Tag: Hangry plea crossword clue

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Constructed by: Justin Werfel

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: TV Set

Today’s SET of themed answers are all two words, starting with the letters TV:

• 72A Screen found in many a living room, or what 16-, 29-, 49-, and 63-Across can be called : TV SET

• 16A Avian scavengers with red heads : TURKEY VULTURES
• 29A Demo release : TRIAL VERSION
• 49A Paperwork for leisure travelers : TOURIST VISAS
• 63A Part of speech that requires a direct object : TRANSITIVE VERB

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

Bill’s time: 5m 45s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

14A Gobi Desert continent : ASIA

The Gobi, the large desert in Asia, lies in northern China and southern Mongolia. It is growing at an alarming rate, particularly towards the south. This “desertification” is caused by increased human activity. The Chinese government is trying to halt the desert’s forward progress by planting great swaths of new forest, the so-called “Green Wall of China”. The name “Gobi” is Mongolian for “waterless place, semidesert”.

16A Avian scavengers with red heads : TURKEY VULTURES

The turkey vulture is also known simply as the buzzard. It is found anywhere from southern Canada right down to the southern tip of South America. It feeds on carrion, using its sharp eyesight and very keen sense of smell. In fact when seeking out nourishment, the turkey vulture flies low enough so that it can pick up the gasses given off as the body of a dead animal begins to decay.

21A Smitten Kitchen blogger Perelman : DEB

“Smitten Kitchen” is a cooking blog that Deb Perelman has been publishing since 2006. She parlayed her successful blog into a cookbook, also called “Smitten Kitchen”, which was published in 2012. The fourth person to comment on Deb’s blog was a gentleman named Alex Perelman. After that first meeting, Alex and Deb became friends, and years later got married.

22A Some QB protectors : RTS

In American football, right tackles (RTs) guard the quarterback (QB).

27A Hangry plea : FEED ME

“Hangry” is an informal term meaning “irritable because of hunger”. It is a portmanteau of “hungry” and “angry”.

34A Pop singer Carly __ Jepsen : RAE

Carly Rae Jepsen is a singer/songwriter from Mission, British Columbia. She got her start on TV’s “Canadian Idol” when she placed third in the show’s fifth season. In addition to her music career, Jepsen has also dabbled in acting. She made her Broadway debut in 2014 playing the title in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Cinderella.”

35A “The Incredibles” supersuit designer Mode : EDNA

Edna Mode is a character from “The Incredibles” series of films. She’s an incredibly talented fashion designer, known for creating the super-suits worn by the superhero family. She also has a firm belief that “No capes!” are essential for superhero safety. Edna is voiced by the films’ director, Brad Bird.

42A Addams cousin : ITT

In the television sitcom “The Addams Family”, the family has a frequent visitor named Cousin Itt. He is a diminutive, hair-covered relative who communicates entirely in a rapid, high-pitched squeak. Cartoonist Charles Addams never featured the character in his “New Yorker” panels, and he was introduced in the 1964 TV premiere.

43A Gambling town near Tahoe : RENO

Long before the explosive growth of Las Vegas, the Nevada city of Reno reigned as the undisputed gambling and divorce capital of the US throughout the mid-20th century.

45A One of eight on an octopus : ARM

The term “octopus” comes from the Greek for “eight-footed”. The most common plural used is “octopuses”, although the Greek plural form “octopodes” is also quite correct. The plural “octopi” isn’t really correct as the inference is that “octopus” is like a second-declension Latin noun, which it isn’t. That said, dictionaries are now citing “octopi” as an acceptable plural. Language does evolve, and that drives me crazy …

49A Paperwork for leisure travelers : TOURIST VISAS

A visa is usually a stamp in one’s passport, an indication that one is authorized to enter (and less often, to exit) a particular country. The word “visa” comes into English, via French, from the Latin expression “charta visa” meaning “paper that has been seen”, or “verified paper”.

