Beep Boop

We’re so back. Happy New Year!

I hope you had a nice, restful holiday season - I had a moderately restful one (don’t ask me about the light fixture hanging half-taken apart in my basement). While I haven’t been keeping up with Stranger Things Season 5 (sorry there wasn’t a secret 9th episode), I have been keeping up with Djo, who has the #1 song on Spotify right now. How is this related to Stranger Things? Djo is none other than Steve Harrington, aka Joe Keery, and his song is genuinely fantastic. That makes 3 actors from Stranger Things who also have music careers (Maya Hawke and Finn Wolfhard being the other two). What a Strange Thing.

First crossword of 2026! I decided that after a two-week break, we’re going big - it’s a full 15×15 for your solving pleasure! A little extra crossword in your crossword. If you like the medium-sized, don’t worry, they’ll be back next week.

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

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Beep Boop by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

Wow! This week was a good reminder of why I don’t usually make full-size puzzles. I love solving them, love making them on occasion, but it’s a lot of work! However, the theme this week would never have fit into a smaller grid, so it was a fitting one to start the year off with.

Lana Del Rey makes an appearance today, and though I haven’t kept up with her recent music, her “Lust for Life” album has an impressive number of hits, most notably this one.

Today’s Theme

The grid contains eight shaded slots with italicized clues - six across entries, and two down. The revealer, 39-Across, is [Rolling “Star Wars” droid… And a way to describe the theme answers?], to which the answer is the spiritual successor to R2-D2, BB-8 (or in this case, BB-EIGHT). One could say that the eight theme answers that have 2 Bs in them, are the BB-8 (I know some have more than 2 Bs. It was more of a 2 B “feel” than a strict 2 Bs. Give me a break, it’s my first week back :)).

Behind the Clues

1A/6A. A fun double-clue starts this crossword off right. [Elephant king of cartoon TV (based on books of the same name)] and [Blue-haired girl of cartoon TV (based on books of the same name)] draw from two different generations of TV. The first is one I grew up with, BABAR, and the second is HILDA, which I saw when it came out in 2018. Both are fantastic, and if I had a child, I would make them watch both.

28A. Always gotta bring a little “chronically online” lingo into the real world, apparently. When I saw that BIRB fit this slot, I knew I had to reference the [Avian equivalent of "doggo"]. For those not in the know, “doggo” and “birb” are the cutesy names the internet has adopted for the sillier of those animals.

48A. Though she doesn’t use it as [Where to listen to local sports (who watches sports?)], parter/test solver Heidi is a fan of the “not dead yet” AM RADIO. “Hot Rod” is one of my favourite movies of all time, and there’s a great bit in there about AM radio still being relevant. Looks like it’s time for a rewatch!

29D. My Twilight journey started about a year ago, so I’m relatively new to ["Twilight" vampire Hale], or ROSALIE. Maybe I’m just a serial enjoyer of things (I am), but those movies are a fun watch. I’m getting the feeling I’m in a movie mood right now…

40D. Admittedly, controversial Canadian icon JB, aka [Nickname for SWAG and SWAG II artist, with "The"], aka The BIEB, aka Justin Bieber, has become someone I can root for. Sure, like every celebrity, he has his faults. But has he decided to release absolute pop bangers over the last few years? Yeah. Did he really release two albums called SWAG in 2025? Yeah. Iconic.

58D. Bring back DVD extras! It’s not uncommon for me to watch a movie or show, then immediately swipe over to YouTube to get some commentary on it. Specifically, [Like many DVD extras (remember those?), briefly] is BTS, or Behind The Scenes, which is one of my favourite types of YouTube video to binge. How did they film the marching band scenes of Severance? I have to know.

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon