| California's ___ Valley, known as "America's salad bowl" | 74 |
| Hayek who is Will Smith's unrequited love in "Wild Wild West" | 75 |
| Plant known as "seer's sage" because of its hallucinatory effect | 78 |
| "Play it again, ___" (famous line never actually said in "Casablanca") | 90 |
| Noted Seuss protagonist with an upcoming birthday, and a hint to a two-part puzzle that begins this week (1) | 108 |
| "I can't remember it, Miss Ilsa. I'm a little rusty on it" speaker | 84 |
| Literary character who asks "Would you, could you, in the dark?" | 74 |
| "Would you eat them in a box? Would you eat them with a fox?" asker | 77 |
| "Thank you! Thank you, ___!" (end of a well-known kids' book) | 75 |
| George W. Bush, as a managing general partner of baseballÂ’s Texas Rangers, traded away ... | 94 |
| Former senator for whom Georgia Tech's School of International Affairs is named | 83 |
| Sports star who wrote the 2008 best seller "A Champion's Mind" | 76 |
| "As Gregor ___ awoke one morning from uneasy dreams ...": Kafka | 73 |
| "When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it" speaker | 75 |
| Brand with the old slogan "Stop making those 'no more coffee' resolutions" | 92 |
| Word repeated four times in the last line of Shakespeare's "All the world's a stage" speech | 109 |
| In verse, "His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!" | 73 |
| "Ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood" according to a New York Sun editorial of September 21, 1897 | 163 |
| "Nick" name that goes with the first names in the grid's six longest entries | 90 |
| Third baseman Ron posthumously elected to the Hall of Fame in December 2011 | 75 |
| Football tackle Warren who competed on "Dancing With the Stars" | 73 |
| The last song on Bob Dylan's "Desire," named for his then-wife | 76 |
| Start of an open letter from the puzzle constructor: "Dear ___, you seem a bit confused about what the V. P. does every day, so here are some helpful hints ..." | 170 |
| End of the slogan that starts "Everybody doesn't like something" | 78 |
| Restaurant in Manhattan's theater district famous for the caricatures on its walls | 86 |
| He wrote "Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal" | 90 |
| Author who said "When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die" | 77 |
| What the narrator "threw up" in "The Night Before Christmas" | 80 |
| "Tore open the shutters and threw up the ___" ("A Visit from St. Nicholas") | 95 |
| Vujacic of the Los Angeles Lakers, who's nicknamed "The Machine" | 78 |
| "The hunger of a dragon is slow to wake, but hard to __": Le Guin | 75 |
| His "Parade" included parts for typewriter, foghorn and rattle | 72 |
| He wrote "Three Pear-Shaped Pieces" to answer criticism that his music lacked form [SEE NOTE ABOVE] | 110 |
| "House of Bush, House of ___: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties" | 116 |
| 2004 horror film with the tagline "How much blood would you shed to stay alive?" | 90 |
| 2005 horror sequel with the tagline "Oh yes ... there will be blood" | 78 |
| Instrument famously played by Bill Clinton on "The Arsenio Hall Show" | 79 |
| Phone call telling you to pay the IRS immediately or you'll be thrown in jail, e.g. | 87 |
| One who can be patched together from the letters added to the theme answers | 75 |
| Swift lyric "And I left my ___ at your sister's house ..." | 72 |
| Sing "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," say | 80 |
| "In fair Verona, where we lay our ___" (second line of "Romeo and Juliet") | 94 |
| When, in Act III, Mercutio says "A plague o' both your houses!" | 77 |
| Author of the best-selling investment book "You're Fifty — Now What?" | 87 |
| "The whole of ___ is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking": Einstein | 93 |
| "It's true whether or not you believe in it," per Neil deGrasse Tyson | 83 |
| Rhyme scheme in Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" | 76 |
| Rhyme scheme for Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" | 77 |
| Event where the number 12 is important, and a feature of 12 two-word answers in this puzzle | 91 |
| Senior group's second-in-command permits a party with self-provided alcohol? | 80 |
| Guardian headline about the decline of a North London street? (The Beatles / The Ramones) | 89 |
