| American lake every constructor is sick of cluing, and "American lake" was probably enough to give it to you, so screw it | 131 |
| Mathematician believed to be the first computer programmer (she had a Google doodle devoted to her 197th birthday this past Monday) | 131 |
| Movie with the line "Old age. It's the only disease, Mr. Thompson, that you don't look forward to being cured of" | 131 |
| New element whose name will be ratified in January, 2010, and whose symbol appears in the middle of this puzzle's theme answers | 131 |
| Acme product that doesn't require snow (or brains), making it perfect for certain coyotes, from "Lickety Splat," 1961 | 131 |
| "It's not the ___, it's the tumidity" (William Safire maxim about sexual double standards in film nudity ratings) | 131 |
| Election Day "container" . . . and a hint to six symmetrically-placed containers hidden in this puzzle. Can you find them? | 132 |
| Diamond deception found in this grid nine times: eight in square four-letter clusters, the ninth formed by the clusters' outline | 132 |
| Word used to describe a film made by The Asylum movie studio, such as "Transmorphers" or "Sunday School Musical" | 132 |
| He said "Playing golf is like going to a strip joint. After 18 holes youÂ’re tired and most of your balls are missing." | 132 |
| 1969 literary heroine who says "I like the words damozel, eglantine, elegant. I love when you kiss my elongated white hand" | 133 |
| 1961 and 1986 Oscar-nominated role for Paul Newman (only five times has the same actor been nominated for the same role in two films) | 133 |
| Subject of the Final Jeopardy! question that knocked out Ken Jennings after a record 74 wins ... or a hint to this puzzle's theme | 133 |
| Critic who wrote the shortest review ever given to a motion picture: "No" for 1948's "Isn't It Romantic?" | 133 |
| Après-___ (following a day on the slopes -- and, literally, where the first words of the four longest puzzle answers can be found) | 133 |
| "And Moe says, 'Well, you can come in, but with two conditions ¬— one, that you don't start ___' ..." | 133 |
| "Sometimes I ain't so sho who's got ___ a right to say when a man is crazy and when he ain't" (William Faulkner) | 134 |
| In an arranged swap, she guest-hosted "The Tonight Show" in 2003 on the same day Jay guest-hosted "The Today Show" | 134 |
| Noted box opener (that, curiously, will tell you what to put in six of this puzzle's boxes when read with the enumeration 1 3/2 1) | 134 |
| It's calculated based on the position of the sun relative to fixed stars, and is roughly 6 hours longer than its solar counterpart | 134 |
| When asked "What is the meaning of life?" she sometimes answers "All evidence to date suggests it's chocolate" | 134 |
| Next words spoken by the same character after "The play's the thing / Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" | 134 |
| "Send these, the homeless, ___ to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (last lines of "The New Colossus") | 134 |
| The Peck and Snyder Company pioneered the use of ___ as advertising tools to sell a) candy; b) beverages; c) tobacco; d) sporting goods | 135 |
| "<-- This Way to the ___" (exit sign in P.T. Barnum's museum, which some patrons thought was for an exotic attraction) | 135 |
| "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" villain Shickelgrubermeiger (c'mon; I'm sick of the "Casablanca" clues) | 135 |
| A clip of his "Inside Edition" meltdown made Huffington Post's #1 spot on "YouTube's Best of 2008: Top Ten" | 135 |
| Schoolhouse Rock cartoon that begins "You sure gotta climb a lot of steps to get to this Capitol Building here in Washington" | 135 |
| A. J. ___, author of the best seller "The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World" | 135 |
| One of the worst big-name TV casting choices of 2008 (for "Kath & Kim"), according to the website Television Without Pity | 135 |
| The state of New York might make you get one after you were on a plane back from Hong Kong with this guy who couldn't stop coughing | 135 |
| "Good luck, ___" (last words on the "Mission: Impossible" tape that would "self-destruct in five seconds") | 136 |
| Who said "I have a wonderful psychiatrist that I see maybe once a year, because I don't need it. It all comes out onstage" | 136 |
| What you'll see if you watch "Raging Bull" followed by "Taxi Driver" followed by "The King of Comedy"? | 136 |
| The Process of Elimination: In the answer to each starred clue, cross out any letter that appears ___; then read the letters that remain | 136 |
