VIRTUAL CITY DENIZEN CROSSWORD CLUE TV

I actually refused to anagram WINTER'S O'S and got SNOW TIRES from crosses ( 9D: Apt anagram of WINTER'S O'S). Never flew on one, really shaky on the dates they were operational. SST gave me trouble ( 24A: Noted 'retiree' of '03). FISH :( Pat Sajak helped me there, which helped me finish off the eastern section. Thought there might be a species called the JETFISH. Had -ETFISH and honestly no idea what that first letter was supposed to be ( 41D: Aquarium denizen).

VIRTUAL CITY DENIZEN CROSSWORD CLUE TV

He's basically the 'hey, *that* guy' of contemporary TV (I have a lot of these in the older movies I watch). No idea who the NEAL actor was, though looking at pictures, I've seen him in things a bunch. But I still like WEEDING, which is definitely work that a 'plant manager' does, and it's a word in common use. Is a SEEDBED just an area that has been recently seeded? Oh, I see that it's the ground that has been prepared for seeding. Weirdly, the answer that fought me the most was SEEDBED (25A: Groundwork of a plant manager?). Over before it began, and *clank* on the marquee answer. Here, the phrase has been fudged into a question, purely for structural reasons (so it can be 13 letters long and sit dead center, and so the 'N' and 'W' can sit in positions that allow for the symmetrical crosses ( MRVGRFFN, WHLFFRTN).

Really feels like 'I'D LIKE TO BUY A VOWEL' is the phrase that people say. But the bigger problem is the phrasing of the question. The concept here is cute, but in the end the theme is something of a miss, first because I was basically done before I began, which made filling in most of the other themers a rote exercise. You've got that vowel question as your anchor. He had his own afternoon talk show when I was a kid). I took one look at that 'MRVGR-' combo up top, then I took another look at it, then I realized, 'nope, those letters are all solid, something weird is clearly going on with the theme.' Then, since the MRVGR- clue referred to 55-Across, I looked at 55-Across, and though the date didn't tell me much, the fact that I was dealing with a 'creator' and a 'debut' told me a TV show was involved, and Merv Griffin came right to mind (I wonder if younger people are as familiar with his name as I am.

Virtual city denizen crossword clue