Tag: Peacock’s display crossword clue

Bill’s time: 12m 53s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

21A Becky on “Full House” and Esther on “Sanford and Son” : AUNTS

“Full House” is a sitcom that originally aired from the late eighties through the mid-nineties. It’s all about two men helping a third man raise his three young daughters after his wife is killed by a drunk driver. Bob Saget plays the widowed father, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen play the youngest daughter. A sequel titled “Fuller House” started airing on Netflix in 2016.

On the hit sitcom “Sanford and Son”, Aunt Esther is played by actress LaWanda Page. Page was a childhood friend of the show’s star Redd Foxx. Foxx introduced the “Sanford and Son” producers to Page, resulting in her getting the role.

23A A little “Help here!”? : SOS!

The combination of three dots – three dashes – three dots, is a Morse signal first introduced by the German government as a standard distress call in 1905. The sequence is remembered as the letters SOS (three dots – pause – three dashes – pause – three dots). That said, in the emergency signal there is no pause between the dots and dashes, so “SOS” is really only a mnemonic. Similarly, the phrases “Save Our Souls” and “Save Our Ship” are back-formations that were introduced after the SOS signal was adopted.

31A ___ Gorman, “The Hill We Climb” poet : AMANDA

Amanda Gorman is a poet and activist who, in 2017, was the first person named as the National Youth Poet Laureate. Famously, Gorman recited her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the inauguration of President Biden in 2021.

When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.

32A Stone to cast? : EMMA

Actress Emma Stone is from Scottsdale, Arizona. She really came to prominence with her performance in the 2010 high school movie called “Easy A”, and won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in the 2016 movie “La La Land”. Now one of the most sought-after actresses in Hollywood, Stone values her privacy and works hard to maintain a low profile. Good for her, I say …

38A Baroque stringed instrument : VIOL

The viola da gamba (also called simply “viol”) is a bass instrument in what is known as the viol family, with a tonal range that about matches that of the modern-day cello. It is the second largest of all the viols, so it is played resting on the floor between the legs. In fact, “viola da gamba” is Italian translating into “viol for the leg”.

39A Plaza resident of fiction : ELOISE

Kay Thompson wrote the “Eloise” series of children’s books. Thompson actually lived at the Plaza Hotel in New York, the setting she would choose for her “Eloise” stories. Eloise started out as a hit song for Thompson, a success that she parlayed into the book franchise.

40A Apollo 13, for one : MISSION

Jim Lovell was the astronaut who commanded the famous Apollo 13 mission that almost ended in disaster with three crew members lost in space. Lovell wrote an account of the dramatic mission in a book called “Lost Moon”. “Lost Moon” was the basis of the excellent movie “Apollo 13” in which Tom Hanks portrayed Lovell.

43A Solo in space : HAN

Han Solo is the space smuggler in “Star Wars” played by Harrison Ford. Ford was originally hired by George Lucas just to read lines for actors during auditions for “Star Wars”, but over time Lucas became convinced that Ford was right for the pivotal role of Han Solo.

44A Inlay material on some guitars : NACRE

Nacre, also known as mother-of-pearl, is the strong iridescent material laid down by some mollusks on the inside of their shells, and it’s also what makes up pearls. The creature lays down nacre as a defensive mechanism, protecting the soft tissue of its body from the rough surface of the outer shell. Similarly, it uses nacre to encapsulate harmful debris or a parasite that penetrates the shell, and that’s how a pearl is formed. Cultured pearls are made by inserting a tissue graft from a donor oyster, around which the nacre is laid down.

48A Alternative to 53-Across : ROTH
53A Some nest eggs : TRADITIONAL IRAS

Roth Individual Retirement Accounts (Roth IRAs) were introduced in 1997 under a bill sponsored by Senator William Roth of Delaware, hence the name.

Down

3D Brand of athletic shoes : AVIA

The Avia brand name for athletic shoes was chosen as “avia” is the Latin word for “to fly”, and suggests the concept of aviation. Avia was founded in Oregon in 1979.

8D Website whose contributors might write about mice : CNET

CNET is a technology website, with the acronym “CNET” standing for “computer network”. It started out in 1994 as a television network specializing in technology news. The host of “American Idol”, Ryan Seacrest, started off his career as host of a CNET show.