| First NHL player to win the Art Ross Trophy, Maurice Richard Trophy, Lester B. Pearson Award, and Hart Memorial Trophy in a single season | 137 |
| Educator who once famously compared the lyrics of 2 Live Crew to Shakespeare's [sic] "O my luve's like a red, red rose" | 137 |
| First of three Mets to hit a lead-off home run in a World Series Game 3 (he did it in '69, Garrett in '73, and Dykstra in '86) | 138 |
| Amazon tablet (Yeah, I probably should have included this as part of the theme, but I couldn't come up with a suitable answer.Sue me.) | 138 |
| About whom Nabokov said "She was like the composition of a beautiful puzzle - its composition and its solution at the same time" | 138 |
| "Take On Me" one-hit wonders vs. "Every Breath You Take" singer vs. "Angel of Death" metal band (10/14/1066) | 138 |
| Catalog for polygamists on "Big Love" [The AV Club xword moves to a subscription model soon! Email bentausig@gmail.com for info] | 138 |
| 2011 film in which Owen Wilson says, "Wonderful but forgettable. That sounds like a picture I've seen. I probably wrote it." | 138 |
| Gollum line from "The Two Towers" that was the only 21st-century quote on AFI's 2005 list of 100 movie quotes from 100 years | 138 |
| Rocker Bonnie [CONTEST NOTE: My online all-skill crossword contest is Sept. 30. First prize is $2,500. For details visit www.alzfdn.org.] | 138 |
| A fake "RIP" tweet about him (after the VMA broadcast) made PopEater.com's "Best Celebrity Twitter Stories of 2009" | 139 |
| It's crafted to fool guards into thinking a prisoner's in bed, when he's actually gone (as in "Escape From Alcatraz") | 139 |
| Film with the line "By the authority vested in me by Kaiser William II, I pronounce you man and wife. Proceed with the execution" | 139 |
| Next to his Princeton yearbook picture it says he "intends to go to law school and eventually to warm a seat on the Supreme Court" | 140 |
| “___ Rand is one of those things that a lot of us, when we were 17 or 18 and feeling misunderstood, we’d pick up": Barack Obama | 140 |
| Ones whose names are spelled by this puzzle's circled letters ... with representatives of two realms "wrestling" for supremacy | 140 |
| Caveman 1: "I just thought of a new invention. I call it 'juice'. Hand me those purple things."Caveman 2: "___?" | 140 |
| What swing state viewers might experience as the presidential election draws closer, punnily, or a possible title for this week's puzzle? | 141 |
| "___ is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one": "The Picture of Dorian Gray" | 141 |
| Angle irons graphically represented by four sets of black squares in this grid, and by letter formations starting in the four longest answers | 141 |
| Wrap right over left, tuck right underneath, pull, pinch right in a loop, wrap left around, push left through hole to create loop, pull loops | 141 |
| Instruments featured in Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" and the Velvet Underground's "Sunday Morning" | 142 |
| Lame last-minute Halloween costume idea #1: raid the knife drawer, put a gold chain around your neck, and next thing you know you're a ___ | 142 |
| Today, I tried to put a self-effacing three-letter acronym inside each theme entry. Turns out it works in any order except the one I want. ___ | 142 |
| Alt.country singer Case whose "The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You" comes out tomorrow | 142 |
| Org. founded in 1913 "to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens" | 143 |
| Pal of "Cookie Monkey," according to my son who isn't that good at English yet but who certainly enjoys "Sesame Street" | 143 |
| "And here he is today, the luckiest turkey in America. And for the first time in his life, he's not a ___. Congratulations, Tom." | 143 |
| Rare large white animal killed by hunters in Nova Scotia last fall, which sparked an outrage due to its sacred status to the Mi'kmaq people | 143 |
| Mumps symptoms (and technically, this should be "Great Britain," but how often does one get a chance to put this answer in a puzzle?) | 143 |
| One of the "three little people" whose problems "don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world," in a classic film | 144 |
| "___ know it's more common to clue this as the 5th-century pope, but it seems easier this way; don't you agree, Mr. DiCaprio?" | 144 |
| "Wrong" way to spell a world leader's name in a New York Times crossword, according to a 1999 episode of "The West Wing" | 144 |
