The Monday Sun

SPOILER WARNING: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

At the Snow Bank is by Brendam Emmett Quigley, one of my favorite constructors. And he does not disappoint here. Who knew there were so many expressions welding winter weather with wealth?

20A: Ready money at the snow bank? (COLD HARD CASH) I was ready for this one. I used to work in a parking lot. We had no safe and about the only place to keep the money was in the refrigerator. When the next shift came on, it was obligatory to make the “cold, hard cash” joke.

36A: Bribe money at the snow bank? (SLUSH FUND) Actually, “slush fund” was originally a nautical expression. “Slush” was what they called the fat obtained from meat boiled onboard ship. Sailors boiled down and stored the fat remains of their salt beef rations to sell.

53A: Unliquefiable money at the snow bank? (FROZEN ASSETS) Although it’s not hard to figure out what it means, “unliquifiable is not a word you’ll see in many Monday puzzles.

More “cold” conjuring entries at 19A: Host of VH1’s “Rap School” (ICE T), 66A: Figure skater Thomas (DEBI) and 11D: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” author (LECARRE, who also wrote “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”

Other entries of interest:

38D: Only last name shared by two different Best Actor Oscar winners (HOFFMAN) That’s Dustin and Philip Seymour, by the way. I didn’t read the clue carefully enough, had only the initial H and filled in Hepburn, as in Katherine and Audrey. Katherine won four best Actress Oscars, the first in 1933 and the final in 1981. She deserved at last a couple more.

Our old friend REX shows up at 25D Nero Wolfe Creator Stout. This time he has abandoned comic strip medicine for mystery-writing.

And speaking of comic strips, you didn’t miss the apostrophe-laden 34A: Blondie’s husband’s boss’s wife (CORA) did you? She’s usually portrayed beating her husband with an umbrella or whatever blunt object is at hand.

14A: “Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon” speaker. (ROMEO) Why does young Mister Montague want to murder the moon? He doesn’t really, he’s just excited because Juliet just came out on the balcony and he thinks she’s prettier than the moon – and the stars too judging by this line that follows soon after : “The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp.”

35D: “What a waste it is to lose one’s mind” speaker (QUAYLE) Remember the good old days when the inarticulate boob who you cringed to hear speak was the realitively powerless Vice-president and not the leader of the free world? (Sorry, I said I was going to refrain from political statements.)

I don’t think I have a favorite crossword letter, but my favorite Scrabble letter is definitely X, and there are four of them in this puzzle – XEROXED, BOSOX, XXL, LUX, XMEN and the aforementioned REX.

See you Tuesday.

Waiting for the Sun

Well, the New York Sun puzzles will be out tomorrow, but God only knows what time. Last time it was late afternoon, which means that with my beloved family and that pesky job taking so much of my time I don't get to spend as much time analyzing the Monday puzzle as it deserves. But anyway in the meantime I can tell you that Merl Reagle has a great crossword (of course, all his puzzles are great) in the Philadelphia Inquirer (among other papers). It's called "If Spider-Man Were More Like a Real Spider" and it is punny. You can find it here.
Also, on these waiting for the Sun weekends I like to dig into my autograph collection and share something. A lot of the autographs that I like the most are from people that most folks are unfamiliar with. You may not have heard of Thurl Ravenscroft before, but I know for a fact you have heard him. He had a magnificent deep voice, and he did a ton of voice-overs, including a bunch of Disney movies and shows at Disney World. He also sang "You're a Mean One, Mister Grinch" in the classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". But he is probably best known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in Frosted Flakes commercials.
The Grrrr-reat Mr. Ravenscroft passed almost exactly two years ago on May 22nd 2005. He was 91.

Just a reminder

When you click here to go to the New York Sun's crossword puzzle page, it's always going to default to that day's puzzle, which means if you go there on a Saturday or Sunday you're going to get a message like this: "http://www.nysun.com/crosswords/puzzles_dir/nys070519.puz is not a puzzle file" because the puzzles are only published Monday-Friday.
So, by all means, go and get you some of that puzzley goodness, but if it's the weekend, make sure you click on that calendar thingy at the bottom of the page and change the date, then click the Submit button.
Enjoy.

