Latest news with #HunterSThompson
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Internet is Pointing Out This Massive Flaw in Johnny Depp's #MeToo 'Crash Test Dummy' Argument
Johnny Depp would like you to know that he's not staging a comeback — mostly because, as he told The Sunday Times on Saturday, 'I didn't go anywhere.' He's been busy directing films, painting skeletons, sipping red wine under a Hunter S. Thompson poster in Soho, and, more recently, positioning himself as a victim of cancel culture and, somehow, the #MeToo movement. 'I was like a crash test dummy for MeToo,' he told the paper. 'It was before Harvey Weinstein.' The quote came buried under layers of aesthetic melancholy and disdain for modern Hollywood, but it didn't take long for the internet to call out what many saw as the core problem with Depp's narrative: it simply doesn't hold up. More from SheKnows Does Amber Heard Have a Partner? Inside Her Dating Life After Welcoming Twins Let's break this down. Depp's ex-wife, Amber Heard, accused him of abuse in 2016 — a year before The New York Times published its Pulitzer-winning exposé on Weinstein, the catalyst most historians of the movement consider its public launch. But even setting aside that timeline, Depp's assertion doesn't square with his own story. In court, he claimed that Heard weaponized her accusations to gain #MeToo relevance. If she was, as he argued during the 2022 Virginia trial, 'seeking fame,' how could Depp simultaneously have been the movement's unknowing test subject? This is what people online have latched onto in the wake of his new interview. As one X user wrote, 'Weird how during the trial, he claimed that Amber wanted MeToo fame… and now it's that he was a pre-test crash dummy. Cannot keep his narrative straight even now, just says whatever he needs to so he can victimize himself.' The victim claim also rings false to many who observed Depp's life during and after the trials. Yes, he lost his Fantastic Beasts role in 2020. But even in the thick of it, Depp was still starring in movies (Minamata, Jeanne du Barry), fronting Dior campaigns, playing guitar with his band Hollywood Vampires, and being awarded lifetime achievement prizes in Spain. In 2025 alone, he's directed a new film, Modi, acted alongside Penélope Cruz in Day Drinker, and booked five different projects — all filmed in Spain, which also happens to be where Heard now lives. Some fans have even raised concerns about the frequency of Depp's appearances in her adopted country, calling it, quote, 'extremely creepy.' Meanwhile, Heard — who moved to Madrid in 2023 to focus on raising her daughter — has largely stayed out of the public eye. She was awarded $2 million in her countersuit against Depp's attorney, but endured widespread harassment online and in person, with Depp's fans reportedly camping outside courtrooms and screaming threats. This context has not been forgotten. Reddit commenters have responded to Depp's latest claims with blunt disbelief: 'Can this man just go away please,' one wrote. 'You won one of your lawsuits in the most heinous and retrograde way possible. Why do you still have to paint yourself as some wronged victim??' And yet, that's the through-line of Depp's narrative — a story shaped less by consistency than by a persistent desire to cast himself as misunderstood, unfairly judged, and deeply wronged. Even as his Dior ads air, his artwork sells for millions, and Hollywood producers line up to toast him, he insists on seeing his career as a cautionary tale. Which, to be fair, it might be. Just not in the way he of SheKnows 23 Age-Gap Couples Who Met When One of Them Was Still a Child Everything to Know About Leonardo DiCaprio's 27-Year-Old GF Vittoria Ceretti A Look Back at Prince William's Sexiest Photos in Celebration of the Future King
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
When the creators of the Hunter S. Thompson musical finally visited his estate
As the creative force behind 'The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical,' Joe Iconis had been dreaming up the gonzo journalist's living room for the better part of two decades when he ventured to Colorado this past April and stepped foot in his cabin. Still inhabited by Thompson's widow, Anita, the home was in many ways exactly as the idiosyncratic author left it when he took his own life there in February 2005 at age 67. Stacks of books Thompson intended to read were seemingly left untouched. Masks of Richard M. Nixon, Thompson's self-declared nemesis, were hanging on the walls. The family's peacocks still roamed the space. Taped to the fridge, a note in Thompson's handwriting read, 'Never call 911. Never. This means you. HST.' 'To walk into the actual room was like nothing I have ever, ever experienced,' Iconis recalls. 