| About to get a Ph.D., definitely, if not this year then sometime in the next five | 81 |
| "Captain Phillips" Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominee Barkhad ___ | 76 |
| Political leader who patented a system to alter the buoyancy of steamboats | 74 |
| ''It's all ___!'' (''It happened so fast!'') | 80 |
| "I'm On ___" (2009 song by The Lonely Island featuring T-Pain) | 76 |
| 2014 NBC comedy starring David Walton ... and a hint to the puzzle theme which is ___ | 85 |
| J. J. ___, co-creator of "Lost" and director of 2009's "Star Trek" | 90 |
| Former U.S. Representative Bella who once ran under the slogan "A Woman's Place is in the House" | 110 |
| " . . . easier for ___ to go through the eye of a needle . . . ": Bible | 81 |
| For example, any of the women who claimed to have had sex for money with Sen. Robert MenendeZ | 93 |
| "I'm not ashamed of my association with Gene Simmons," admitted ___ | 81 |
| Broadway musical about three guys using the same pickup routine at a bar? | 73 |
| Holiday movie with the repeated line "You'll shoot your eye out!" | 79 |
| "He ... vas ... my ... boyfriend!" from "Young Frankenstein," for example? | 94 |
| Fictional supplier of rocket-powered roller skates and jet-propelled pogo sticks | 80 |
| Annual solving competition held in Brooklyn, briefly ... and a hint to nine squares in this grid | 96 |
| When a larger company buys a smaller company and incorporates its employees, in modern jargon | 93 |
| The longest one in English is the Navy term "ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC" | 78 |
| What the pool player started "playing" when his favorite song came on the radio? | 90 |
| Summer coolers, briefly, and a hint to this puzzle's six longest answers | 76 |
| Mathematician believed to be the first computer programmer (she had a Google doodle devoted to her 197th birthday this past Monday) | 131 |
| "Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes," a.k.a. "Fleas," in its entirety (world's shortest poem?) | 118 |
| Theme #2 (Bu-bu-bu-bum snap snap, bu-bu-bu-bum snap snap, bu-bu-bu-bum, bu-bu-bu-bum, bu-bu-bu-bum), with "the" | 121 |
| Q: How many kids with ___ does it take to change a lightbulb? A: Wanna ride bikes? | 82 |
| "I bought this new sword and sorcery book. It's about a king, ___ Rex ..." | 88 |
| He said "In America, anybody can be president; that's one of the risks you take" | 94 |
| What you can find in the grid after completing this puzzle, looking up, down, left, right and diagonally, word search-style | 123 |
| "So, if she weighs the same as ___, then she's made of wood" ("Monty Python and the Holy Grail") | 120 |
| "Weather Channel" announcement (seemingly all the time, lately) | 73 |
| Poet who's the subject of Tom Stoppard's "The Invention of Love" | 82 |
| Good name for an Asian airline (possible slogan: "The same great service coming and going") | 101 |
| "'Tis not the dying for ___ that's so hard . . . ": Thackeray | 79 |
| "A phoenix that shall make all France ___": "Henry VI, Part I" | 82 |
| Movie in which Tom Cruise's character is told, "You can't handle the truth" | 93 |
| "I don't believe in rock bottom. Rock bottom is like ___." | 72 |
| Exchange between NBA forward Antoine Walker and a sports reporter, PART 1 | 73 |
| When night owls thrive, or where the last words of the starred answers can go | 77 |
| Where you'll find yourself after cashing in your chips, with "the" | 80 |
| "I got ___ named ..." (start of each verse in "Tutti Frutti") | 81 |
| "It's only ___!" ("Winning isn't everything!") | 74 |
| "It's just ___!" ("Winning isn't everything!") | 74 |
| Best-selling novelist of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records | 82 |
| Demographic distribution of interest to daycare centers and singles bars | 72 |
| With "The," "Hair" song that changes during January and February? | 85 |
| Two features of being tormented with endless replayings of "Dear God"? | 80 |
| Start of a quote by Lord Jeffery, 18th-century literary critic and judge | 72 |
| First-century governor of Britain, whose name was Latin for "farmer" | 78 |
| "...but __ without a cat!" ("Alice's Adventures in Wonderland") | 87 |
| "... if the scale do turn/ But in the estimation of ___": "The Merchant of Venice" | 102 |