Books I've read in 2007, part 14

The titular Jack is Jack Horner AKA Jack the Giant Killer, Jack Frost and several other Jacks of legend and lore. And Jack is in a world of trouble. He's been kidnapped and is imprisoned at the Golden Boughs Retirement Community, which is where Fables (those animals and people from folk and fairy tales living among us) who are too dangerous or undesirable are sent to live ouit their days. The place is run by the mysterious Revise and his librarians the Page sisters.
It's kind of like The Brothers Grimm meet The Prisoner. And it's a lot of fun. I especially appreciated seeing an old friend from my days of having books read to me. I won't say who he is, but he has the awesome power to turn tigers into butter

An Unqualified Success

I know Orange and Rex have talked about a file they have where they keep their favorite puzzles throughout the year. I’ve never had one – until now. But I am going to have to start a favorites file so I can put this one in it. This was one heck of an entertaining puzzle.
Friday Sun crosswords don’t usually have a theme, so you know before you start that the fact that this one does means it’s not going to be a simple theme. And it’s not simple, but it’s very satisfying.
But first, our ever popular SPOILER WARNING: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

Unqualified by Lee Glickstein and Nancy Salomon. The title is the same as the clue to 7 Down, which also informs us that it contains a hint to this puzzle’s theme. The answer is NO IFS ANDS OR BUTS -- which means Lee and Nancy have deleted the letters I-F or A-N-D or B-U-T from the themed entries.
Let’s start with the IFS.
1A: Order at a pub (GET ALE). Before the no "ifs" policy went into effect, this was GET A LIFE.
21A: Autobiography by the three men in a tub? (WE OF BATH) Still literary, I suppose, but it used to be the WIFE OF BATH from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.I've read "The Canterbury Tales" a couple of times and I love it --get a good translation if you're not fluent in Middle English. You'll never see the sacred and the profane commingle quite as freely as they do in this book where members of all levels on mideival society on a pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral amuse (and shock and titillate) each other by telling stories. The Wife of Bath (who is aptly titled, she's been married since she was 12 to five different men, and she's actively seeking number) tells of a knight who rapes a maiden and as punishment has to find the answer to the question "What do women want?". Eventually he finds an old hag who promises she can tell him the answer and she does (and no, I'm not going to tell you what it is, let the Wife tell you). But he has to marry her and she asks him if he wants her to be old and faithful or young and beautiful but untrue. The knight wisely says "You decide, I'll be happy either way." And because he was willing to let her make the decision she became young and beautiful and faithful.
The great thing about the Canterbury Tales is the way the tale-tellers personalities come through even 600 years later. The Wife of Bath is plainspoken, coarse even, but she has some very progressive ideas about sexual equality. Here are a couple lines I highlighted in my copy of the Wife of Bath's tale.

"After drinking, my thoughts turned to Venus, for as surely as cold causes hailstones, a liquorous mouth makes a lecherous tail."

"The covetous man is poor, for he desires more than he can have. But he who has nothing and covets nothing is rich. . . The poor man as he goes along can sing and play in front of thieves."

Now on to the Ands. 46A: What you might do to help a friend with pressing needs? (BRING IRON). If your friend had cattle-marking needs you might bring him a BRANDING IRON.
53A: Nanoseconds (TIME BITS) originally TIME BANDITS, the movie masterpiece directed by Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam. If you haven't already seen this movie, do so right after you finish reading "The Canterbury Tales." You'll be hooked from the moment that white horse comes charging out of a little boy's closet.

And that just leaves the BUTs. They are 31A: Loses ones head big-time? (PANIC TONS) which before it lost its but was PANIC BUTTONS, and 69A: Headline after Kennedy gave up on his presidential run? (TEDOUT) -- BUTTED OUT.