53A Nonprofit journalism agcy. : AP NEWS

The Associated Press (AP) is a news agency based in New York City. AP is a non-profit cooperative that was set up by five New York newspapers in 1846 to share the cost of transmitting news. Nowadays, AP recoups most of its cost by selling news stories and related materials to newspapers all around the world, mostly outside of the US.

59A 20-vol. lexicon : OED

Oxford English Dictionary (OED)

A lexicon was originally just a dictionary, but we tend nowadays to use the term “lexicon” more often to describe a vocabulary that relates to some specific area of activity.

61A Karate rank : DAN

The dan ranking system is used in several Japanese and Korean martial arts. The ranking indicates a level of proficiency, and often only applies to practitioners who have already earned a black belt.

62A Dallas City Hall architect I.M. __ : PEI

Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei designed the Dallas City Hall. The remarkable building features an inverted wedge shape, tilting outward at a dramatic 34-degree angle to cast a massive, cooling shadow over its own facade during the hot Texas summers.

63A Part of speech that requires a direct object : TRANSITIVE VERB

Transitive verbs are those that can take direct objects, and intransitive verbs are those that do not. Examples of transitive verbs are “throw (the ball)” and “injure (a leg)”. Examples of intransitive verbs are “fall” and “sit”.

70A Actress Adams of “The Muppets” : AMY

Amy Adams is an American actress, although she was actually born in Vicenza, Italy while her father was a US serviceman stationed on an Italian base. My favorite Amy Adams film so far is the outstanding “Julie & Julia” in which she acted alongside Meryl Streep. I highly recommend this truly delightful movie.

“The Muppets” is a 2011 film starring Jason Segel and Amy Adams. It was the first “Muppet” film to be released after a hiatus of twelve years, with a sequel coming out in 2014.

71A Fairy tale opening : ONCE

The stock phrase “Once upon a time …” has been used in various forms as the start of a narrative at least since 1380. The stock phrase at the end of stories such as folktales is often “and they all lived happily ever after”. The earlier version of this ending was “happily until their deaths”.

Down

2D Card with two pips : DEUCE

A two in a deck of playing cards might be called a “deuce”, from the Middle French “deus” (or Modern French “deux”) meaning “two”.

3D “Knives Out” protagonist : MARTA

In the 2019 mystery movie “Knives Out”, actress Ana de Armas makes her breakout Hollywood performance as the empathetic nurse Marta Cabrera. De Armas’s performance earned widespread critical acclaim, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress

4D “Grody!” : ICK!

“Grody” is an expression of disgust, and is short for “grotesque”.

5D Hitchcock film with nonhuman villains : THE BIRDS

“The Birds” is a 1963 film made by Alfred Hitchcock based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier. I’ve read the story and seen the film and find them both strangely disturbing (it’s probably just me!). I can’t stand the ending of either version, as nothing resolves itself!

6D Capital of Cuba : HAVANA

Havana is the capital of Cuba. The city was founded by the Spanish in the early 1500s after which it became a strategic location for Spain’s exploration and conquest of the Americas. In particular, Havana was used as a stopping-off point for treasure-laden ships on the return journey to Spain.

7D Columbus sch. : OSU

Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus was founded back in 1870 as the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The athletic teams of OSU are called the Buckeyes, named after the state tree of Ohio. In turn the buckeye tree gets its name from the appearance of its fruit, a dark nut with a light patch thought to resemble a “buck’s eye”. The school’s athletic mascot was introduced in 1965, and is an anthropomorphic buckeye nut named Brutus Buckeye.

The city of Columbus, Ohio is a “purpose-built” state capital. The state legislature selected the location for Ohio’s new capital in 1812, choosing dense forest land with no significant settlement, largely due to its strategic location in the center of the state. The name was chosen in honor of the explorer Christopher Columbus.

17D Bear who steals “pic-a-nic” baskets : YOGI

Yogi Bear made his debut for Hanna-Barbera in 1958, on “The Huckleberry Hound Show” before he was given his own series. Do you remember that collar that Yogi wore around his neck? That was a little trick from the animators. By using the collar, for many frames all they had to do was redraw everything from the collar up, saving them lots and lots of time. Yogi and Boo Boo lived in Jellystone Park, and made Ranger Smith’s life a misery.

