Tag: Lacking constraints crossword clue

Bill’s time: 27m 03s

Bill’s errors: 2

• MOUE (mope)
• TUDE (tpde!!)

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

1A “Aladdin” villain : JAFAR

Jafar is the bad guy in the animated film “Aladdin”. He was important enough to get his name front and center in the sequel called “Aladdin 2”, which is usually referred to as “The Return of Jafar”.

14A Heat setting, in brief? : NBA

The Miami Heat basketball team debuted in the NBA in the 1988-89 season. The franchise name was chosen in a competitive survey, with “Miami Heat” beating out “Miami Vice”.

17A Dutch Caribbean isle : ARUBA

Aruba is one of the so-called ABC islands located off the northern coast of Venezuela. “ABC Islands” is a name given to the three westernmost islands of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean. The nickname comes from the first letters of the island names: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. All three of the ABC islands are part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

22A “MARTIN SHEEN” : HENRI MATISSE

Henri Matisse was a French artist renowned for his contribution to modern art. In his early career, Matisse was classed as a “fauve”, one of the group of artists known as the “wild beasts” who emphasized strong color over realism in their works. He was a lifelong friend of Pablo Picasso, and the two were considered to be good-natured rivals so their works are often compared. One major difference between their individual portfolios is that Picasso tended to paint from his imagination, whereas Matisse tended to use nature as his inspiration.

“Martin Sheen” is the stage name of actor Ramón Estévez. Despite all of his great performances, Sheen has never even been nominated for an Academy Award. Isn’t that something? I thought he was outstanding in his starring role in television’s “The West Wing”.

24A “LIAM NEESON” : SAL MINEO

Actor Sal Mineo’s most famous role was John “Plato” Crawford, the kid who was in awe of the James Dean character in “Rebel Without a Cause”. Sadly, Mineo was murdered in 1976 when he was just 37 years old. He was attacked in the alley behind his Los Angeles apartment and stabbed through the heart. When an arrest was made it was discovered that the murderer had no idea that his victim was a celebrity, and that his plan was just to rob anyone who came along.

Irish actor Liam Neeson’s big break came with the role of Oskar Schindler in the Spielberg epic, “Schindler’s List”. Neeson was in the news some years later when he lost his wife, actress Natasha Richardson, in a tragic skiing accident in 2009. Earlier in his life, in the 1980s, Neeson lived for several years with Oscar-winning actress Helen Mirren.

25A Chef Hussain of “The Great British Bake Off” fame : NADIYA

Nadiya Hussain is a renowned British TV chef and cookbook author who captured the hearts of viewers when she won the Great British Baking Show in 2015. Her popularity soared even higher when she was commissioned to bake a birthday cake for Queen Elizabeth II on her 90th birthday. Nadiya’s warm personality and infectious enthusiasm made her a fan favorite, and she has since become a popular television presenter and a passionate advocate for increasing diversity in cookery. I’m no baker, but I do count myself as one of her ardent fans …

“The Great British Bake Off” (GBBO) is a television baking competition introduced by the BBC in the UK in 2010. The show was a phenomenal and perhaps surprising success almost immediately. GBBO is rebroadcast in the US as “The Great British Baking Show”, because Pillsbury have trademarked the term “Bake-Off”. There was great controversy in the UK in 2016 when the BBC couldn’t find the fund to pay the producers for the show, and so it moved to a new channel, with a new set of hosts. The BBC hosts decided not to move with the show, saying they weren’t interested in the extra “dough” offered (their pun!).

26A Discount Chinese e-tailer : TEMU

Temu is an online marketplace founded in 2022. The company’s business model depends on vendors in China being able to ship directly to customers, without the cost of local distribution in the customer’s own country, hence lowering costs (and presumably prices).

28A Jumbo shrimp : PRAWN

The terms “prawn” and “shrimp” are often used interchangeably on menus. Over in the UK, the term “prawn” is most common, while “shrimp” is seen more often here in North America. Sometimes there is a differentiation from a food standpoint, with “prawn” being used for larger species and “shrimp” for smaller species. As a result, “jumbo prawns” seems to be an acceptable descriptor for a dish, whereas “jumbo shrimp” seems to be an oxymoron.

