Tag: Ring leader? crossword clue

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Constructed by: Ricky J. Sirois
Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Theme (according to Bill): Oh, Double It!

Themed answers are common phrases ending with a 2-letter word (and that word itself ending in -O). But, that 2-letter word is repeated to fit with the the corresponding clues:

• 21A Dorothy’s musing before heading back to Kansas? : DO I HAVE TOTO? (“Do I have to?” + “-to”)
• 33A All-clear before the big dance competition? : GOOD TO GO-GO (“Good to go” + “-go”)
• 42A Advice on how to prevent undue interest from influencers? : MAKE IT SO-SO (“Make it so” + “-so”)
• 53A Enthusiastic reply from a certain bird impersonator? : INDEED, I DODO (“Indeed I do” + “-do”)

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

Bill’s time: 7m 11s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1 Decoupage, e.g. : CRAFT

Découpage involves the use of colored paper cutouts that are glued onto an object as decoration The term “découpage” comes from the Middle French word “decouper” meaning “to cut out”.

6 Stroller passenger : TOT

The baby carriages that we know as “strollers” over here in North America are more usually referred to as “pushchairs” or “buggies” in Britain and Ireland.

9 Substance : HEFT

The heft of something is its weight, its heaviness. The term “heft” is derivative of the verb “to heave” meaning “to lift, raise”.

16 Largest of seven : ASIA

The seven continents, in order of size, are:

1. Asia
2. Africa
3. North America
4. South America
5. Antarctica
6. Europe
7. Australia

19 Villain in “The Lion King” : SCAR

In the 1994 movie “The Lion King”, the protagonist is Simba, a lion cub born to Mufasa and Sarabi. The main antagonist is Scar, Simba’s uncle and Mufasa’s brother. Simba is voiced by Matthew Broderick, and Scar is voiced by Jeremy Irons. “Simba” is Swahili for “lion, king, strong”.

21 Dorothy’s musing before heading back to Kansas? : DO I HAVE TOTO? (“Do I have to?” + “-to”)

Toto is Dorothy’s dog in the film “The Wizard of Oz”, and in the original book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. Toto was played in the movie by a dog called Terry, but Terry’s name was soon changed to Toto in real life due to the success of the film.

26 Persian Gulf nation : IRAN

Before 1935, the country we know today as Iran was referred to as Persia by the Western world. The official name of the country since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 is the “Islamic Republic of Iran”.

27 Durham sch. : UNH

The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is the largest university in the state. UNH was founded as the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts in 1866 in Hanover. The college was moved to Durham in the early 1890s, which is where UNH’s main campus is located to this day. The school’s athletic teams are known as the Wildcats.

28 Ellipsis trio : DOTS

An ellipsis (plural “ellipses”) is a series of dots (usually three) used to indicate an omission in some text. The term comes from the Greek word “élleipsis”, which means “omission”.

30 Terr. divided in 1889 : DAK

The Dakota Territory was formed in 1861 and ceased to exist with the admission to the Union of the states of North Dakota and South Dakota. The territory was split into two states in 1889 largely due to lobbying by the Republican Party, which enjoyed a lot of support in the Dakota Territory. The admission of two states added to the political power of the party in the US Senate, by adding four safe Republican seats.

33 All-clear before the big dance competition? : GOOD TO GO-GO (“Good to go” + “-go”)

Go-go dancing started in the early sixties. Apparently, the first go-go dancers were women at the Peppermint Lounge in New York City who would spontaneously jump up onto tables and dance the twist. It wasn’t long before clubs everywhere started hiring women to dance on tables for the entertainment of their patrons. Out in Los Angeles, the “Whisky a Go Go” club on Sunset Strip added a twist (pun intended!), as they had their dancers perform in cages suspended from the ceiling, creating the profession of “cage dancing”. The name “go-go” actually comes from two expressions. The expression in English “go-go-go” describes someone who is high energy, and the French expression “à gogo” describes something in abundance.

38 Hierarchy levels : RUNGS

The word “hierarchy” comes from ancient Greek. It’s formed from “hierós” (sacred) and “árkhō” (I rule), and so “hierarchy” literally means “rule of the sacred”. Originally, it referred to the order of angels in heaven, but over time, it expanded to describe any system with ranked levels, like in a company or society.

39 Hockey’s Bobby : ORR

In the 1970 Stanley Cup final, Bobby Orr scored the winning goal, giving the Boston Bruins a victory over the St. Louis Blues. Orr was so excited that he leapt into the air towards his teammates, sliding into their embrace as he landed on the ice. A photographer caught Orr in full horizontal flight, resulting in one of the most famous sports photographs of all time.

40 Civic, for one : SEDAN

Introduced in 1972, the Honda Civic is the second-oldest brand of Japanese car made for the US today (only the Toyota Corolla has been around longer). Today’s Civic is a compact car, but the original was smaller, and classed as a sub-compact. The first design had a transverse-mounted engine and front-wheel drive to save on space, copying the configuration introduced with the British Mini.

47 Abbr. on an ESPN crawl : NCAA

The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) dates back to the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt. When his son broke his nose playing football at Harvard, President Roosevelt turned his attention to the number of serious injuries and even deaths occurring in college sports. He instigated meetings between the major educational institutions, leading to the formation of the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States (IAAUS) in 1906, which was given the remit of regulating college sports. The IAAUS became the NCAA in 1910. The NCAA has been headquartered in Indianapolis since 1999.

A news ticker, or “crawler”, is a text-based graphic that runs across the bottom of a TV screen providing perhaps news headlines or continuous stock quotes.