23D Upper house of Congress : SENATE

The US Congress is described as “bicameral” in that it is divided into two separate assemblies, namely the Senate and the House of Representatives. The term “bicameral” comes from the prefix “bi-” meaning “two”, and the Latin “camera” meaning “chamber”. A unicameral legislature consists of a single legislative chamber. Nebraska is the only US state to use this one-house system, having abolished its upper house in 1937.

25D Cell service initials : LTE

In the world of telecommunications, the initialism LTE stands for Long-Term Evolution, and is a wireless broadband communication standard. In general terms, LTE improves broadband speeds. As I understand it, LTE technology allows a 3G network to perform almost as well as a true 4G network, and so LTE is sometimes marketed as 4G LTE, even though it’s really “3G plus”.

26D High-end camera, for short : SLR

Single-lens reflex (SLR) camera

31D Running tally of drinks at a pub : BAR TAB

When we run a “tab” at a bar, we are running a “tabulation”, a listing of what we owe. Such a use of “tab” is American slang that originated in the 1880s.

32D Pharaoh played by Elizabeth Taylor : CLEOPATRA

The 1963 movie “Cleopatra” really is an epic work. It was the highest grossing film of the year, taking in $26 million dollars at the box office, yet it still lost money. The original budget for the film was just $2 million, but so many things went wrong the final cost swelled to a staggering $44 million dollars, making it the second most expensive movie ever made (taking into account inflation). Elizabeth Taylor was supposed to earn a record amount of $1 million for the film, and ended up earning seven times that amount due to delays. But she paid dearly, as she became seriously ill during shooting and had to have an emergency tracheotomy to save her life. The scar in her throat can actually be seen in some of the shots in the film.

Cleopatra was the last pharaoh to rule Egypt. After she died, Egypt became a province in the Roman Empire.

33D Puzzle : CONUNDRUM

“Conundrum” is a relatively new word, even though it sounds like Latin. It was coined in the late 16th century in Oxford University, England as a slang, pseudo-Latin word meaning “pedant”. Somehow, this meaning evolved into “riddle, puzzle” in the late 18th century.

38D Collects $200 in Monopoly : PASSES GO

In the game of Monopoly, sometimes you “Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.”

51D Antiseptic fluid : IODINE

Tincture of iodine is a disinfectant. A “tincture” is a substance used in dyeing. Since the 1600s, “tincture” has also been used for a solution of medicine in an alcohol mixture.

52D Czech or Pole : SLAV

The Slavic peoples are in the majority in communities covering over half of Europe. This large ethnic group is traditionally broken down into three smaller groups:

• the West Slavic (including Czechs and Poles)
• the East Slavic (including Russians and Ukrainians)
• the South Slavic (including Bulgarians, Croats and Serbs)

57D Neighbor of Nepal : TIBET

Tibet is a plateau region that is part of China, and is located north of the Himalayas. Tibet declared its independence from China in 1913, but fell back under Chinese control after the Invasion of Tibet in 1951. The Tibetan leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, fled the country during the 1959 Tibetan Rebellion. Since then, he has led the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India.

60D Gorilla researcher Fossey : DIAN

Dian Fossey carried out her famous study of gorilla populations in the mountain forests of Rwanda. She wrote a 1983 autobiographical account of her work titled “Gorillas in the Mist”, which served as a basis for a 1988 film of the same name starring Sigourney Weaver as Fossey. Sadly, Fossey was found dead in her cabin in Rwanda in 1986, murdered in her bedroom, her skull split open by a machete. The crime was never solved.

66D “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” aunt, familiarly : VIV

The character Vivian Banks joined the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” in 1990, portrayed by Janet Hubert. Apparently, Hubert had a rough relationship with the producers and she left the show after the third season, resulting in actress Daphne Maxwell Reid taking over the character for the remainder of the series.