| Novel whose four parts are titled "The Plaintiff," "The Defendants," "Brief to Counsel," and "The Trial" | 144 |
| Remembrance word [CONTEST NOTE: My online crossword contest is ONE WEEK AWAY (Sept. 30). First prize, $2,500. For details visit www.alzfdn.org.] | 145 |
| "I unintentionally brought Mom's bag of DVDs instead of mine, so in the back seat we watched about 10 minutes of '___' ..." | 145 |
| "You had best unfuck yourself ___ will unscrew your head and shit down your neck!" (Sergeant Hartman from "Full Metal Jacket") | 146 |
| King, to Juan[LAST WEEK: The hidden name was Claudette Colbert, whose name appears across the grid's center row as CLAW / DEBT / COAL / BEAR.] | 146 |
| Slugger Jim who along with Albert Pujols and Scott Rolen were nicknamed "MV3" during the St. Louis Cardinals's 2004 World Series run | 146 |
| A2: "Say, what's the 'sensitive document' our guy grabbed?" A1: "A ___, of course." A2: "Ah! Figures." | 146 |
| "American Progress, the Triumph of Man's Accomplishments Through Physical and Mental Labor" and "Oriental Phantasie," e.g. | 146 |
| Pop star who said "The cool thing about being famous is traveling.I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff." | 146 |
| give every1 a super quick update on what ur doing at the moment (w/ a lot of abbrs) because u only get 140 characters, and that's really not e | 146 |
| "7. I was so into video games as a kid (I drove at least two ___ into the ground), I was convinced I was going to make them as an adult." | 147 |
| First name of the Cardinal who made a "mad dash" from first to home in the bottom of the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 1946 World Series | 147 |
| Web concerns ... and based on six familiar names hidden in rows 1, 4, 12 and 15 of this puzzle grid, what the black squares in those rows symbolize | 147 |
| Cartoonist who said "I don't read or watch TV to get ideas. My work is basically sitting down at the drawing table and getting silly" | 147 |
| French goose, which you won't find in a vowelless puzzle (I only allowed this entry in the puzzle because Rex Parker used it once - true story) | 147 |
| "___ is completely over" (baffling statement made by Prince on 7/5/10 that also serves as a clue how to find four answers in this puzzle) | 147 |
| Negating conjunction [LAST WEEK: The hidden products were: Levi's, Glade, Total, Aleve, Comet, Crest, Advil, Lysol, Certs, Nestea and Cialis.] | 148 |
| "Nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks," according to a January 2007 Bloomberg article by Matthew Lynn | 148 |
| "Weird Al" Yankovic single about a nuclear holocaust during the holidays, which contains the line "...underneath the missile-toe" | 149 |
| "Yes, but we woke him up. Then a pinky ring went missing." "Real jewels?" I asked. "No," she said, "___" ... | 149 |
| "I want you to think of one of your parents ... Concentrate now ... Create an image in your head ... The parent you are thinking of is ___" | 149 |
| Taylor Swift song that contains the line, "Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword and realizing there's no right answer" | 150 |
| “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,’ but that ain’t no matter” | 150 |
| Book whose title character "had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her" at the start of the story | 151 |
| "Something you would cheat on if you knew you wouldn't get caught." "___" (also, the source of this puzzle's theme answers) | 151 |
| Game show on which Oscar gave the clue "Aristophanes" and Felix correctly answered "Ridiculous," on an "Odd Couple" episode | 153 |
| Cancelled 2007 CBS dramedy that "comes close" to being "the worst show in the history of television," according to the New York Times | 153 |
| Host: "Champ, this seemed like a grudge match. Do I detect some ... ___?" Flay: "Well, yeah, he kept calling me 'Flabby Boy'!" | 154 |
| Repeated words in a drill sergeant's marching order, and a hint to how the first and second word, in turn, of each starred answer would be touch-typed | 154 |
| Expand the intrapleural space, automatically allowing entry through the pharynx and beyond, then allow the diaphragm to relax, contract, and expel contents | 155 |
| "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actress Hines when she's on Oriental Avenue, Vermont Avenue, Kentucky Avenue, Indiana Avenue, Short Line, or Park Place? | 157 |
| "I was alone, ___ a ride / I didn't know what I would find there" (opening lines for The Beatles's "Got To Get You Into My Life") | 157 |