1976 Broadway musical with hit song Day by Day / MON 12-3-12 / Cigarette associated with women's tennis / Common pasta suffix / Wrestler-turned-governor Ventura / Baryshnikov's nickname

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Constructor: Andrea Carla Michaels

Relative difficulty: Medium



THEME: state your name — three familiar two-word names, wherein the first word is a state

• MINNESOTA FATS (20A: Jackie Gleason's role in "The Hustler")
• CALIFORNIA ROLLS (38A: Common sushi orders)
• VIRGINIA SLIMS (58A: Cigarette associated with women's tennis)

Word of the Day: MARTY Robbins (47D: Country singer Robbins and others) —

Martin David Robinson (September 26, 1925 – December 8, 1982), known professionally as Marty Robbins, was an American singer, songwriter, andmulti-instrumentalist. One of the most popular and successful country and Western singers of his era, for most of his nearly four-decade career, Robbins was rarely far from the country music charts, and several of his songs also became pop hits. (wikipedia)

• • •
So these are things that are named for states? What about NEW YORK DOLLS? NEW YORK MINUTE? TEXAS TEA? "KENTUCKY WOMAN?" Wait, are FATS, ROLLS, and SLIMS part of the theme. FATS and SLIMS have a nice polarity to them, but how does ROLLS factor in? Doesn't seem like it belongs in the middle. Seems like it belongs on the FATS side. Now I'm confused. Anyway, the theme seems very loose and very thin. Is the WTA still sponsored by Virginia Slims? That seems messed up. You'd think there'd be enough money and interest in women's tennis at this point that they wouldn't need cigarette money. But maybe that sponsorship has stopped. I haven't seen the "Virginia Slims" name anywhere near the women's tennis matches I've watched lately (not that I remember, anyway).


I wonder why we have so much inelegant fill in an easy-to-fill 78-word grid that contains just three theme answers. . . UNSHY? UNITER? NOI? INI? Partials USETO and EYEOF? The strange NOT BE? ONER?! TWOL? Surely there's a reason. Surely ...

I do like some of this fill, though. DAINTY, GODSPELL (11D: 1976 Broadway musical with the hit song "Day by Day") and LIFE VEST are particularly nice.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. here's a mini-version of this theme (sans the confounding ROLLS answer)