Yes! Wd like to party w/ Will Nediger...
Lots of snap crackle pop in the theme and in the fill. The combination of the explicit theme in COCO, NONO, SOSO, JOJO, and GOGO with an implicit music and dance theme (BANJO, DISCO, LET MY PEOPLE GO-GO, and the long downs DO THE MAMBO and ORGAN MUSIC) is v. nice.
This puzz is a v. good advertisement for the 78-word grid format. The fill is crunchy; QUADS-JEWS-BRIE on the N is nice, and the E w/ EUROPA, ORCA, and OBI is v. fine. It's hard to construct the bottom row and the right column w/o a bunch of Ss, especially final Ss. 78-worders give you the chance to minimize that, and Will N. takes advantage of the opportunity.
GOGOL is fine, btw...you can nitpick that, but it's quite all right...this is a mod open theme puzzle on a Wed., not a trad tight theme on a Monday.
My one quibble is w/ the cluing of the central 15. I'd rather give the floor to a spokesman for the peeps than to the dictator. I personally like linking up JEWS on the top to a clue like, "Demand to dance hall pharaoh?" Not a big deal...now let's see what Rex and my bro and sis Rexeans are up to this morning...
Rex and the gang a bit less happy about this than I...okay...suspect MetaRex is more into dance and shake your booty themes than the median solver is...nice disquisition by Rex on the tech of the theme...yep.
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