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Constructed by: Guilherme Gilioli

Edited by: Patti Varol

Today’s Reveal Answer: The Voice

Themed answers are all titles of celebrated songs. The ends of those titles give us THE VOICE getting louder and louder as we descend the grid:

• 39D NBC singing competition that completed its 29th season in 2026, or what appears to get louder at the ends of the answers to the starred clues? : THE VOICE

• 16A *Wham! hit on “Make It Big” : CARELESS WHISPER
• 26A *No Doubt hit on “Tragic Kingdom” : DON’T SPEAK
• 50A *The Beatles hit on “Please Please Me” : TWIST AND SHOUT

Read on, or jump to …
… a complete list of answers

Bill’s time: 8m 20s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

9A Watermelon keg need : TAP

A watermelon keg is a DIY beverage dispenser made by hollowing out a large melon and fitting it with a spigot to tap into the fruit’s juice. The “spigot-in-a-melon” concept became viral during summers in the early 2010s. A successful keg uses a seedless variety of watermelon to ensure the tap doesn’t clog, and a flat-cut base to prevent rolling. How do I add the citrus vodka …?

14A __ butter : COCOA

Cocoa butter is extracted from the cacao bean and is used to make chocolate, among other things.

16A *Wham! hit on “Make It Big” : CARELESS WHISPER

The 1984 song “Careless Whisper” was the first single issued by George Michael as a solo artist, although he was still performing with Wham! at the time. In fact, Michael co-wrote the song with his Wham! partner Andrew Ridgeley, and it was included in the duo’s 1984 album “Make It Big”.

I found out relatively recently that the eighties pop duo that we knew on the other side of the Atlantic as “Wham!” were better known as “Wham! UK” in North America. Apparently there already was a band called Wham! here in the US. Wham! UK was composed of singers George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. George Michael made it big as a solo artist after the pair broke up and Ridgeley kind of faded into obscurity, relatively speaking.

20A Get testy with : SNAP AT

Somebody described as testy is touchy, irritably impatient. The term “testy” comes into English from Old French, ultimately deriving from “testu” meaning “stubborn, headstrong”, literally “heady”. So, our word “testy” comes from the same root as the French word “tête” meaning “head”.

21A Flute part : STEM

The narrow bowl of a champagne flute is usually preferred over the wide bowl of a champagne coupe as the smaller surface area of the wine helps retain its carbonation.

26A *No Doubt hit on “Tragic Kingdom” : DON’T SPEAK

“Tragic Kingdom” is a 1995 album released by rock band No Doubt. The album’s title is often thought to be a commentary on the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, and its Magic Kingdom, near where the band formed.

29A “Shark Tank” airer : ABC

“Shark Tank” is a reality television show that features aspiring entrepreneurs making pitches to potential investors (the “sharks”) as they try to grow their businesses. The show is a Mark Burnett production and is based on a British series called “Dragons’ Den”.

33A __ worker : GIG

Musicians use “gig” to describe a job, a performance. The term originated in the early 1900s in the world of jazz. The derivative phrase “gig economy” applies to a relatively recent phenomenon where workers find themselves jumping from temporary job to temporary job, from gig to gig.

36A Foot-to-thigh yoga pose : TREE

The tree pose in yoga is more correctly known as “vrikshasana”. It involves standing on one leg, with the other leg bent and the foot placed on the inner thigh of the straight leg. The hands are placed together and raised directly over the head.

38A Angels and Devils : TEAMS

The Anaheim Angels baseball team is today more correctly called the Los Angeles Angels (LAA). The “Angels” name dates back to 1961 when the team was founded in the “City of Angels”, Los Angeles. When the franchise moved to Anaheim in 1965 they were known as the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels, and most recently the Los Angeles Angels. The Angels are also known as “the Halos”.

The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark. The club was founded in 1974 in Kansas City, originally named the Scouts. The franchise moved to Denver in 1976, becoming the Colorado Rockies. The move to Newark happened in 1982, when the team was renamed the New Jersey Devils.

39A Big addition to a to-be-read pile : TOME

“Tome” first came into English from the Latin “tomus” which means “section of a book”. The original usage in English was for a single volume in a multi-volume work. By the late 16th century, “tome” had come to mean “large book”.

40A Food from heaven : MANNA

According to the Book of Exodus, manna was a food eaten by the Israelites as they traveled out of Egypt. The manna “fell” to Earth during the night, six days a week, and was gathered in the morning before it had time to melt.

43A Self-storage and self-moving company based in Phoenix, Arizona : U-HAUL

The U-Haul company was started by married couple Leonard Shoen and Anna Mary Carty in Ridgefield, Washington in 1945. The Shoens used $5,000 of seed money to build trailers in their garage, and then cleverly recruited gas station owners as franchisees with whom they would split the rental revenue. There are now well over 20,000 U-Haul dealers across the country.

50A *The Beatles hit on “Please Please Me” : TWIST AND SHOUT

While the most famous version of the great song “Twist and Shout” was released by the Beatles in 1963, it was originally recorded by the Top Notes in 1961, and then more successfully by the Isley Brothers in 1962. Salt-N-Pepa released a hip-hop version of “Twist and Shout” in 1988, which made it fairly high in the charts.

“Please Please Me” was the first album ever released by the Beatles, in 1963. The album cover features the Fab Four looking down from a balcony at the London headquarters of the EMI record company. That photo is so iconic, that when the building was demolished in 1999 the balcony railings were salvaged. Reportedly, they are on display at the headquarters of Universal Music UK in London.