31A Pink-slips : CANS

The term “pink-slip” can be used as a verb meaning “to terminate an employee”. No one really seems to know for sure where the phrase originated, but there are lots of stories.

33A “NORMAN REEDUS” : DONNA SUMMER

Donna Summer is known as “The Queen of Disco”, with great hits like “Love to Love You, Baby”, “I Feel Love” and “Hot Stuff”. In the late sixties and early seventies, LaDonna Gaines (her real name) lived and worked in Germany. There she met and married an Austrian actor called Helmuth Sommer. They divorced not long after the marriage, but Donna kept his family name, just changing the “o” to “u” to give her the stage name of “Donna Summer”.

Actor Norman Reedus is perhaps best known to TV audiences for portraying the crossbow-wielding Daryl Dixon on “The Walking Dead”. He also played Murphy MacManus, one of the murderous twin brothers in the 1999 film “The Boondock Saints”.

37A “GREG KINNEAR” : REGINA KING

Regina King won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance in the 2018 film “If Beale Street Could Talk”. On television, King plays the lead in the superhero drama series “Watchmen”.

Greg Kinnear is a favorite actor of mine, one probably best recognized for his Oscar-nominated performance in the excellent film “As Good as it Gets” from 1997.

43A Offer illegally, as tickets : SCALP

Scalping of tickets, selling them above retail price for an excessive profit, originated in the mid-1800s with scalpers making money off theater tickets. There was also quite a bit of money made by people scalping railway tickets. Railroads gave discounts on tickets for longer journeys, so someone trying to get from San Francisco to Chicago might buy a ticket to New York. Once in Chicago the passenger would scalp the remainder of his/her ticket to someone wanting to get to New York, and make his or her invested money back with a bonus. The exact etymology of the term “scalper” seems unclear.

48A “MORGAN FREEMAN” : GEORGE FOREMAN

George Foreman is a former World Heavyweight Champion boxer and Olympic gold medalist. Famously, Foreman lost his title to Muhammad Ali in the 1974 title fight that was billed as “the Rumble in the Jungle”. Foreman is also known for promoting the George Foreman Grill, and for naming all five of his sons “George”.

Actor Morgan Freeman hails from Memphis, Tennessee. As well as his outstanding performances in front of the camera, Freeman is noted for his distinctive, deep voice. That voice gets him a lot of work narrating television shows and commercials.

55A Class for some recent arrivals, for short : ESL

English as a Second Language (ESL)

59A Chemist Lilly : ELI

Eli Lilly is the largest corporation in the state of Indiana. Founder Eli Lilly was a veteran of the Union Army in the Civil War, and a failed Mississippi plantation owner. Later in life he returned to his first profession and opened a pharmaceutical operation to manufacture drugs and sell them wholesale. Under Lilly’s early guidance, the company was the first to mass-produce gelatin capsules to hold medicines and the first to use fruit flavoring in liquid medicines.

60A Chilean poet who served as a Communist senator : NERUDA

“Pablo Neruda” was the pen name, and eventually the legal name, used by Chilean writer Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. Basoalto chose the name as an homage to Czech poet Jan Neruda.

64A Friar with a famous “razor” : OCCAM

Occam’s Razor, properly attributed to William of Ockham, has roots in earlier philosophical thought. The principle, which states that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected, can be traced back to Aristotle’s “Physics”, in which he writes “Nature operates in the shortest way possible”.

74A Alfresco area : PATIO

Our word “alfresco” means outdoors, in the fresh air. The term came into English from Italian, in which language “al fresco” translates literally as “in the cool air”.

80A ___ card : SIM

Most cell phones used to have SIM cards. SIM cards hold the personal information of the subscriber, with the acronym being short for “Subscriber Identity Module”. Phone companies have migrated towards the use of eSIMs (embedded SIMs), which don’t require a removable physical card.

81A Rite Aid rival : CVS

The name of the drugstore chain CVS once stood for “Consumer Value Stores”, although these days the company uses the initialism to denote “Convenience, Value and Service”.

84A “CHRISTIAN SLATER” : ELAINE STRITCH

Elaine Stritch was an actress and singer who had a very successful career, particularly on Broadway. She was nominated for a Tony Award five times, with the first nomination coming for her performance in the 1955 production of “Bus Stop”. Stritch eventually won a Tony in 2002, for her one-woman show “Elaine Stritch at Liberty”. She lived and worked in London for a long time. I remember her as a lead in a Britcom titled “Two’s Company”, which was successful in Britain and Ireland and was remade (without much success) in the US as “The Two of Us”.

Christian Slater is an actor from New York City. My favorite roles that he has played are in “Broken Arrow” with John Travolta, and on the TV series “The West Wing” and “Mr. Robot”.

89A City on the Illinois River : PEORIA

Peoria is the oldest European settlement in the state of Illinois, having been settled by the French in 1680. The city is famous for being cited as “the average American city”.

The Illinois River is a tributary of the Mississippi that played a significant role in the growth of the city of Chicago. In the late 1800s, engineers reversed the flow of the Chicago River, causing it to flow into the Illinois River instead of Lake Michigan. This allowed the city’s sewage and other waste to flow away from the lake, which was the source of the city’s drinking water. As a result, the Illinois River became heavily polluted, leading to environmental concerns and efforts to clean it up in more recent years.

92A Grumpy grimace : MOUE

The term “moue” comes from French, and means “small grimace, pout”.

93A Discontinued Swedish cars : SAABS

“SAAB” stands for Svenska Aeroplan AB, which translates into English as Swedish Aeroplane Limited. Although we usually think of SAAB as an auto manufacturer, it is mainly an aircraft manufacturer. If you take small hops in Europe you might find yourself on a SAAB passenger plane. The SAAB automotive division was acquired by General Motors in the year 2000, who then sold it to a Dutch concern in 2010. However, SAAB (automotive) finally went bankrupt in 2011. The assets were acquired in 2012 by NEVS (National Electric Vehicle Sweden), a new company that used the SAAB name on its vehicles for several years.

96A Inauthentic : PHONY

Something or someone described as phony (sometimes “phoney”) is not genuine or real. There is a suggestion that the term “phony” comes from “fawney”, which was a gold-plated brass ring used by swindlers in place of a one made of pure gold.

97A “Catch-22” topic : WAR

“Catch-22” is a novel by Joseph Heller set during WWII. The title refers to absurd bureaucratic constraints that soldiers had to suffer. Heller’s “Catch-22” was invoked by a flight surgeon to explain that any pilot requesting to be evaluated for insanity, to avoid flying dangerous missions, had to be sane as only a sane man would try to get out of such missions. The term “catch-22” has entered the language and describes a paradoxical situation from which one can’t escape due to contradictory rules; one loses, no matter what choice one makes.

100A Join, as two metal surfaces : SOLDER

Solder is a metal alloy that is used to join pieces of work together using the principle that the melting point of the alloy is below the melting point of the workpieces.

102A “ISABELLA ROSSELLINI” : BRIE LARSON

I mainly recognize actress Brie Larson from playing the daughter of Toni Collette’s character on the excellent TV show “United States of Tara”. Larson is from Sacramento, and trained at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, where she was the youngest person ever admitted.

Actress Isabella Rossellini had quite the pedigree, born the daughter of cinematic legends Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini. Beyond her acting career, she served as the exclusive face of Lancôme for 14 years. She was married to filmmaker Martin Scorsese for three years, and subsequently had long-term relationships with director David Lynch and with actor Gary Oldman. Isabella sure does look like her mother …

104A “KEVIN KLINE” : EVEL KNIEVEL

Daredevil Evel Knievel contracted hepatitis C from the many blood transfusions that he needed after injuries incurred during stunts. He had to have a liver transplant as a result, but his health declined after that. Knievel eventually passed away in 2007.

Actor Kevin Kline stars in many of my favorite films, like “French Kiss” (in which he had a very impressive French accent) and “A Fish Called Wanda.” Kline also appeared in the romantic comedy “In & Out”, and the modern-day classic “The Big Chill”. It was while shooting “The Big Chill” that Kline met his future wife, actress Phoebe Cates.

107A Erté’s style, informally : DECO

“Erté” was the pseudonym of French (Russian-born) artist and designer Romain de Tirtoff. “Erté” is the French pronunciation of his initials “R.T.” Erté’s diverse portfolio of work included costumes and sets for the “Ziegfeld Follies” of 1923, productions of the Parisian cabaret show “Folies Bergère”, as well as the 1925 epic movie “Ben-Hur”. Erté’s most famous work by far is an image titled “Symphony in Black”. It depicts a tall and slender woman dressed in black, holding a black dog on a leash.

109A All-vowel musical refrain : EIEIO

There was an American version of the English children’s song “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (E-I-E-I-O) that was around in the days of WWI. The first line of the older US version goes “Old MacDougal had a farm, in Ohio-i-o”.

110A Actress Falco with four Emmys : EDIE

Actress Edie Falco won three Emmy Awards for playing Carmela Soprano on HBO’s outstanding drama series called “The Sopranos”. Falco also won an Emmy in 2010 for playing the title role in “Nurse Jackie”, an excellent black comedy.

112A Sugary secretion : NECTAR

The sugary liquid known as nectar is produced by plants to attract animals needed for the plant’s survival. The classic example is the nectar produced in flowers that attracts insects needed to facilitate pollination. Some plants produce nectar in leaves that attracts favorable insects that in turn prey on insects that can harm the plants.

114A “BEA ARTHUR” : BABE RUTH

Baseball legend George Herman Ruth, Jr. had several nicknames, the best known being “Babe”. He was also called “the Bambino” and “the Sultan of Swat”.

Bea Arthur is 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.

118A “MARLON BRANDO” : ORLANDO BLOOM

English actor Orlando Bloom’s breakthrough on the big screen came when he was chosen to play Legolas, a Sindarin Elf, in “The Lord of the Rings” series of films.

Actor Marlon Brando really hit the big time with his Oscar-nominated performance in the 1951 movie “A Streetcar Named Desire”. Brando went on to win another Best Actor Oscar for his performance in 1972’s “The Godfather”, which gave him the platform to establish himself as a political activist. He turned down the award and didn’t attend the ceremony. Instead he sent a Native American rights activist called Sacheen Littlefeather who made a speech protesting the depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood movies. Brando wasn’t the first person to refuse an Oscar. George C. Scott did the same thing when he won for playing the title role in 1970’s “Patton”. Scott just didn’t like the whole idea of “competing” with other actors.

122A Submitted by the deadline : IN ON TIME

Our use of the term “deadline”, to mean “point in time before something must be done”, arose as jargon in the American newspaper industry in the 1920s. During the Civil War, a deadline was a do-not-cross line drawn on the ground in Confederate prisons.

124A Musician/actress Haim : ALANA

Musician Alana Haim is a member of the pop rock band Haim, along with her two sisters Este and Danielle. Alana also took a lead role in the 2021 film “Licorice Pizza” opposite Cooper Hoffman, son of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. That performance earned her nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA.

128A Big name in truck rentals : RYDER

The Ryder company was founded in 1933 in Miami, Florida by James Ryder. It started out as a concrete hauling company, but changed its focus a few years later to the leasing of trucks.

Down

1D God, to Bob Marley : JAH

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

I must admit that I don’t really know much about Rastafarianism. I do know that a “Rasta”, such as Bob Marley, is a follower of the movement. Some say that Rastafarianism is a religion, some not. I also know that it involves the worship of Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia.

Bob Marley was the most widely-known reggae performer, with big hits such as “I Shot the Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry” and “One Love”. A little sadly perhaps, Marley’s best-selling album was released three years after he died. That album would be the “legendary” album called “Legend”.

3D Musical comedy that was 1968’s highest-grossing film : FUNNY GIRL

The 1968 movie “Funny Girl” stars Barbra Streisand in the title role of Fanny Brice. The real Fanny Brice was a theater and film actress, and “Funny Girl” is very loosely based on her life story. Fanny Brice was born into a Hungarian Jewish family in New York City, with the real name of Fania Borach.

5D Bootlegger’s concern : RAID

To bootleg is to make or smuggle alcoholic drinks illegally. The term arose in the late 1800s as slang for the practice of concealing a flask of liquor down the leg of a high boot. The term has been extended to mean the illegal production and sale of just about anything.

