Edward John Poynter, Andromeda
There seems to be a trend nowadays of including more proper names in crosswords, on the theory that it’s fun to allude to cool stuff that fun, cool people like us like. I haven’t joined this trend, possibly for selfish reasons: my favorite Victorian novelists almost never show up in crosswords, whereas every other puzzle seems to include at least one Star Wars reference, however gratuitous: THE, for example, clued “Jabba ___ Hutt” or “Use ___ force, Luke!”
So I try to keep proper names out of my fill and also, especially, my themes. I sigh, more in sorrow than in anger, when I encounter yet another puzzle where the theme turns out to be a set of actors whose last names are also the names of dog breeds, or whatever.
This time, however, I’ve compromised my standards: half the theme answers contain proper names. But at least they’re reasonably passé proper names—a vice-president whose term ended in 2000, a children’s cartoon that premiered the same year, and a 1939 movie based on a 1900 novel.
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