62A “Judy” star Zellweger : RENEE

Renée Zellweger’s big break came with the 1996 movie “Jerry Maguire”. A few years later, Zellweger followed that up with a string of successes in “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (2001), “Chicago” (2002) and “Cold Mountain” (2003). My wife and I love watching her play Bridget Jones, and as someone coming from Britain and Ireland, I have to say that Zellweger does a remarkable job with the accent. She worked hard to perfect that accent, and of course she had a voice coach. She also went “undercover” and worked as a temp in an office for three weeks fine-tuning her skills.

The 2019 movie “Judy” is a biopic about singer and actress Judy Garland. The film is an adaptation of the 2005 Peter Quilter play “End of the Rainbow”. “Judy” focuses on the last year of Garland’s life, with Renée Zellweger in the title role.

63A Pat-a-cake motion : CLAP

“Pattycake” or “Pat-a-Cake” is an old English nursery rhyme that is often accompanied by hand-clapping between two people:

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Roll it, pat it and mark it with a “B”,
Put it in the oven for baby and me.

64A Part of MMA : ARTS

Mixed martial arts (MMA)

Down

1D Story trajectories : ARCS

A story arc is a continuing storyline in say a television show that runs through a number of episodes. Story arcs are also found in comics, books, video games, and other forms of media.

3D Gold standard : KARAT

A karat (also “carat”, the spelling outside of North America) is a measure of the purity of gold alloys, with 24-karat representing pure gold.

5D __ Angeles Dodgers : LOS

The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team was known as the Brooklyn Dodgers before the franchise moved to California. Before being called the Dodgers, the team was known in Brooklyn as the Robins, the Superbas, the Trolley Dodgers, the Bridegrooms/Grooms, the Grays and the Atlantics.

6D Some HPs : PCS

The giant multinational HP (originally “Hewlett-Packard”) was founded in 1939 with an investment of $538 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. The company name would have been Packard-Hewlett, if Dave Packard had won a coin toss!

9D Big name in trading cards : TOPPS

Topps was a relaunch of an older company called American Leaf Tobacco, with the Topps name used from 1938. The earlier company was in trouble because it could not get supplies of its Turkish tobacco, so it moved into another chewy industry, making bubblegum. Topps became very successful selling packs of gum combined with collectible baseball cards. The company stopped including the traditional stick of bubble gum in their packs in 1992. The practice was discontinued due to the gum staining and damaging cards.

15D “Stuck in the Middle” actor Presley : ISAAK

Actor Isaak Presley’s break came playing Ethan Diaz on the Disney Channel series “Stuck in the Middle”. From there, he moved on to roles in “Fuller House” (Bobby Popko) and the lead in the film “One Nation Under God”.

18D Dental filling : INLAY

“Inlay” is another word for “filling” in dentistry. An onlay is similar to an inlay. An onlay not only fills a hole in the tooth but it is also built up to replace a missing cusp. It’s sort of halfway between a filling and a crown, I suppose.

22D Wall in Manhattan, e.g. : STREET

New York’s famous Wall Street was originally named by the Dutch “Het Cingel” (or “the Belt”). That “belt” was the city “wall”, a wall erected by Dutch colonists to protect them from an attack by the British from the north. The attack by land never came, but the British did mount a successful invasion by sea. The British demolished the wall two decades later, in 1699.

29D PIN point? : ATM

One enters a Personal Identification Number (PIN) when using an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Given that the N in PIN stands for “number”, then “PIN number” is a redundant phrase. And, given that the M in ATM stands for “machine”, then “ATM machine” is a redundant phrase as well. Grr …!

31D John of “Peacemaker” : CENA

John Cena is a professional wrestler turned rapper and actor. Although wrestling, rapping and “Cena-style” movies wouldn’t be my cup of tea, I have to admire Cena’s philanthropic record. He holds the title for the most wishes granted by a single individual for the Make-A-Wish Foundation that benefits children with life-threatening medical conditions.

“Peacemaker” is a spin-off show from the 2021 movie “The Suicide Squad”. It stars John Cena reprising his role as a vigilante who is forced to join a black-ops team to hunt parasitic aliens.

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39D NBC singing competition that completed its 29th season in 2026, or what appears to get louder at the ends of the answers to the starred clues? : THE VOICE

“The Voice” is yet another reality television show. It is a singing competition in which the judges hear the contestants without seeing them in the first round. The judges then take on chosen contestants as coaches for the remaining rounds. “The Voice” is a highly successful worldwide franchise that originated in the Netherlands as “The Voice of Holland”.

47D Davis of “Grumpy Old Men” : OSSIE

Ossie Davis was a prominent actor and civil rights activist. He married his wife, fellow actor Ruby Dee, in 1948. They remained together until his death in 2005, making their marriage one of the longest-lasting in Hollywood history. Davis was a prominent voice in the civil rights movement, and a close friend of both Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Davis delivered a powerful eulogy at the latter’s funeral in 1965.

“Grumpy Old Men” is a wonderful romantic comedy film from 1993 starring the great actors Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau and Ann-Margret along with an excellent supporting cast. “Grumpy Old Men” was the sixth on-screen collaboration between Lemmon and Matthau, but the first in over a decade.

51D Paintball injury : WELT

The “paint” in paintball isn’t actually paint, but rather a mix of gelatin and food coloring.

52D Home of Iowa State : AMES

The Iowa city of Ames was founded as a stop on the Cedar Rapids and Missouri Railroad in 1864. It was named for US Congressman Oakes Ames from the state of Massachusetts in honor of the role that Ames played in the building of the transcontinental railroad.

Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) is located in Ames, Iowa. Among many other notable milestones, ISU created the country’s first school of veterinary medicine, in 1879. The sports teams of ISU are known as the Cyclones.

55D Campus near Sunset Blvd. : UCLA

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

The Los Angeles thoroughfare Sunset Boulevard is 22 miles long, stretching from downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean. The most famous part of Sunset Boulevard is the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, a 1½-mile stretch that is home to high-end boutiques, restaurants and nightclubs.