There has been some debate in the crossword community as to whether one loses some puzzling enjoyment when solving for time as opposed to savoring a particularly clever clue or two. I can see both sides, but I was solving this one for time, and though I enjoyed it very much as I was doing it, there were a couple of the themed words that I did not reconstruct until after I finished the puzzle. And then they gave me a laugh then. I think most people once they finish a puzzle they're finished with it. If a puzzle is still bringing you fresh chuckles after you've completed it, that's a lot of bang for your buck.
My only complaint about this puzzle and it is a minor one is that it would have been even more elegant if all the ifs, ands and buts had been together instead of broken up, as they are here: IF-IF-BUT-AND-AND-BUT.

Let's look at some of the other entries of note.

15A: An atom of it has 79 protones and 118 neutrones. (ORO) If it was earlier in the week, they'd just say "Spanish for gold" but because it's Friday they make you work a little harder for this three-letter word by using the Spanish spelling of protons and neutrons.

18A: Singer with the #1 album "Between the Lines" (IAN) That's Janis Ian, and you're forgiven if you didn't know that. It came out in 1975 and contained the song "At Seventeen," probably the most depressing top 40 hit ever.

19A: Wettish, in a way (DEWY) Boy, dewy ever like the word "wettish"!

20A: Silk ingredient (SOY) I got this with no letters in place, even though it is a little tricky. I'm a recovering vegetarian and I've consumed a lot of soymilk. Hell, I even know that Silk means comes the first letter of soy and the last three letters of milk.

Hey, there aren't any IFs in this puzzle but there are a couple of FIs at 25A: "Shrek" ogress (FIONA) and 9D: Credentials (BONA FIDES)

28A: Insect trapper (AMBER) Amber is a fossil resin that can indeed trap insects as well as spiders, frogs and fruits. Most of the world's amber is 30 to 90 million years old, and an insect's only hope of immortality.

38A: Coll. major (ECON) for Economics. Exterminators major in D-Con (sorry).

41A: City near Keoladeo National Park (AGRA) This one threw me cuz Keoladeo sounded Hawaiian, so I was thinking OAHU. Again, earlier in the week it might be clued as "Taj Mahal location."

Look who's back, it's SAM I AM (at44A) who made an appearance in yesterday's Sun puzzle. How many times do we have to tell you, we would not, could not in a box, we would not, could not with a fox, we do not like green eggs and ham.

62A: Citrus fruit similar to a grapefruit (POMELO) Actually, it might be more accurate to say a grapefruit is similar to a pomelo, since the grapefruit is a hybrid between an orange and a pomelo.

68A: Winning trio (ENS) Three Ns in "winning"

5D: Research that can't be done on-line (LEG WORK) Great Google-proof clue.

10D: Frank (RED HOT) Yep, I saw this was six letters and was sure it was going to be "candid." Nope, it's a good old-fashioned hot dog.

11D: Canning tool? (AXE)

22D: Alley of Moo (OOP) At first glance, that clue looks like we're back in Seuss territory, but we're actually in comic strip caveman Alley Oop's hometown.

57D: PATH part (PORT) Note to George Stevenson of the New York Sun, this is an example of what I meant when I said that a lot of puzzles are Empire-State-centric. PATH stands for Port Authority Trans-Hudson, not something that a reasonably well-informed South Carolinian or South Dakotan could be expected to know.

56D: 1997 Babe Ruth Award winner (ALOU) Common baseball-crossword surname, really obscure clue. The Babe Ruth Award (for MVP in the World Series) was discontinued in 2002 -- which I guess means David Eckstein gets to keep the trophy forever now.

55D: Night line deliverer (LENO) Night line not Nightline (That would be ABC-TV)

52D: Winter parade honoree, for short (ST PAT) Most people don't think of Saint Patrick's Day as a Winter holiday, but since St. Patty's Day is March 17th and Spring doesn't begin until March 20th (or occasionally the 21st) technically it is.

A great puzzle like this makes the weekend that much longer, but a new Sun puzzle will be out on Monday, we'll talk about it here and I hope to see you then.

Themeless -- or is it?

Karen M. Tracey's Sun puzzle for May 17th is billed as a Themeless Thursday, but I think it does have a theme.
I'll state my case right after this SPOILER WARNING: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

I submit the theme of this themeless puzzle is comic books and comic strips. Just look at these entries:

55A: "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons" Duo CALVINANDHOBBES. No question about that one. (By the way, "Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons"? Best book title ever.)