10D Where many gather to form a line? : BINGO PARLOR

Our game bingo is a derivative of an Italian lottery game called “Il Giuoco del Lotto d’Italia” that became popular in the 16th-century.

12D Attire for hula dancers : LEIS

The hula is a native dance of Hawaii that uses arm movements to relate a story. The hula can be performed while sitting (a noho dance) or while standing (a luna dance).

13D Time of abstinence : LENT

In Latin, the Christian season that is now called “Lent” was termed “quadragesima” (meaning “fortieth”), a reference to the forty days that Jesus spent in the desert before beginning his public ministry. When the church began its move in the Middle Ages towards using the vernacular, the term “Lent” was introduced. “Lent” comes from “lenz”, the German word for “spring”.

16D Clinton and Bush, for two : ELIS

“Eli” is the nickname for a graduate of Yale University, and a term used in honor of the Yale benefactor Elihu Yale.

Five US presidents attended Yale University:

• William Howard Taft
• Gerald Ford
• George H. W. Bush
• Bill Clinton
• George W. Bush

24D Super Bowl LVI winner, in brief : LA RAM

Super Bowl LVI was played at the end of the 2021 season between the Cincinnati Bengals and the LA Rams. The Rams had home team advantage as the game was played at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. The Rams emerged victorious, winning 23-20. Apparently, the Super Bowl LVI broadcast was the second-most watched in the history of the NFL.

25D Resident of the Arab world’s oldest continuously independent state : OMANI

Oman lies on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsula and is neighbored by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Oman is a monarchy, and the official name of the state is the Sultanate of Oman. All of the country’s legislative, executive and judiciary power resides with the hereditary sultan.

27D Sierra or Yukon : GMC

The GMC Sierra truck is also sold as the Chevrolet Silverado.

The GMC Yukon is basically the same vehicle as the Chevrolet Tahoe.

42D Something very attractive : CATNIP

About 50% of all cats are affected in some way by the plant catnip. There is a terpenoid in the oil of the plant called nepetalactone that the cat inhales and that can cause anything from drowsiness to anxiety.

44D Former queen of Jordan : NOOR

Queen Noor is the widow of King Hussein of Jordan. She was born Lisa Halaby in Washington, D.C., the daughter of Najeeb Halaby. Her father was appointed by President Kennedy as the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, and later became the CEO of Pan Am. Lisa Halaby met King Hussein in 1977, while working on the design of Jordan’s Queen Alia Airport. The airport was named after King Hussein’s third wife who had been killed that year in a helicopter crash. Halaby and the King were married the next year, in 1978.

45D URL letters : HTTP

“http” are the first letters in many Internet links. “http” stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. More secure and “safer” websites (like this one!) use links starting with “https”, which stands for “http secure”.

46D ___ Sea, body of water nowadays divided into “North” and “South” : ARAL

The former Soviet Union decided to divert the two rivers feeding the Aral Sea in order to irrigate food and cotton crops. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea began to shrink dramatically in the 1960s due to the loss of water. Today, the Aral Sea is no more. Instead, there are two relatively small bodies of water labeled as the North Aral Sea and the South Aral Sea.

47D Drink served hot or cold : SAKE

We refer to the Japanese alcoholic beverage made from rice as “sake”. We’ve gotten things a bit mixed up in the West. “Sake” is actually the word that the Japanese use for all alcoholic drinks. What we know as sake, we sometimes refer to as rice wine. Also, the starch in the rice is first converted to sugars that are then fermented into alcohol. This is more akin to a beer-brewing process than wine production, so the end product is really a rice “beer” rather than a rice “wine”.

51D Kate of “Fantastic Four” : MARA

Kate Mara is an actress who plays a lead character in the US TV series “House of Cards”. She got her big break with a supporting role in the 2005 Oscar-winning film Brokeback Mountain, in which she played Heath Ledger’s daughter, despite being only four years younger than Ledger. Kate is the sister of fellow actress Rooney Mara, who played the lead in the American version of the film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

“Fantastic Four” (also “FANT4STIC”) is a 2015 reboot of the “Fantastic Four” franchise of films. This one failed miserably at the box office, and was a big winner at that season’s Golden Raspberry Awards.

54D “Little piggy” : TOE

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none,
And this little piggy went wee wee wee all the way home.