53 Enthusiastic reply from a certain bird impersonator? : INDEED, I DODO (“Indeed I do” + “-do”)

The dodo was a direct relative of the pigeon and the dove, although the fully-grown dodo was usually three feet tall. One of the reasons the dodo comes to mind when we think of extinction of a species, is that it disappeared not too long ago (last recorded alive in 1662) and humans were the reason for its demise. The dodo lived exclusively on the island of Mauritius and when humans arrived, we cut back the forests that were its home. We also introduced domestic animals, such as dogs and pigs, that ransacked the dodo’s nests. The dodo was deemed to be an awkward flightless bird and so the term “dodo” has come to mean a dull-witted person.

57 One with a platonic partner, for short : ARO

Someone described as aromantic (“aro”, for short) experiences little or no romantic attraction. The opposite of aromanticism is alloromanticism.

The Greek philosopher Plato wrote a philosophical treatise on the nature of love called “Symposium”. “Symposium” is the source of the contemporary phrase “Platonic love”.

65 Pizza joint in “Do the Right Thing” : SAL’S

“Do the Right Thing” is a Spike Lee movie that was released in 1989. Much of the action in the film is centered on a local pizzeria called “Sal’s” owned by Italian-American Salvatore Frangione (played by Danny Aiello).

66 Souvenir from an animated film : CEL

Animation cels are transparent sheets made of celluloid acetate that were used in traditional hand-drawn animation to create animated films. They were first introduced in the 1930s and were widely used in animation production until the late 1990s, when digital animation techniques began to dominate the industry.

67 Worshipper of Jah : RASTA

“Jah” is a shortened form of “Jehovah”, and is a name often associated with the Rastafari movement.

Down

4 Keyless key : FOB

A fob is attached to an object to make it easier to access. And so, a key fob is a chain attached to a key so that it can be retrieved easily. There are also watch fobs, and the pocket in a vest in which a watch can be placed is called a fob. In fact, the original use of the term “fob” was for a small pocket in which one could carry valuables.

5 Weapons for Neptune and Shiva : TRIDENTS

Neptune was a Roman god, of both the sea and of freshwater. He was sometimes known as “Neptunus Equester” as he was also the god of horses and patron of horse-racing.

Shiva (also “Siva”) is one of the major deities of the Hindu tradition, and is known as the destroyer of evil and the transformer. Shiva is also part of the Hindu trinity known as the Trimurti, along with Brahma and Vishnu.

9 “__ mañana” : HASTA

“Hasta mañana” translates from Spanish as “See you tomorrow”, and literally as “Until tomorrow”.

10 San Diego suburb whose name means “hidden” : ESCONDIDO

Escondido, Spanish for “hidden”, is a city in Southern California that is now a suburb of San Diego. The name “Escondido” likely originates from the city’s location in a valley surrounded by rocky hills, giving it a secluded feel.

11 Italian automaker : FIAT

Fiat is the largest car manufacturer in Italy, and is headquartered in Turin in the Piedmont region in the north of the country. Fiat was founded in 1899 by Giovanni Agnelli, when the company’s name was “Fabbrica Italiana di Automobili Torino” (FIAT). A few years ago, Fiat became the majority shareholder in Chrysler.

15 Danny of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” : DEVITO

Danny DeVito’s big break as an actor came with the role of Louie De Palma on the sitcom “Taxi”. After parlaying his success on television into some major comic roles on the big screen, DeVito turned to producing. He co-founded the production company Jersey Films which made hit movies such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Garden State”. DeVito married actress Rhea Perlman in 1982, but the couple separated in 2017, after over three decades together.

22 Cuatro y cuatro : OCHO

In Spanish, “ocho” (eight) is the sum of “cuatro y cuatro” (four plus four).

25 2022 and 2024 AL MVP : JUDGE

Aaron Judge is a baseball outfielder who was selected as 2017’s American League Rookie of the Year. Judge is a big guy. He weighs 282 pounds, and is 6 foot 7 inches tall.

28 Not at all cool : DORKY

I consider “dork” and “adorkable” to be pretty offensive slang. “Dork” originated in the sixties among American students, and has its roots in another slang term, a term for male genitalia.

32 Casino game : KENO

The name of the game keno has French or Latin roots, with the French “quine” being a term describing five winning numbers, and the Latin “quini” meaning “five each”. The game originated in China and was introduced into the West by Chinese immigrants who were working on the first Transcontinental Railroad in the 1800s.

37 Sauce made with pine nuts : PESTO

Pesto sauce is more completely called “pesto alla genovese”, i.e. pesto from Genoa. A traditional recipe calls for crushed garlic, pine nuts, salt, basil leaves, parmesan cheese and olive oil. Yum …

45 “Run Away With Me” singer Carly __ Jepsen : RAE

Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Run Away With Me” is a song about new love and the desire to escape with that special someone. Released in 2015 from her album “Emotion”, the accompanying music video was shot and directed by David Kalani Larkins. Jepsen and Larkins were dating when they shot the footage, and its grainy imagery gives the effect of a personal travelogue of their adventures together in Paris, New York City, and Tokyo.

49 Brand of canned chiles : RO-TEL

Ro-Tel is a brand of canned diced tomatoes and green chilies. Introduced in the 1940s by Carl Roettele in Elsa, Texas, the first product was canned tomatoes combined with mild green chilies.

51 Reznor with two Oscars for Best Original Score : TRENT

Not only is Trent Reznor the founder and frontman of the rock band Nine Inch Nails, he also collaborates with fellow band member Atticus Ross in writing film and television scores. The pair scored some very famous movies, including “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, “Gone Girl” and “Patriots Day”. They won the Best Original Score Oscar for “The Social Network”.

54 U.S. weather agency : NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is one of the seven federal uniformed services, namely:

• Army
• Marine Corps
• Navy
• Air Force
• Coast Guard
• Public Health Service Commissioned Corps
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Corps