6D Like 666, popularly : SATANIC

666 is the number of the beast that is linked to Satan or the Antichrist, according to the Book of Revelation in the Bible. The fear of the number 666 has been given a name, i.e. hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Don’t forget that …

7D Band that’s big in Japan? : OBI

The sash worn as part of traditional Japanese dress is known as an obi. It can be tied at the back in what is called a butterfly knot. The term “obi” is also used for the thick cotton belts that are an essential part of the outfits worn by practitioners of many martial arts. The color of the martial arts obi signifies the wearer’s skill level.

13D “___ fugit” : TEMPUS

“Tempus fugit” is a Latin phrase meaning “time flies”, which we use in English in the same sense. The expression was coined by Roman poet Virgil in his work “Georgics”.

15D Stout figure? : BREWER

The term “stout” was first used for a type of beer in the 1600s when it was used to describe a “strong, stout” brew, and not necessarily a dark beer as it is today.

16D Supreme Egyptian god : AMON-RA

Amun-Ra (also “Amon, Amen”) was a god in Egyptian mythology. Amun lends his name to our word “ammonia”. This is because the Romans called the ammonium chloride that they collected near the Temple of Jupiter Amun, “sal ammoniacus” (salt of Amun).

18D Inuit watercraft : KAYAKS

There is a type of boat used by Inuit people called a “kayak”. The term “kayak” means “man’s boat”, whereas “umiak” means “woman’s boat”.

23D Mineral that makes cosmetics shimmer : MICA

Mica is a silicate mineral. Thin sheets of mica are transparent and are used in place of glass in certain applications. This form of mica is called isinglass, and as it has a better thermal performance than glass it is a great choice for “peepholes” in boilers and lanterns. Mica is also used in the electronics industry, making use of its unique electrical and thermal insulating properties.

49D Like Scrooge McDuck : RICH

Scrooge McDuck is a rich uncle of Donald Duck. Donald first hit the screens in 1934, and Uncle Scrooge made his debut performance in 1947.

50D Right-hand page of a book : RECTO

The left and right pages of a book or magazine are known in publishing circles as verso and recto. Recto comes from the Latin for “right”, and verso comes from the Latin word for “turned”. The idea is that the left side of the page is “turned” and is the reverse of the recto/right side.

52D John ___ Day (California commemoration) : MUIR

John Muir was a famous American naturalist, although he was born in Scotland. Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892. He published “My First Summer in the Sierra” in 1911, which described one of Muir’s favorite places in the country, the Sierra Nevada range in California.

54D “N.Y. State of Mind” rapper : NAS

Rapper Nas used to go by an earlier stage name “Nasty Nas”, and before that by his real name “Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones”. Nas released his first album “Illmatic” in 1994, and inventively titled his fifth studio album “Stillmatic”, released in 2001.

57D 1994 Costner title role : EARP

The legendary Western gunfighter and lawman Wyatt Earp has been portrayed on the big and small screen many, many times. Kevin Costner played the title role in 1994’s “Wyatt Earp”, and Val Kilmer played Earp in 2012’s “The First Ride of Wyatt Earp”. Joel McCrea had the part in 1955’s “Wichita”, and Kurt Russell was Earp in 1993’s “Tombstone”. James Garner played Earp twice, in 1967’s “Hour of the Gun” and 1988’s “Sunset”.

61D “Dune” genre : SCI-FI

“Dune” is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, first published in 1965. It is widely considered to be one of the greatest science fiction novels of all time. The book has a large and dedicated fanbase, who refer to themselves as “Duners” or “Dune fans.”

62D Mary or Elizabeth : QUEEN

Mary I was Queen of England and Ireland from 1553 to 1558. She was the only surviving child from the marriage of King Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Unlike her father, Mary adhered to her Roman Catholic faith and was noted for her brutal persecution of Protestants during her reign. She had almost three hundred religious dissenters burned at the stake, resulting in her gaining the nickname “Bloody Mary”. Roman Catholic rule was reversed after she died, when her half-sister Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne.

The Elizabethan era, the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, is considered by many to be the golden age of English history. It was the age of William Shakespeare and the age of the English Renaissance. Elizabeth I was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and the last sovereign of the House of Tudor.