'It felt like I was walking into my own script.' After premiering at San Diego's La Jolla Playhouse in 2023, the bonkers biomusical is back for a production at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, that runs through July 13. Featuring music and lyrics by 'Be More Chill' composer Iconis and a book co-written by Iconis and Gregory S. Moss, the show was penned without the rights to any of Thompson's works (as its purposely cumbersome title indicates). But with that trip to Thompson's Owl Farm estate, and the blessing of Anita and others in nearby Aspen who knew the renegade writer, 'The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical' suddenly became spiritually — if not legally — authorized. 'It speaks volumes of Joe as a composer and a writer that he was forbidden from using any of Hunter's actual writings but he found Hunter's voice, and folks who knew him feel like it did,' says George Salazar, who plays attorney and activist Oscar 'Zeta' Acosta in the musical. 'That is also what Hunter's writing was all about. It read chaotic, but there was deep intention and passion and purpose behind all of it.' Commissioned in 2008 by La Jolla to pen a musical based on Thompson's life, Iconis spent years writing the show under the assumption that a financier would inevitably materialize with the money to secure the necessary rights. But around 2016, Iconis says, the Thompson estate made it clear that such clearance was out of the show's price range. That meant Iconis had to excise any excerpts from Thompson's writing and all references to events only documented in his books, including 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' and 'Hell's Angels.' What Iconis could do, however, was depict the widely reported details of Thompson's life and conduct his own research. 'It was really scary,' Iconis says. 'But the amazing thing was that it forced me to not be able to use his language as a crutch. It forced me to actually get to the heart of everything I was trying to say at every single moment and have the word choices be 100 percent intentional.' Thus Iconis embarked on a years-long quest to evoke Thompson from afar. But when Iconis and his cast traveled to Aspen to perform songs from the show at Wheeler Opera House, Anita extended an invitation for the musical's entire traveling party — more than a dozen actors and other collaborators — to visit Owl Farm. It was an invitation Iconis accepted with trepidation. Anita, he understood, was concerned that the show would depict her late husband as a drug-crazed caricature and lose sight of his transcendence on the page. Was it worth opening up this unabashedly unlicensed endeavor to such scrutiny? 'For the life of the development of the show, I had never spoken to anyone directly connected with Hunter,' Iconis says. 'I didn't want anyone saying to me, 'Hunter would never do that.' And then the bigger part of it, really, was I didn't want anyone who knew him or who was associated with him to tell me that they hated it.' A pair of videos filmed during the visit capture Anita's approval. The first one — filmed after a young girl staying at Owl Farm suggested that Iconis play Thompson's piano — shows the composer tapping the keys to the show's rousing finale, 'Kaboom,' while his cast sings along. In the second, an emotional Anita subsequently gifts Iconis a necklace adorned with Thompson's gonzo fist emblem. 'Thank you,' she says, 'for keeping Hunter's spirit alive in such a beautiful way.' And Anita was far from the only person who knew Thompson to lend her expertise. Salazar and Jason SweetTooth Williams, the actor who plays illustrator Ralph Steadman in the show, both picked the brain of DJ Watkins, an Aspen art dealer and documentarian well versed in Thompson's story. Grabbing drinks at J-Bar, Thompson's longtime watering hole of choice, the cast struck up conversations with other folks who relayed their Thompson tales. 'It made it so much more real,' Williams says. 'Suddenly we weren't playing at something. Now, we're getting a chance to become something that we've actually experienced.' When the concert arrived, Iconis still wondered how Anita would perceive numbers highlighting the less-flattering aspects of Thompson's chaotic life. But after the show, she gifted him a bouquet of six-feet-tall peacock feathers, which he still has in his home. In an email to The Washington Post, Anita pushed back against a song that depicts Thompson as an absentee father but expressed overarching admiration for the cast and creative team. 'I'm sure Hunter would love the fact that such talented artists performers have devoted a part of their life to celebrating his extraordinary legacy,' she wrote. 