The theme answers in today's crossword by Don Gagliardo and C.C. Burnikel are more bizarre than clever. Words that can refer to an animal are replaced with the sound the animal makes. The title: "Sounds About Right."
"Ahooga!" producer? SILLYHONK (silly goose)
Hard golf club to swing? GRUNTIRON (pig iron)
Sign of a lawn tractor problem? HISSINTHEGRASS (snake in the grass)
Inhospitable medical fraud? COLDQUACK (Cold Duck)
Landscaping mulch specialists? BARKHANDLERS (dog handlers)
Posting that periodically reposts itself? MIGRATORYTWEET (migratory bird)
Excitement about the producer of the original Charlie's Angels? SPELLINGBUZZ (spelling bee)
Pig iron is a metal produced from iron ore in a blast furnace. It is 92% iron and 3% carbon and also contains small amounts of manganese, silicone, phosphorus, sulfur and other impurities. Pig iron is further refined in a furnace and converted into steel. The name comes from the piglike shape of the troughs which the molten iron was poured into.
Cold Duck is a sparkling wine first made in 1937 by Harold Borgman, a Detroit winery owner. It was a mixture of Mosel wine, Rhine wine and champagne, seasoned with mint and lemon. It was called Kaltes Ende ("cold end" in German) but over the years so many people mispronounced it as Kalte Ente, the name of the wine became the American translation of Kalte Ente: "Cold Duck."
Aaron Spelling (1923-2006) was the producer of Charlie's Angels, Charmed, Dynasty, The Love Boat, The Rookies, The Mod Squad, Beverly Hills 90210, Jane's House, Sunset Beach, 7th Heaven and The San Pedro Beach Bums. Whew! From 1953 to 1964, he was married to Carolyn Jones, who was most famous as Morticia Addams on The Addams Family.
Today's puzzle included some relatively obscure names: ENZI ("Longtime Wyoming senator Mike"), EHLE ("Jennifer of Zero Dark Thirty"), ORSER ("Brian who has coached two Olympic skating gold medalists") and AVA ("Director DuVernay" -- at least the clue was something besides the much overused clue "Actress Gardner"). "Spunkmeyer of cookie fame" is OTIS -- and I'm guessing that most of us are more familiar with the name of Otis Spunkmeyer than those four previous names.
And thus ends the discussion of today's puzzle. Perhaps you were expecting more -- but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
