Good Name

Not impressed as most. Monday puzzles are supposed to be relatively easy, and, really, wds?

When I saw PU PU PLATTER it brought memories of a restaurant in DC we used to go to that served it. It was a time when our son and his two male cousins were in elementary school, and I can tell you, that item on the menu was always the cause of great hilarity. There is something special about the sense of humor of little boys.

Most residents of the Washington, D.C., metro area had never heard of LULU LEMON until one morning six years ago, when the media were splashed with reports of a brutal rape of a female employee, who was found injured and tied hand and foot, and the rape and savage fatal beating of her co-worker at the suburban Bethesda LLL shop. The survivor told police that two masked men had forced their way into the shop at closing time the night before and attacked the two women. Within days, however, the public was shocked to learn that the story of the crime had begun to fall apart: Police determined that the "survivor" had herself viciously attacked her co-worker, repeatedly clubbing, stabbing, and choking the victim until she died. The attack grew out of an escalating argument between the two about the perpetrator's attempt to steal yoga pants from the store. The killer was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Didn't like WDS in 1A at all, but would have loved to see ZUZUBAILEY.

I also got off to slow start today. Didn't help that the puzzle opens with the clunky WDS @1A. Not familiar with LULULEMON. I made better progress down south with VUVUZELAS (my ears are still ringing). Someday I learn when to use LIE instead of LAY (as in ____LOW). Thank goodness PUPUPLATTER is spelled with 'U's and not double 'O's.

Homer Simpsons dreams he and Bart are Yogi and BOOBOO BEAR. Neighbor Flanders gets the worst of it as Ranger Ned:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgm2zQpETSE

In keeping with today's theme, the official title of this Rolling Stones single from 1973 is "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqUiWpGGCmI

I had DUEL personality initially. My fingers sometimes take over. Still in this case it would have made sense for murderous Mr. Hyde

Glad to see LIELOW even though no one, and I mean no one, says anything other than grammatically incorrect LAY LOW.

Future clues for OTERI should just be "THAT SNL girl" (Do puzzle makers remember anyone else from SNL?)

And lastly VUVUZELAS should have been clued "Why we're glad the 2010 World Cup is over"

Fun puzzle. It was surprisingly difficult to fill in the last letter, the crossing of ICE SA_S with T_O. AXS did not look right and what denomination is TXO, anyway? I was not informed that that TWO-dollar bill would be in the curriculum.

Being old and childless, I have problems with post-1950 cartoon characters. I was aware of the SMURFs--unavoidable right now with some movie being hyped on the TV--and I consider myself lucky to having been able to avoid any extended exposure. BOO-BO0 (hyphen correct?) BEAR was new to me.

GOO-GOO EYES was more my era, and I've enjoyed many a PU-PU (hyphen correct?) PLATTER, even if it is "American Chinese." It's good. I didn't recognize LULU LEMON until I followed Deb's link and was reminded of the controversy. (Age, among other things, puts me out of the yoga pants demographic.)

That leaves 58D. I remembered it, but ... Am I the only one who entered ZUZUVELA? Bismarck quickly disabused me of that notion, but still .... Also, I wonder if many people would have remembered (failed to suppress the memory of) the infernal things. On top of that, it was crossed by SEAVER, SMURF, and UTE, and abutted OTERI, of crossword but little other fame.

My physical therapist at the time of that soccer match loved the VUVUZELA and bought one. He owned the place so could do what he wanted to. What he wanted to was to compound the torture being inflicted on me by his employees by making the noisemaker make its noise at unexpected times. (Current regular P.T. engages in civilized conversation, and post-injury visiting P.T. is in my house where I control the noise, keeping it at "meow" level.)

Nice start to the week. Thanks to all.

I thought this puzzle was a bit difficult for Monday, and was quite proud of myself for getting all of my unknowns from the crosses. (I am AWARE that A’s unknowns can be B’s gimmes.) Mine were: APBIO, LULULEMON, BOOBOOBEAR, NSYNC, IOS, PUPUPLATTER, REA, OTERI, NERFS, BABA* and SMURF.

It took me a while to recall VUVUZELAS (the word, not the maddening sound). I watched most of that series on muted TV.

My favorite clue/entry: RBI.
________________
*BABA: I can’t abide eggplant. Couldn’t the clue have been: “ ___ au rhum”?

Fun puzzle to start the week. Thank you.

Well above average puzzle for a Monday. Let's hope the rest of the week follows suit. Better than a double Pinochle.

Would have loved to see Zuzu in there. Petal pusher would have to be the clue.