63D Towering creature in “The Two Towers” : ENT

J. R. R. Tolkien’s novel “The Lord of the Rings” (LOTR) consists of the three volumes:

• “The Fellowship of the Ring”
• “The Two Towers”
• “The Return of the King”

66D Half brother of Apollo : ARES

The Greek god Ares is often referred to as the Olympian god of warfare, but originally he was regarded as the god of bloodlust and slaughter. He united with Aphrodite to create several gods, including Phobos (Fear), Deimos (Terror) and Eros (Desire). Ares was the son of Zeus and Hera, and the Roman equivalent to Ares was Mars.

67D Christmas presence? : MAGI

“Magi” is the plural of the Latin word “magus”, a term applied to someone who was able to read the stars. Hence, “magi” is commonly used with reference to the “wise men from the East” who followed the star and visited Jesus soon after he was born. In Western Christianity, the three Biblical Magi are:

• Melchior: a scholar from Persia
• Caspar (also “Gaspar”): a scholar from India
• Balthazar: a scholar from Arabia

70D Jazz great Fitzgerald : ELLA

Ella Fitzgerald, the “First Lady of Song”, made her real stage debut at the Apollo Theater in Harlem on Amateur Night when she was just 17 years old. She had intended to perform a dance routine, but decided to sing instead after seeing a superior dance act. She won the Amateur Night competition.

71D Along with “CODA” and “Argo,” the only other four-letter Best Picture winner : GIGI

“Gigi” is a very popular 1958 musical film starring Leslie Caron in the title role. The movie’s screenplay is based on a 1944 novella of the same name by French author Colette. Colette’s “Gigi” was also adapted into a 1951 stage play by Anita Loos, in which Audrey Hepburn played the title role in the original Broadway production.

72D Give gratis : COMP

Something provided gratis is supplied free of charge. “Gratis” is a Latin term, a contraction of “gratiis” meaning “for thanks”.

79D Strike defier : SCAB

We first started calling strikebreakers scabs in the early 1800s, and before that a scab was a person who refused to join a trade union (back as early 1777). The word “scab” probably comes from the use of “scab” as a symptom of a skin disease, and so is a term that is meant to insult.

85D Unshared numbers : SOLI

“Soli” (the plural of “solo”) are pieces of music performed by one artist, whereas “tutti” are pieces performed by all of the artists.

87D Actor and disability activist Christopher : REEVE

Actor Christopher Reeve was most associated with his portrayal of Superman in the late seventies and early eighties. Reeve became paralyzed from the neck down when he fell from a horse in a jumping event in 1995. He published a best-selling autobiography in 1998 called “Still Me”, and sadly passed away in 2004.

99D Shoe brand named for an antelope : REEBOK

The brand name Reebok was adopted as the new company name for Foster Shoes of the UK in 1960. The name Reebok (more commonly “Rhebok”) is an Afrikaans word for an antelope, and comes from the term “roe buck”.

103D El Pollo ___ (chicken chain) : LOCO

El Pollo Loco (Spanish for “The Crazy Chicken”) is a chain of American-based restaurants that specializes in Mexican-style grilled chicken. The original El Pollo Loco restaurant was opened by Juan Francisco Ochoa in 1974 in Guasave, a city on the west coast of Mexico. He opened several more restaurants in Mexico before expanding into the US. He sold the US restaurants to Denny’s in 1983, but continues to operate an independent Mexico-based chain that uses the same “El Pollo Loco” name.

111D Fad toy of 1996 : ELMO

The Tickle Me Elmo toy was a sensational fad in the late nineties, with stores raising prices dramatically above the recommended retail price to take advantage of demand. Reportedly, prices as high as $1500 were paid at the height of the craze. The toy’s manufacturer, Tyco, originally planned to market the “tickle” toy as Tickle Me Tasmanian Devil (after the “Looney Tunes” character), but then went with “Elmo” after they bought the rights to use “Sesame Street” names.

119D Comedian Sedaris : AMY

The actress, author and comedian Amy Sedaris plays a character called Jerri Blank on the television series “Strangers with Candy”. Amy is the younger sister of the humorist and author David Sedaris.

120D I, to Augustus : ONE

As the first Emperor of Rome, Octavian was given the name Caesar Augustus. The month of August, originally called “Sextilis” in Latin, was renamed in honor of Augustus.