33D: "Krazy ___" (George Herriman comic strip) KAT. No question about that one either. As much as I love Pogo, Doonesbury, Peanuts, Li'l Abner, Calvin and Hobbes and Thimble Theatre (Popeye) I would have to say that Krazy Kat is my favorite comic strip. There is just something so timeless and so transcendent about Herriman's adventures of the lovesick Kat, the brick-throwing Ignatz Mouse and Offisa Pupp set in a surreal Arizona landscape.

22D: Mercury QUICKSILVER Quicksilver (AKA Pietro Maximoff) is the son of evil mutant Magneto and brother of the Scarlet Witch, and a longtime member of the Avengers.

And speaking of Magneto and mutants, 18D: He won an Emmmy for hosting the Tonys HUGHJACKMAN. Jackman is probably best known for playing Wolverine in the X-Men movies.

As far as I know TIMECOP (1994 sci-fi film satrring Jean-Claude Van Damme) was never a comic book, but it was a very comic booky movie. Likewise, many of the films of 17A: Creator of Cole Sear (MNIGHTSHYAMALAN) have a strong comic book sensibility particularly "Unbreakable."

And how about 26A: Radiances SHEENS. Sheens is only one letter away from a certain Queen of the Jungle.

Okay, okay, I know I'm reaching here. Let's forget about comics and look at some of the other clues.

1A: Row RHUBARB. It seems to me that the word "rhubarb" meaning a fight or an argument is usually from the world of baseball. This is borne out by the book "Rhubarb" by the nearly-forgotten H. Allen Smith, about a cat who inherits a baseball team. It was made into a movie with Ray Milland and a brief appearance by Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy in only his second silver screen appearance. Rhubarb was also made into a comic book, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence.


One of my favorite fictional characters makes an appearance in 45A: "Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?" asker SAMIAM.

AVA Gardner is here too. The fact that she's clued as author of the 1990 Hollywood autobio subtitled "My Story" rather than the wife of Mickey Rooney or Frank Sinatra will please at least one friend of mine.

Sometimes it helps to have a few years on you. 1D: is 45 and 78, e.g. abbr., and I remember when records were sold by their revolutions per minute (RPMS). The most popular format was 33 1/3 rpms, but maybe Karen thought that would make it too easy. I also remember when people thought Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny" was a modern classic. It's remembered now mostly as a 1954 movie with Humphrey Bogart as Captain QUEEG (22A), the man who loses his mind over strawberries.

If you've never heard of the Yellow Hats and Red Hats, for two (45d) you're probably not a Buddhist.

I really like 38A: Tina Fey's style GeekCHIC and 10D: Disbelieving demand NAMEONE. My only quibble with this puzzle is 30A: Slang, slangily JIVETALK. I don't think jive talk was ever slang for slang. I think it was slang for BS. Unless the Bee Gees misled me.

Have a nice Thursday.

Away from the Storm

Got a good one for you today, so let's get the SPOILER WARNING out of the way: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

Gimme Shelter is by Pete Mitchell, and the conceit here is revealed in 69A: Last name for the starts of 17-,27-,46-,and 61-Across LEE.

So we get 17A: Rock, e.g. STANDUPCOMEDIAN
(And yes, Stan the Man Lee is having a big week; he was in yesterday's Sun puzzle too. Well, okay, it might have been Stan Musial, but it looked like Stan Lee to me.)

27A: 1992, to Queen Elizabeth II ANNUSHORRIBILIS. (Anybody else would have just said it was a bad year.)(Ann Lee was one of the founders of the "Shaking Quakers" or Shakers religion. At one time they had 6,000 members but they forbade any "sexual expression" whatsoever, so they didn't make any baby Shakers and it's kinda hard to recruit new members with those kind of rules. At last count they had 4 members.)

46A: City in upstate New York with horse racing SARATOGASPRINGS
(My sixth-grade teacher Miss Chewning was fanatical about the double-negative rule. She HATED Sara Lee's jingle "Everybody doesn't like something, but nobody doesn't like Sara Lee."