I thought about waving my hand in the air and exclaiming, "Oo! Ol! I know, I know!"
But there was no one around except the cat, and Charlie is only interested in one thing at that hour: is there food in my bowl? Well, that, and insisting on curling up behind my knees.

On with the week!

Well, leave it to the prolific and gifted Peter Gordon to give a us spot on Monday level puzzle that's a real LULU with nary a BOOBOO.

Great start to the week!

Seemed more like a Wednesday XWP than a Monday one. Perhaps because I never heard of AP meaning Advance Placement, or any of the first three themers. I'm almost getting too old, aren't I? Having solved from the top down, I was expecting triple consonants for the last two themers, after the LLL, BBB, and PPP. But not complaining, because I'm happy with the trend toward not-so-easy Mondays.

I thought it was a little harder than the usual Monday puzzle, but that may have been that I just expected it to be harder when I saw the constructor's name!

This was no pic-a-nic for me. On Mondays I'll make a quick run through the across clues, just filling in what's immediately obvious. In fairness I should note that I don't pause to consider alternatives or strain my memory for things I 'know' but don't recall right away. Still, I usually have a lot filled in after that first pass. Today I was halfway through the puzzle before I typed in anything, and it was wrong (RUN before RBI).

It got better once I went to the downs and started taking a little time to think, but I still needed considerable work on the theme answers - two complete unknowns (LULU and PUPU) plus one that I would have misspelled (I would have put another U after the Z in VUVUZELA - not sure why - maybe because of Venezuela). And, in my mind at least, Yogi is Yogi Bear, but BOO-BOO is just BOO-BOO.

Didn't really mind - nothing wrong with a bit more of a workout on a Monday and there were some nice entries. Not really my kind of theme but it was nicely executed.

Solid puzzle. Same thoughts as Deb on the awkward ER ending fill but they were easy to get.

Thank you Peter

Deb, you made me laugh with your VUVUZELA comment.

Simple and sweet, with a couple of sub themes:
* Animals (CLUCK, SNARLER, PIG, ROOSTER, BEAR, ORCAS)
* "Er" enders (SNARLER, PUPUPLATTER, ROOSTER, SEAVER, BUDGETER)

I am fond of the BABA/BOOBOO (as I mentioned below) and SMURF/NERF crosses. Can you call being stuck between Otto and Bismark a VON trap? (Sorry...)

Very little junk, that is, free from frou-frou, which deserves a "woo-hoo!".

I seem to have used up my comments in my replies. Quite a tough Monday IMO. When I looked up PUPU PLATTER to see if it was a thing it was described as American Chinese; I don't remember ever hearing it so maybe it's recent.

At first I thought it was a reverse vowel run and was expecting something with I's to follow BOO BOO, but I guess double I's would be a bit tough to do.

Anyway it was a cute theme and fun to do and I guess I didn't quite use up my my whole comment.

Today's RegEx finds 127 xwordinfo.com database entries that fit today's patterns by the range of lengths. I know it's also a sound pattern, but vowels not rhyming with BOO can't be filtered out.

http://tinyurl.com/lux6k6s

Ahh, the VUVUZELAs! Wasn't that was one LULU of a BOOBOO by FIFA?

I must be pretty dense, but I thought this was really hard for a Monday. Heck, I've solved Friday puzzles in less time than this took me.

Fun Monday. I was stumped by 9A for a while, having AP_IO and no idea what science course that could possibly be short for. BUDGETER gave me the BIO so then I got the Advanced Placement idea. My high school, back in the dark ages, didn't have any AP classes.

This was a good start for the week.

Fun puzzle, but I mourn the loss of TOO TOO SOLID.

Re: 12D
I understand ICE SAWS for fishing in frozen lakes in the temperate zones, but in the Arctic? Really? By whom? Citations, please!

Quite fond of that BABA crossing that BOOBOO.

Re: 43A
Please, Will, the next time you're waiting to take off at LaGuardia, listen to the words from the flight deck. You will hear "Well folks, we're number XX for *take-off*..." Take-off, not departure. "Departure" was when you left the gate. Thank you, and we hope you'll enjoy the flight "over to" [destination].

Hee hee too bad he couldn't fit it in -
https://youtu.be/K5gbNf0daow?t=39s

Pupu Platter On Fire How Exciting!
will always remind me of a student who thought he could make a living going around to Chinese / Thai / etc. restaurants and editing the spelling and grammar errors on their menus, only to learn that the proprietors wanted the menus exactly as they were, to charm and entice the customers. Career abandoned.