the periodic table, and has the chemical symbol “As”. Because of arsenic’s toxicity, it was very commonly used in pesticides. These compounds are getting banned over time, but it seems there is a long way to go. Arsenic in aquifers continues to be a problem around the world, including here in the US. China has introduced limits to the amounts of arsenic permitted in food as well as water, mainly as the Chinese staple of rice is particularly effective at accumulating arsenic from groundwater.

3 “Life of Pi” director : ANG LEE

Taiwanese director Ang Lee sure has directed a mixed bag of films, mixed in terms of genre but not in terms of quality. He was at the helm for such classics as “Sense & Sensibility” (my personal favorite), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, “Hulk”, “Brokeback Mountain” and “Life of Pi”.

The 2012 movie “Life of Pi” is based on a 2001 novel of the same name by Yann Martel. The “Pi” in the title is an Indian boy named Pi Patel who finds himself adrift for 227 days in small boat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

5 Chicago paper, for short : TRIB

“The Chicago Tribune” was first published in 1847. The most famous edition of “The Trib” was probably in 1948 when the headline was “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN”, on the occasion of that year’s presidential election. When it turned out Truman had actually won, the victor picked up the paper with the erroneous headline and posed for photographs with it … a famous, famous photo, that must have stuck in the craw of the editor at the time.

7 First-aid kit item : GAUZE

The surgical dressing called “gauze” is named for the thin fabric with a loose weave that bears the same name. The fabric’s name might possibly be derived from the Palestinian city of Gaza that has a history of gauze production.

8 How corned beef is often served : ON RYE

Corned beef is beef that has been cured with salt. “Corn” is an alternative term for a grain of salt, giving the dish its name. Corned beef is also known as “salt beef”, and “bully beef” if stored in cans (from the French “bouilli” meaning “boiled”).

9 Actress Charlotte : RAE

Charlotte Rae was an American actress best known for playing the character Edna Garrett on two sitcoms from the seventies and eighties: “Diff’rent Strokes” and “The Facts of Life”. Towards the end of the series, the Edna Garrett character operated her own gourmet food shop called “Edna’s Edibles”.

10 Desert hallucinogen : PEYOTE

The peyote is a small, spineless cactus that is native to southwestern Texas and Mexico. When ingested, the peyote is known to have a psychoactive effect. One of the psychoactive alkaloids in peyote is mescaline, a recreative drug of choice for the likes of Aldous Huxley and Pablo Picasso.

11 Amazon crusher : ANACONDA

Anacondas are native to the tropical regions of South America. The green anaconda is one of the world’s largest snakes, growing to 17 feet long and weighing up to 550 pounds! Anacondas are not venomous, and prefer to kill their prey by coiling around it and then squeeeeeezing …

12 Facebook chuckle : LOL

Laugh out loud (LOL)

22 AOL, for one : ISP

AOL was a leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) in the 1980s and 1990s. The company does still provide dial-up access to the Internet for some subscribers, but most users now access AOL using faster, non-AOL ISPs.

24 Lingerie material : LACE

“Lingerie” is a French term. As used in France, it just means any underwear, worn by either males or females. In English we use “lingerie” to describe alluring underclothing worn by women. The term “lingerie” comes into English via the French word “linge” meaning “washables”, and ultimately from the Latin “linum”, meaning “linen”. We tend not to pronounce the word correctly in English, either here in the US or across the other side of the Atlantic. The French pronunciation is more like “lan-zher-ee”, as opposed to “lon-zher-ay” (American) and “lon-zher-ee” (British).

26 Big name in little trucks : TONKA

The toy manufacturer today known as Tonka started out as a manufacturer of garden implements in Mound, Minnesota in 1946. By 1955, toys had become the main product line for the company. At that time the owners decided to change the company name and opted for “Tonka”, a Dakota Sioux word meaning “great, big”.

27 Former NYC mayor Giuliani : RUDY

Rudy Giuliani became known around the world as he stepped up and led his city during the terrible days following the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. His actions that September earned him a number of accolades. He was named as “Time” magazine’s person of the year, and was given an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II.

28 Base cops, briefly : MPS

MPs (military police officers) often track down personnel who go AWOL (absent without leave).

30 Prosecutors: Abbr. : DAS

District Attorney (DA)

33 Foot bones : TARSI

The tarsals (also “tarsi”) are the ankle bones, and are equivalent to the carpals in the wrist.

34 Tax pro : CPA

Certified public accountant (CPA)

35 All __ up: excited : HET

Someone who is het up is worked up, or angry. “Het” is an archaic word meaning “heated”.

36 Dinghy mover : OAR

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

38 Baskin-Robbins treat : CONE

The Baskin-Robbins chain of ice cream parlors is the largest in the word. The chain was founded by Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins in Glendale, California in 1945. The company started using the slogan “31 flavors” in 1953, suggesting that a customer could order a different flavor of ice cream on every day of every month.

39 Classic Wham-O toy : HULA HOOP

Wham-O was founded in 1948, with the company’s first product being the Wham-O slingshot. Since then, Wham-O has market a string of hit toys including the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, the Slip ‘N Slide, Silly String, the Hacky Sack and the Boogie Board.

53 Cute Down Under critter : KOALA

The koala bear really does look like a little bear, but it’s not even closely related. The koala is an arboreal marsupial and a herbivore, native to the east and south coasts of Australia. Koalas aren’t primates, and are one of the few mammals other than primates who have fingerprints. In fact, it can be very difficult to tell human fingerprints from koala fingerprints, even under an electron microscope. Male koalas are called “bucks”, females are “does”, and young koalas are “joeys”. I’m a little jealous of the koala, as it sleeps up to 20 hours a day …

54 Swashbuckling Flynn : ERROL

Actor Errol Flynn was born 1909 in Tasmania, Australia where he was raised. In his twenties, Flynn lived in the UK where he pursued his acting career. Around the same time he starred in an Australian film “In the Wake of the Bounty” and then appeared in a British film “Murder at Monte Carlo”. It was in the latter film that he was noticed by Warner Brothers who brought him to America. Flynn’s non-American heritage shone through even while he was living the American dream in California. He regularly played cricket, along with his friend David Niven, in the Hollywood Cricket Club.

A swashbuckler is a flashy swordsman. The term “swashbuckler” probably derives somehow from “swash” meaning “fall of a blow”, and “buckler” meaning “small round shield”.

55 Experian, formerly : TRW

TRW was a company involved in aerospace, automotive and credit reporting. The credit reporting division of TRW was spun off in 1996 to form Experian.

59 Mozart’s “__ kleine Nachtmusik” : EINE

Mozart’s ”Serenade No. 13 for Strings in G major” is better known as “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”, which translates into “a little serenade”, but the more literal English translation of “a little night music” is often used. It is a delightful piece in four, very recognizable movements, although there is much debate about a “lost” fifth movement.

61 Author Fleming : IAN

Ian Fleming is most famous for writing the “James Bond” series of spy novels. You might also know that he wrote the children’s story “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, which was made into a cute movie released in 1968 and even a stage musical that opened in 2002.

62 Medical ins. plan : HMO

Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)

63 Letter after pi : RHO

Rho is the Greek letter that looks just like our Roman letter “p”, although it is equivalent to the Roman letter R.