61A: 2003 film with the tagline "Feel the love" ANGERMANAGEMENT
"Eat, Drink, Man, Woman," is my favorite Ang Lee movie, but he also directed "Sense and Sensibility" and "Brokeback Mountain."

Even after I had figured out the theme and finished the puzzle I wasn't sure why it was called "Gimme Shelter." When I realized that it was because every themed entry gained a "Lee" and alee means away from the wind or toward shelter, I got a delayed chuckle out of it. Much
appreciated.

Some entries of note:

I found 4A: Essayist who wrote "Lawyers, I suppose, were children once" LAMB interesting, mainly because it seems the only time Charles Lamb comes up in a puzzle, it's just a reference to his pen name Elia, so it's kinda cool to actually hear from the man. In addition to the lawyer quip, Lamb also said:

" T'is sweet to think that where'er we rove
We are sure to find something blissful and dear;
And that when we 're far from the lips we love,
We 've but to make love to the lips we are near."

(which makes me think Lamb might want to sue Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Their "Love the One You're With" was a complete rip-off.)

He also wrote:

"The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident." (Which is profoundly true)
and
"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts." (Which isn't.)

39A: Noted dump truck manufacturer TONKA. Love those clues that take you unexpectedly back to childhood. 48D: Toy that'll give you a lot of bang for your buck (POPGUN) had much the same effect.

7D: Org. led by a Grand Exalted Ruler BPOE. That's the Elks Club, y'all, more formally known as the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

24D: Tea type OOLONG The word oolong means "black dragon" in Chinese, supposedly because the leaves resemble dragons awakening when hot water is poured on them.

45A: Question in a long-distance relationship MISSME.
This one took me unexpectedly back to my adolescence, where I had a couple of long distance relationships.

The trickiest entry in the puzzle for me was 40A: Trivial Pursuit piece. I had _IE and knew that it had to be PIE. I was still sure even though I couldn't make the intersecting LAPEN (32D: Heavy) make any sense. Finally by playing the alphabet bet I realized that you also need a DIE to play Trivial Pursuit and LADEN made a whole lot more sense than LAPEN.

A lot of great clues in this puzzle even for some pretty common entries 53D: They might yell at their privates and 62D: Like a fat mule both gave me an interesting visual and a mid-puzzle chuckle before I got SGTS and EEE.

And finally we have this clue 49A: Letter that resembles the "y" of Disney's signature PHI. Does it? Decide for yourself.

Ego trip

Tuesday's puzzle is Eye-Catching by Alan Arbesfeld. It comes with this SPOILER WARNING: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

The theme here is two word-phrases with an i added to each of the words, like so:

17A: Prejudices from a yellow fleet? (TAXiBAiSES)
28A: Serving profession? (WAiTERMETiER)
46A: Lacquer a big pipe? (STAiNTHEMAiN)
61A: Order concerning Amtrak vehicles? (TRAiNSFiAT)

To which I say, ahnh. It's clever but the resulting answers are not particularly amusing in any way. My favorite is "Stain the main" and even there I think it would have been funnier clued as "Lacquer an ocean" rather than ". . . a big pipe". And I know it's only Tuesday, but c'mon -- "Amtrak vehicles" is there a more obvious way to clue "trains"?

Wit and wordplay (two things the Sun is famous for) are strangely lacking here. Other than the themed entries, there are only two clues with question marks. 33D: Mr. Loaf, to his friends? (MEAT) (which you could probably get even if you'd never heard of the genius behind "Paradise by the Dashboard Light") and the very last clue in the puzzle 69A: Ball-bearing person (SEER) which is actually kinda clever.

2D: Onetime rival of Coleco (ATARI) This clue is poorly-worded at best, it makes it sound like Atari is no longer with us when in fact it's still in the video game biz, while Coleco (COnnecticut LEather COmpany) went belly-up in 1989 and was always better known for Cabbage-Patch Kids than their ColecoVision.

67A: Phat (BOSS) strikes me as bogus too. Phat is a modern (or 90's maybe) term and "Boss" is what? 50's? 40's?

