Crossword

Note: This puzzle is part of Merl’s best-of series.

ACROSS

1 Ratings period when TV increases its sleaze quotient 7 To a greater degree 13 Walk out, officially 17 Accords, e.g. 18 Halls for brawls 19 Misrepresentational art? 20 Flew in 22 “Let’s have it!” 23 Boca ___, Fla. 24 Going on 2 a.m. 25 Home o’ Roma? 27 Decreases de creases 28 Baseball’s Gil 30 Japanese theater 31 Certain acid salt 35 Traveled across a Tesla coil 36 Paderewski’s first name 38 The Day of the Locust author 39 Weather org. 42 Frequent Billy Wilder co-writer, ___ Diamond 43 Labor ___ delusion 44 “Aha!” 46 Foot-stomping music 49 Sans sense 51 Mugger 53 Metal of freedom? 54 Shot putter? 55 Goosebumps creator R.L. 56 She once called Han Solo “laserbrain” 57 Fitted notch in a board 59 The ___ High Dam 61 Paging device 63 Love god 64 Japanese gateway 66 ___ new phase 69 Still life specialist? 72 Clinkers 75 Be subjective when one should be objective 77 With great concentration 78 Advice to a shrinking violet 79 Cleans a sheet 81 Barbarous type 82 Toupee 83 Things done, in Latin 84 African antelopes 85 Words to live by 87 Goes to 89 Prompt 90 The Thing did it before it escaped (1951) 91 Erected 94 Is in store for 96 Eighth Hebrew letter 97 Fool time 98 Desirous 100 Behaved toward 103 Electricity: slang 104 Horde horseman 105 British prime minister, 1945-51 106 Church recess 107 “Are you seeing ___?” 108 Visual aid props

DOWN

1 Na Na or la-la opener 2 Ring magazine topic 3 Make mad 4 Like most movies on network TV 5 Does road work 6 Compass pt. 7 World War I siren 8 Turgenev’s birthplace 9 Cover with fresh paper, as shelves 10 Name from China’s past 11 Casablanca or Maltese Falcon character 12 Lact something? 13 Brendan Behan play, The ___ Fellow 14 Scriptural preposition 15 Mary’s picture, for one 16 They can be long and gross 19 Region of NW France 21 Sound that makes our dogs bark 26 Firmness 28 Israel’s chief port 29 Certain exams 32 A little after 1400 hours, to a civilian 33 Bow out, in a way 34 ___ in the dark 36 Made at Cuzco, for example 37 Alfalfa portrayer in Our Gang comedies 39 Western swing band of the 1970s 40 Rob and Laura’s neighbor 41 Resembling a phonograph needle 43 Dark, as streets 44 Hill dwellers near ancient Rome 45 Turn the ___ 47 Swedish actress who married Sammy Davis Jr. 48 Where Ennis is 50 Julie Walters’s Oscar-nominated role 52 With a little crying 57 Like most Martin Scorsese movies 58 Substance used in fireworks fuses 60 Enriqué’s emphatic assent 61 Lahr and Parks 62 Beach bird or Irish river 64 Sad, to de Sade 65 Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando, or Nick Nolte by birth 67 Most cacophonous 68 Numbers 70 Engage the enemy 71 Upright 73 Outride, as a posse 74 Ecclesiastical assembly 76 “Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more” member of Monty Python 80 Border on 84 Portland suburb, Lake ___ 85 Flimflams 86 Disconcert 87 A Honeymooner 88 Actor Glover 90 Eighth Greek letter 91 Site of Mexicali 92 “___ and Away” 93 Eye part 95 Extraordinarily long time, old chap 98 “___ married woman!” 99 Negating prefix 101 Actress Charlotte 102 ___ Plaines, Ill.