'I just love the cast of the musical for using their talent and energy to celebrate a beautiful unique important American writer, whose work is relevant and helps readers understand this crazy world we live in 2025.' Asked about the musical remaining 'unauthorized,' she added: 'It appears that being required to use [Iconis's] words is what makes the musical a success.' (The executor of Thompson's literary estate did not respond to requests for comment.) Iconis subsequently tweaked the script to include details from the visit. A line in which Thompson marvels at the beauty that surrounds Owl Farm — 'The mountains look like waves to me, just slow moving' — was uttered by Anita. After Anita cut up grapefruits for her guests, Iconis added a line in which Thompson's son mentions her doing just that. In a mixed review, Washington Post theater critic Naveen Kumar praised Iconis's 'propulsive and occasionally catchy' score but critiqued the show's cradle-to-grave ambition. Although Iconis, a 2019 Tony nominee for 'Be More Chill,' hopes the musical has a future beyond its Signature run — perhaps on Broadway — the Aspen experience already marked a culmination of sorts for his journey into Thompson's headspace. 'For the actual human beings who knew that guy to like what we're doing, and feel like it accurately represents him?' Iconis says. 'F--- everything else.' Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Dates: Through July 13. Prices: $47-$112.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
American Mythmakers, Revisited: Hunter S. Thompson and John Wilkes Booth
Two shows on stages just outside Washington, 'The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical' and 'John Wilkes Booth: One Night Only!,' create a diptych of American mythmaking: One character sees the country crumbling and aims to shake it awake, the other sees it in betrayal of its founding principles and tries to burn it down. The writer Hunter S. Thompson had little regard for professional deadlines, but in 'The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical,' running through July 13 at the Signature Theater in Arlington, Va., he faces one he can't ignore. With a bottle of Wild Turkey in one hand and a .45 in the other, the bathrobe-clad gonzo journalist — staring at a typewriter that has just landed with a thud onto the stage — neutrally informs the audience: 'It's February 20th, 2005. The day I die.' Then the self-proclaimed 'major figure in American history,' played with feral charisma by Eric William Morris, manically attempts to commit his life, and the life of these disunited states, to the page. Created by Joe Iconis (music, lyrics, book) and Gregory S. Moss (book), and directed with anarchic propulsion by Christopher Ashley, the show is a frenzied, frothing act of theatrical resurrection. Morris is accompanied by a nine-member ensemble that functions as a Greek chorus of demons, muses and collaborators, ferrying us from Thompson's Louisville boyhood to his professional dust-ups with the Hells Angels and drug-fueled detours through the underside of the American dream. His Colorado home, Owl Farm, serves as both writing bunker and memory palace. Crammed with gewgaws, it looks like the kind of place that would make people rethink their ideas about souvenirs. Subtlety was never Thompson's forte, and this bio-musical wisely avoids making it an organizing principle. Iconis's propulsive score is peppered with protest anthems, beat-poet swagger and a recurring rock 'n' roll hymn to outsiders and misfits. 'All hail Hunter S. Thompson,' the ensemble chants. 'Hail to the freak.' Too much exposition? Too little? That depends on your familiarity with Thompson, a philandering husband and neglectful father who ran for sheriff of Aspen, Colo., cherished his constitutional right to own guns and nursed a near-cellular antipathy toward Nixon (played here by a reptilian George Abud). Though the show splendidly commits to unfiltered, maximalist expression, quieter moments also resonate, including when a young Hunter (Giovanny Diaz De Leon) reads a copy of 'The Great Gatsby' and resolves to one day write into existence a more democratic country. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Washington Post
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
The Hunter S. Thompson musical is somehow both gonzo and square
I was milling around with some ambivalence at my 25th high school reunion, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when Hunter S. Thompson delivered a jump scare from beyond the grave. Days before I was scheduled to see a musical about him at Signature Theatre, a glossy paperback of the rebel newsman's pinnacle work 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' was discovered inside a time capsule packed by a handful of my classmates. The book sprang at me like a skeleton hand clutching a lit cigarette. I haven't figured out who put it there, but the typewriter-armed misfit clearly meant something to a restless teenager toiling in mid-'90s suburbia — and probably dreaming of drug-addled fame and abandon. The vitality of his legacy, 20 years after he died by suicide in 2005, is the animating question of 'The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical,' which is as unwieldy yet stubbornly straightforward as the title suggests. Do people even know who he is anymore? A Gen Z actor (Giovanny Diaz de Leon) planted in the audience sizes him up and wagers a decent guess: James Taylor? Having to convince the uninitiated why they should care means starting the show