1D: Make a request (for) PUTIN This one tripped me up for a moment. I put down "plead."

34D: "I ate his liver with some ____ beans and a nice chianti": Hannibal Lechter (FAVA) Even if you're not a cannibal you can appreciate fava beans. They've been eaten for thousands of years and are also known as Windsor beans, horse beans, pigeon beans and broad beans (even though technically they're not a bean, they're a pea.)

NYMPHET is not a word you see often in crosswords (40A: Dirty old man's obsession, perhaps) One of my favorite writers, Russell Hoban, says "A dirty old man is the only kind of old man there is." As unofficial spokesman for the DOMA (Dirty Old Men of America) I can tell you that we're not all interested in nymphets. But the word "perhaps" prevents me from quibbling about this clue. And I do like the word "nymphet" which I just noticed is NY MET with a PH in the middle -- Hey, maybe somebody should do a crossword where they hide the letters PH in a baseball team. Call it "PH 9" or something. (Note to constructors: you're welcome to this idea; just send my share of the royalties to Green Genius, Inc.)

39D: Legendary jazz pianist who worked with Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart (ARTTATUM) Sorry, never heard of him, and I'm sure he's a musical genius. Maybe he's even another Django Reinhardt. I love music, but I'm a moron whose tastes never matured much beyond Mr. Loaf.

Skool's In

Hello, happy Monday, everybody. Make yourself comfortable, here, have a SPOILER WARNING: Don't read any further until you've done today's New York Sun Crossword Puzzle. New York Sun puzzles are every bit as good as the more well-known New York Times, and they're indisputably better in one way -- they're free. You can download this puzzle and join in on the fun here.

Madison Avenue Skool of Spelling features misspellings from commercials and advertisements. God knows there are plenty to choose from in a country that spells relief R-O-L-A-I-D-S and cheese K-R-A-F-T. Robert E. Lee Morris wisely chooses to limit his entries to misspellings of words that rhyme with fright, i.e.

17A: Toothpaste brand (ULTRABRITE)
30A: Golf ball brand (TOPFLITE)
42A: Soda brand (DIETRITE)
55A: Beer brand (MILLERLITE)

Which means he left out:



And my favorite:


and probably a bunch more

Other entries of note:

10A: "Anatomy of a Murder" director Preminger (OTTO) And in addition to "Anatomy" he also directed "The Man With the Golden Arm" "Laura" and "Advise and Consent" but to those of us of a certain age and a certain mindset he will always be remembered as one of the three actors who played Mr. Freeze on the 1960's Batman television show.

14A: Last word of "Humpty Dumpty" (AGAIN) I really need to come up with a word for this type of clue, where the answer is something you know you know, but you have to mentally sing most of a song or recite most of a poem before you can get it. I think I'll call it a Humpty-Dumpty from now on.

You know a lot depends on where 2-word answers break or are hyphenated. 22A: He played Mingo on "Daniel Boone" (EDAMES) must have been one I got from the down entries because i don't remember the clue, and when I looked over the puzzle after finishing it, I thought for a second this must be a new E-word (like E-tail and E-commerce, etc.) -- E-Dames would be women you meet on the internet, I guess. (Ed Ames makes more sense.)

A couple of old friends pop in to say hello on this Monday. Our favorite accused-of-spying-but-innocent 3D: ____ Hari (MATA) (an e-dame if there ever was one) and everybody's favorite comic strip MD REX Morgan makes an appearance at 22A. Here's something you may not know about the good doctor:

Morgan has enjoyed reasonable success as a comic strip, but hasn't ventured far from the newspaper page. It was never adapted into a movie or TV show, and in its only comic book reprint (published by Harvey Comics in 1952) the title was subordinated to the far more compelling Teen-age Dope Slaves. (from the invaluable Don Markstein's Toonopedia.)

25D: Tref sandwich, for short (BLT) Not hard to figure out a three-letter sandwich, but I don't know what tref means and after five minutes of Googling I still don't. Any help would be appreciated.

38D: Pilots make them go up (GASBILLS) This one made me laugh. I especially appreciated the absence of a question mark in the clue.