Had a reasonable number of gimme entries but what helped the most was anticipating more than the usual number of words in the developing quote. Got me finishing in under 35 minutes, where mid to late 40s is my usual acrostic range.
NIMBUS is an odd name for a cat, but our first bluepoint was Tom NIMBUS Bombadil, so there you have it.
Without a second thought, I plunked in SERUTAN in place of GERITOL. It seems Mad Magazine had a more lasting effect than I realized.
'SERUTAN is Nature's spelled backwards'
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I had a fair number of gimmes (AGNEW, TWEETY, REEFER, IVES, NIMBUS, GERITOL, and MASH NOTE) so this went down very quickly. I certainly remember our old black and white portable sets on which the metal casing was dented from where we hit it to get it work properly.
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Easy but fun and relaxing.
Lots of gimmes: MOIRE, EDWIN BOOTH (I live in the nabe), AWRY, IVES (loved the clue), NEW WAVE, AGNEW, ITCH, TWEETY, LOW TOP, REEFER (the "hepcat" was a clue to the older term).
So by my first trip to the quote, I had more than enough to work with, especially since TV was already filled in.
After that most of both quote and words was inferrable. Only real no-know was OWENS.
Nice quote too. I remember the snow not only between (working) channels, but *during* -- and on top of -- stuff I was trying to watch.
Side observation: Isn't it nice that we no longer have to worry about "vertical hold" and "horizontal hold"? And wrap foil around the rabbit ears?
Thanks as always, to the royal couple of acrostics.
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Did this one quickly despite the low number of gimmes (IVES, BLIND SPOT, AGNEW and TWEETY) and a bunch of misses (AMIABLE for AFFABLE, NEW LOOK for NEW WAVE and IN A SNIT for IN A HUFF). The quote seemed to assemble itself logically, especially after I got the two-letter word TV.....although when I first saw BIG BANG coming up, I thought it was going to be a reference to the sitcom!
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My BLIND SPOT was SIDE SWIPE! That and the AMIABLE mistake put me IN A HUFF.
My gimmes were MOIRE, IVES, INDY, AGNEW, LOST TOUCH, ITCH, TWEETY, and LOW-CUT. A second and third pass-through produced AWRY, LEADFOOT, NIMBUS, and NEW WAVE (as well as AMIABLE!). I didn't know that GERITOL still existed (autocorrect wanted to change that to something that I don't think the emus would like); I remember the commercials from Ted Mack's Amateur Hour in the early 1960s. I figured that "Stick of tea" referred to marijuana but not what particular name for it, and I knew--I just knew!--the OWENS River but I couldn't begin to come up with its name until I had the O, when it popped into view. And I vaguely wondered at first if there was some kind of golf connection to the two driver clues.
And oh yes, I remember the "snow" on the television when a channel wouldn't come in clearly. Another one of those things that would be very hard to explain to a younger person today.
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my gimmes were MOIRE LOWTOP IVES IN A HUFF. should have seen GANACHE sooner since I just heard about it while watching the British Bake-off Show!!
Whoa! This may be my fastest solve time ever. Too bad I wasn't watching the clock, but this one flew right on by.
I was amazed when -- in addition to the obvious gimmes -- my first guesses for the answers LEAD FOOT, IN A HUFF, BEAR HUG, LOST TOUCH, and MASH NOTE all turned out to be right.
I'll admit that the more difficult puzzles are my favorites, but it's fun to have an easy one now and then, too. :)
Thanks, EC and HR!
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Whirlpool was tricky and fun.
Very nice Spelling Bee!
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Agree, Hector Pefo. A most unusual list this time around, particularly the 3-pointers that have completely different origins as words. One of the best yet.
To think that some purchase a digital device to generate "white noise."
Thanks, EC & HR, for providing an analog analgesic in this untuned environment.
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Solving this acrostic was a distinct pleasure, particularly after banging my head against the brick wall of this week’s Staturday puzzle.
I had an unusually large number of gimmes MOIRE, IVES (cute clue), GERITOL, NIMBUS, AGNEW, ITCH, THEFT and REEFER, along with quite a few wild guesses: CARAMEL before GANACHE, OPEN DOORS before BLIND SPOT, AMIABLE before AFFABLE, HORIZON before EYESHOT.
The bad guesses were culled from the grid by eliminating contiguous letters that could not reasonably form words. The remaining pattern revealed the elements of DIGITAL and TV at the top of the citation and of RADIATION towards the bottom, giving a hint of the theme. From then on the solution was ROUTINE. There was no need to look anything up.
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