New York Times, Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Sam:

To my knowledge, this is the first puzzle I'd ever had accepted by the New York Times, so it has a special place in my heart. I fell upon this kid-friendly theme after multiple attempts of trying to satisfy Vic with good theme ideas; even though I was merely a newbie at this point, I had a good feeling about this one's development. Sure enough, my mentor gave me a thumbs-up, and we proceeded with construction. Vic was excellent at explaining grid design, and guided me through creating an initial grid, fill, and clues to submit to Will. Months later, Will requested a revision, so Vic designed a new grid with fill and sent it over to me. I tweaked the fill (especially in the bottom right) and clued the puzzle. Vic revised my clues, and the rest is history! It's been a pleasure working with Vic and I can't thank him enough for his mentorship.

Vic:

Sam's right — and he's talented and has been a joy to work with. He was 16 when he made this puzzle. I'd been mentoring him for a few weeks. He developed the theme. I helped a bit on construction and fill. We submitted it Feb. 17, 2012. At that time FANCY PANTS was in the theme rather than BOSSYPANTS.

On June 26, 2012, Will told us the theme needed a "revealer of some sort." We went back to the drawing board and emerged with NICKELODEON across the center of the revised product. On March 25, 2012, Sam had a solo-byline Sunday puzzle in the Los Angeles Times. Also, while we were revising SPONGEBOB, we were at work on a themeless that appeared in the Times on July 28, 2012.

Sam and Vic aren't the NYT co-constructors with the widest age difference (that would, famously, be Bernice Gordon and David Steinberg, born 83 years apart). But 43 years is still quite a difference. Sam is one of several young constructors whom Vic has mentored. Besides the theme here, I especially like YO TE AMO, BE MINE, RAN OUT ON, NOSEBAG, NEW ISSUE and NUT JOB.

What a nice construction today. This type of grid arrangement, with an 11-letter entry in the middle, can be difficult to fill because that central entry (sort of) divides the puzzle in two, creating big corners of white space to fill. But Sam and Vic do an admirable job in their fill.

Aside from the main theme answers (which lead to SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS), there is SO much goodness all throughout the grid. Any big corner like the SW or NE is bound to have drab and or unpleasant fill, but look what's packed in the SW: NEW ISSUE (I have an MBA* so this totally appeals to me), IRKSOME, NOSE BAG all in parallel, with ORWELL crossing it. There are a few compromises, but ESSA and ASSN are pretty minor offenders.

In the NE, RAN OUT ON and SIGN FOR are very good. And call me crazy, but I don't agree when people gripe about ETAIL (or ETAILER). It's a legitimate term, seen frequently in business. Aside from that can of worms, everything is relatively smooth and clean. Nice work.

I wasn't a huge fan of the theme itself, as we've seen SPONGEBOB a few times recently in the NYT xw, giving him a bit of an overused feel. I am glad they changed FANCY PANTS to BOSSYPANTS, since theme consistency is preserved (THINGAMABOB and BOSSYPANTS are both one word, while BATH SPONGE and TIMES SQUARE are two).

All in all, not a standout theme, but a very nice job of making a snazzy and enjoyable puzzle.

*Mostly worthless but two very fun years of debauchery