on the back foot, a position it never really recovers from. Thompson is framed as a folk hero with hedonistic tendencies, righteously damning the man and championing people he calls outsiders and freaks. Among the more vaguely rebellious vibes are pointed throughlines that smartly speak to the present, mainly in drawing parallels between Presidents Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. But in wrangling counterculture into musical theater, the show reenacts the fate that befell its subject — morphing a hip renegade into a goofball cartoon. Making a case for his notoriety in his beloved first person is Hunter himself (Eric William Morris), clad in the signature green poker visor, red Hawaiian shirt and yellow-tinted shades. (The casually groovy costumes are by Toni-Leslie James.) In a familiar storytelling trope, our protagonist is aware of his limited time on Earth (measured in 'tick, tick, tick' refrains from the ensemble) and determined to prove that he burned fast and bright. For a narrator who invented the outlandish, freewheeling style known as gonzo journalism, it feels a bit square to start this memoir at birth. But composer Joe Iconis and book writer Gregory S. Moss attempt a cradle-to-grave account of Thompson's life and career in 2 hours and 40 minutes. For Thompson fans and those who've seen filmmaker Alex Gibney's very good documentary 'Gonzo' (2008), the plot will yield few surprises: his breakout embedding with the Hell's Angels, turn to covering presidential politics and eventual descent into caricature. True to Thompson's spirit, that road is riddled with sizable detours — such as his love of firearms and how he met his exceedingly patient wife (Tatiana Wechsler) — and traversed with madcap momentum. ('The way you tell a story is confounding,' a faux heckler tells him.) The highlights of director Christopher Ashley's production, which premiered in 2023 at La Jolla Playhouse, where he is artistic director, are in the visual flourishes that aim to capture the colorful gusto of Thompson's writing. Handheld horses clomp through his chronicle of the Kentucky Derby, and fuzzy bats with ruby eyes swoop overhead en route to Vegas. (Puppetry design is by Animal Cracker Conspiracy.) On the throw-everything-at-the-wall set (by Wilson Chin), wildly colorful and dynamic lighting (by Amanda Zieve) directs the eye with stunning precision. For all that, the production's ingenuity feels like elaborate costuming dressing up dogged convention. The book hews closely to an and-then-this-happened checklist of Thompson's career, rollicking tangents notwithstanding. Iconis's pastichy score, a 'Hair'-light mix of Broadway pop and melodic rock with touches of gospel, rap and emo, is propulsive and occasionally catchy, but no match for Thompson's originality. Nor Ralph Steadman's — a song about the British illustrator, whose macabre panache came to epitomize Thompson's style, rings anodyne next to the Steadman drawings plastered on the walls. As with his score for 'Be More Chill' (which reached Broadway in 2019), Iconis excels at vivid, one-off character songs. George Salazar, a standout of that show, gets a resounding anthem here as Mexican American activist Oscar Acosta, whom Thompson characterized as his Samoan attorney sidekick in 'Fear and Loathing,' a diminishment the musical attempts to correct. In a pair of breakthrough numbers, Ryan Vona proves exceptionally limber as George McGovern ('Oo, daddy, talk to me about poverty,' Thompson coos at his adored candidate) and tenderly affecting as the adult version of the writer's long-neglected son. Morris meets the challenge of gassing up Thompson as his career rides high and deflates, though registering emotion mostly falls to others while he's busy trying to change the world. Thompson is more apt to show feeling in an ardent ballad about the cause: We need a nation, he sings, of 'unemployment insurance/ and contraceptives/ literate children/ and empathetic leaders.' Fair enough. But a character needs more than gusto and a bleeding heart to feel human. Maybe it's no surprise that George Abud walks off with the show as a dry and mordant Nixon, Thompson's right-wing nemesis whose long tentacles still reach into the present. He prods and cajoles, jeers and intimidates, until he bellows the most bluntly inspired hook of the night: 'Richard Nixon gonna beat yo hippie a--.' Can you tell which party still struggles with messaging? Distilling an unbridled storyteller into one he didn't write himself is a daunting business: On opening night, Iconis said the show has been in development for some 20 years. But it speaks to the clarity of Thompson's convictions — and to how quickly and often history has repeated in recent decades — that the social struggles depicted here could be ripped from the headlines. This way, you can at least tap your feet and share a laugh. The Untitled Unauthorized Hunter S. Thompson Musical, through July 13 at Signature Theatre in Arlington. 2 hours and 40 minutes with an intermission.
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, It's the Muppet Show!
There are spoilers ahead. You might want to solve today's puzzle before reading further! It's the Muppet Show! Constructor: Justin Werfel Editor: Anna Gundlach ALAN (16A: "Galaxy Quest" actor Rickman) Galaxy Quest is a 1999 movie that parodies and pays homage to sci-fi movies and TV series and their fandoms. In the movie, fans of a fictional cult TV series, Galaxy Quest, become involved in an interstellar conflict with aliens who think the series is a documentary. ALAN Rickman portrays Alexander Dane, the ship's science officer on the fictional series, who is a member of an alien species known for superhuman intelligence, and whose catchphrase is "By Grabthar's Hammer, by the Suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!" Although I know ALAN Rickman, and so was able to figure out the answer here, I was not familiar with this movie. In learning about Galaxy Quest, I discovered that scenes of the alien planet were filmed at Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. My husband and I have been to that park. It's an amazing place, and with its red rock hoodoos (rock formations) it does look a bit alien. GONZO JOURNALISM (35A: Hunter S. Thompson's reporting style) GONZO JOURNALISM is a non-objective style of reporting that centers personal experience and emotion rather than the detached style of traditional JOURNALISM. Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) was a journalist and author. For his 1967 book, Hell's Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga, he spent a year living with the Hells Angels motorcycle club in order to write a first-hand account of the experience. In 1970, Hunter S. Thompson wrote an article for Scanlan's Monthly titled "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved." An editor of The Boston Globe commented on the Kentucky Derby article, saying it was "pure GONZO JOURNALISM." This was the first use of the term GONZO JOURNALISM. TAMPA (8A: Florida city near St. Petersburg) TAMPA is located on the west side of Florida, with coastline on TAMPA Bay and Old TAMPA Bay. The city of St. Petersburg, Florida is also located on TAMPA Bay – it's across the bay from TAMPA. The port of TAMPA BAY is the largest in the state of Florida. APE (13A: Donkey Kong or King Kong) Donkey Kong is the titular gorilla of the Donkey Kong video game franchise. King Kong is a gorilla-like monster who has appeared in movies, comics, video games, and TV series since 1933. An APE is a tailless primate, and the classification includes gorillas. HULU (14A: "Shogun" streaming service) Shōgun is a HULU TV series that premiered in 2024. The show is based on James Clavell's 1975 novel of the same name. A 1980 miniseries of the same name by Paramount Television was also based on the novel. HULU's Shōgun series features a mostly Japanese cast and much of the dialogue is in Japanese. Shōgun won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series. It is the first Japanese-language series to win that award. WALDORF ASTORIA (19A: Luxury resort brand of Hilton Worldwide) According to their website, WALDORF ASTORIA has resorts in a number of locations worldwide, including Doha, Qatar; Beverly Hills, California; Osaka, Japan; and Beijing, China. RTS (24A: Some football linemen (Abbr.)) In football, RTS are right tackles. I'm pretty sure I learned that information from a crossword puzzle at some point. LEG (27A: One of a quadruped's four) In this photo, my cat, Willow is showing all four of her LEGs, helpfully demonstrating that she's a quadruped. DUSTS (40A: Does a housecleaning task) My husband and I do a fairly good job of working together to keep our house clean. We make a pretty good team, because we are generally bothered by different types of messes, so we each take responsibility for cleaning those that bother us. However, neither my husband nor I DUSTS on a regular basis; apparently DUST doesn't bother either of us as much as it should. THE (43A: Most common word in English) Just for fun, I counted up the number of times the word THE appears in this article. THE answer is 101 times. ALEC (55A: Actor and comedian Mapa) The comedy special, ALEC Mapa, Baby Daddy, premiered on Showtime in 2015, and is based on ALEC Mapa's one-man show of the same name. The show tells the story of ALEC Mapa's experience of becoming a father through the process of foster adoption. INCA (56A: Creator of a 40,000 km-long South American road system) In the late 1400s and early 1500s, the INCA Empire incorporated a large part of western South America, including portions of the modern-day countries of Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. The INCA built an extensive and advanced road system that had two main north-south roads. One of the main roads ran along the west coast of South America, while the other main road was further inland and in the mountains. Both roads had numerous branches. SUET (58A: Beef fat in some bird feeders) This clue feels timely for me, as the birds in our neighborhood have been particularly hungry recently. For the last week I have been putting a new SUET block in the bird feeders on a daily basis. DALAI (1D: ___ Lama) The Dalai LAMA is a spiritual leader in Tibetan Buddhism. The current and 14th Dalai LAMA is Tenzin Gyatso. ELSA (6D: "Frozen" princess) In the 2013 Disney animate movie, Frozen, the princess ELSA is voiced by Idina Menzel. Wait, has it really been 12 years since we first heard "Let it Go," ELSA's iconic song? TAHOE (8D: Lake on the California/Nevada border) Lake TAHOE is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the California/Nevada border, and is the second-deepest lake in the U.S., after Oregon's Crater Lake. MAUI (10D: Second-largest Hawaiian island) and LEIS (27D: Hawaiian necklaces) As the clue informs us, MAUI is the second-largest Hawaiian island; the largest is Hawai'i. If you visit any of the Hawaiian islands, you're likely to receive LEIS. PITA (11D: Bread served with hummus) and ATE (12D: Had some hummus) It's fun to see hummus linking these two consecutive clues together. PITA is making back-to-back puzzle appearances, as we saw it yesterday clued as [Pocketed bread for souvlaki]. MONA (33D: "___ Lisa") Leonardo da Vinci's painting MONA Lisa is on display at the Louvre in Paris, France. BLUE SKIES (34D: Jazz standard that describes sunny weather) The jazz standard "BLUE SKIES" was written by Irving Berlin in 1926. The song was written (as a last-minute addition) for the Rodgers and Hart musical Betsy. Although the musical wasn't much of a success, the song became a hit. It has been sung by numerous artists over the years, including Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye for the 1954 movie White Christmas. "BLUE SKIES, smilin' at me / Nothin' but BLUE SKIES do I see..." RIVER (44D: Tigris or Euphrates) The Tigris RIVER and the Euphrates RIVER both begin in the Armenian highlands of Turkey and then flow, in a somewhat parallel fashion, down through valleys and gorges in a south-easterly fashion before joining and discharging into the Persian Gulf. The Tigris-Euphrates RIVER system lies in the Fertile Crescent region where Mesopotamian civilization flourished. HENRY (47D: Shakespeare wrote seven plays about kings with this name) The seven plays William Shakespeare wrote about kings named HENRY are (rather unimaginatively) titled HENRY IV, Part 1, HENRY IV, Part 2, HENRY V, HENRY VI, Part 1, HENRY VI, Part 2, HENRY VI, Part 3, and HENRY VIII. ORCAS (48D: Whales commonly seen in Haida art) The Haida are indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. They are one of 231 federally recognized tribes in Alaska. ORCAS are prominent and significant symbols in Haida art and stories. CLUE (53D: You're reading one right now) Self-referential CLUEs always bring a smile to my face. AOL (54D: "You've got mail" ISP) Who else is old enough that they can still hear AOL's "You've got mail" message in their head? I sometimes wish I had saved all of the CDs AOL sent me in the mail, as they surely would have been useful for making some marvelous, creative artwork. (Actually, I'm extremely glad I did not save all of those CDs...) WALDORF ASTORIA (19A: Luxury resort brand of Hilton Worldwide) GONZO JOURNALISM (35A: Hunter S. Thompson's reporting style) ANIMAL CRACKERS (50A: Zoo-or circus-themed snacks) IT'S THE MUPPET SHOW: The first words of the theme answers are names of characters on THE MUPPET SHOW: WALDORF, GONZO, and ANIMAL. Cue The Muppet Show theme song, "It's time to play the music / It's time to light the lights / It's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight..." As a tremendous fan of The Muppet Show, I thoroughly enjoyed this theme. The Muppets we're meeting in today's puzzle are: WALDORF - one of the two elderly men (along with Statler) who sit in the balcony of the show and heckle people, GONZO - a Muppet of ambiguous species who is known for his passion for performing stunts, and ANIMAL - the wild and frenetic drummer of the Muppet band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. Congratulations to Justin Werfel on a USA Today debut! Thank you, Justin, for this delightful puzzle. USA TODAY's Daily Crossword Puzzles Sudoku & Crossword Puzzle Answers This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Crossword Blog & Answers for June 2, 2025 by Sally Hoelscher
