1990s TV cartoon produced by Steven Spielberg / SAT 3-14-15 / Diamond Trucks bygone company / Subject of Hoyle treatise / Text i

Constructor: James Mulhern

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium

THEME: none

Word of the Day: SHAMWOW (35A: Infomercial product said to hold 12 times its weight in liquid) —

Noun(edit)
ShamWow

(trademark) A brand of absorbent cloth (quotations ▲)

2009, John C Bieber, Angels‎
You might as well buy a couple of ShamWows and least you get your money's worth.

2010, Scott Adams, Dilbert comic strip "Use this Shamwow to absorb someone else's soul while you suck on the other end" (1)

2009, G. B. Trudeau My Shorts R Bunching. Thoughts?: The Tweets of Roland Hedley‎ - Page 25 "From now on, will soak up her briefings like Shamwow"

2008, Jeff Zahratka, Sweepers Sweepers Man Your Brooms: An Enlisted Man's Story‎ - Page 167 'He had sincere ambition, and he would soak up information like a "ShamWOW" sponge.' (wiktionary)

• • •

Wow. If you want to understand why I found yesterday's puzzle so disappointing, just look at this one. *This* is what I expect NYT themeless puzzles to be: brimming with current, vibrant, interesting fill. MONEY TALKS, and this puzzle is money. It's definitely heavy on the pop culture (singers, movies, commercial products, whatever the BAHA MEN are, etc.), but it wasn't terribly obscure. In fact, I'd guess "ANIMANIACS" is the only proper noun that was legitimately obscure to a good chunk of the NYT solving set (15A: 1990s TV cartoon produced by Steven Spielberg). But it's not obscure. I've seen articles on it in my social media timeline recently, and I'm not sure why. Let me check. Hmmm, looks like Denver Comic Con will be hosting an "ANIMANIACS" celebration with the original cast in May. Maybe that's what I saw. Anyway, that show ran '93-'98, so if you were a grown person by then, you might've missed it. I was an only-partially grown 20-something, so I knew it. In fact, it was part of my opening gambit, which was super-strange: I can't remember ever opening a Saturday by getting two long, adjacent answers, one after the other, with no help from crosses. And yet … this:

I was semi-stunned when those answers ended up being right. It's true the puzzle was right in my knowledge sweet spot, but it's also just objectively better than yesterday's puzzle. Freshness, greater. Cleanness, greater. Even its abbrevs. are greater, in the sense that they are current and not TIRED. Loved seeing NSFW (Not Suitable For Work) in the grid, and I've known what OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is since the time "ANIMANIACS" was on the air—another nice, digital-age abbr. Well, maybe not "nice"—I wouldn't call OCR "good" fill. But insofar as I haven't seen it a million times and it is younger than the dinosaurs, I like it fine.

I was really disappointed in the TAYLOR SWIFT clue (5D: Singer/songwriter whose name anagrams to ART OF SLY WIT), in that there are infinite ways to clue her and you go with an inapt anagram? Anagram? She's the most famous pop singer in the world right now and you think we need an *anagram* to help us out? Bah. Also probably wouldn't've crossed EATEN (ALIVE) and ATE (IT) if I could've helped it (ditto WOODSMAN and BAHA MEN), but that seems a pretty minor issue. I liked seeing FIST because it reminded me of the Loretta Lynn song "FIST City" (which features prominently in the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter," which I watched earlier this evening).

Didn't run into many snags today. Had HUNTSMAN and GAMESMAN (!?) before WOODSMAN (14D: Savior of Little Red Riding Hood), and that NE corner (consequently) was the toughest of the lot for me (still not tough). Favorite corner was probably the SW, with its WHAC-A-MOLE and HARRUMPHS. I had weirdly joked earlier this week about "whackamole" (sp.) being a word for bad guacamole, and then bam, I run straight into the dang thing. I told you this puzzle and I were on the same wavelength. The one thing I did not understand, though, was the clue on OMAN (23A: It's found on the toe of a boot). It was only after I was done, and after I'd searched (define oman shoes) that I realized "Oh … it's the Arabian Peninsula that's the 'boot.' I thought only Italy got to be the 'boot'? Oh well, live and learn (about boots)."
Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld