Jean & Mike Do The New York Times Crossword

Today's grid is sweet — literally, thanks to all those delicious, disguised dessert items. Fortunately, they are the virtual kind, and therefore highly unlikely to wreck your diet. 
In addition to the terrific themed clues, we LOLed at 67A, Oil bigwig?, ARTCURATOR (awesome!); were amazed by 42A, Amundsen who went to the South Pole 15 years before he flew over the North Pole, ROALD (who knew?); and chuckled at 28D, Cold-weather coat, FROST (😀).
Show note imagery: a RHINO, the second most massive mammal on Earth, just out for an afternoon stroll.
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This was a fine debut crossword by Philippe Monfiston. It had oodles of interesting clues, a score of bad (by which we mean good 😀) musical puns, and was just the right degree of difficulty for a Wednesday. We approve, 5 squares on the JAMCR scale.
Show note imagery: The Long Room of the Old Library at TRINITY College, erstwhile home of Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Mary Robinson, Mary McAleese and many, many more.
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Kudos to Adryel W. Robles Ojeda for getting their very first crossword published in the NYTimes. We found it both fun and fast. We liked all the clues in today's puzzle, but among those that we did not already cover in today's episode, three stood out: 49A, Sharp or flat location on a piano, usually, BLACKKEY (makes sense); 37D, 3 to 1 are good ones, ODDS (cute); and 42A, Most common word in English, THE (not, as we initially guessed, HEYIMWALKINHERE 😀 ). 
Show note imagery: Harry HOUDINI, about to do something extremely ill-advised.
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BATSIGNAL has appeared a total of 4 times in the NYTimes crossword — once in 2014, twice in 2020, and today. The real BATSIGNAL shows up much more frequently in DC Comics, and continues to this day to serve as a means of summoning the caped crusader, who we would argue really needs to slip a cellphone into the ol' utility belt.
A quick check reveals that, in one paragraph, we have covered exactly one clue, and at this rate these show notes would be approximately 25 pages long. We therefore propose to simply mention, en passant, that this was an excellent Monday crossword, as one would expect since it was written by John Ewbank. We've got more to say, on most of the grid, in today's episode.
We've also announced our latest JAMCOTWA™️ (Jean And Mike Crossword Of The Week Award) — check out today's episode to see if we picked your favorite.
Show note imagery: The BATSIGNAL, available wherever fine crime-fighting equipment is sold.
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This was Samuel A. Donaldson's 42nd NYTimes crossword, and it is joyous, with effervescent clues and answers that richly reward the diligent solver. The themed answers were particularly fabulous, but we were also fans of 86D, Manage moguls, say, SKI; 74A, Place to store magazines, ARMORY; and 104A, Monopolist's portion, ALL (brilliant!). There were more (of course), check out today's episode for all the deets.
Show note imagery: The gorgeous Manila skyline
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