Lots of crosswordese if you start to count it up ( OREAD ORA OYE INHD and so on), but the theme answers are bright enough as stand-alone answers, and the long Downs are prominent enough, that the short fill doesn't have much opportunity to make a negative impression. No other real struggles, and the fill overall. I thought HULU was the streaming giant ( 15A: Giant in media streaming = ROKU). You make people have to work for something very anticlimactic-never a good thing. Why would you put a wacky "?" clue on weak fill like SNARER? ( 47D: One catching the game?). Having to deal with TORIC and ALIA *and* OOP before ever departing the NW is not a fun way to open things. The longer Downs are OK, a little interesting, I guess, but the rest of the full is average or worse. I honestly thought I had an error, but then everything checked out and I didn't know what to do, so I moved on. This feels like Constructing 101 stuff, which is weird, because no one involved in the making of this is a novice. I'm now scanning the grid to see if LIE is in there somewhere. I wouldn't put OUT and OUTLIE in the same grid *at all*, let alone crossing one another. I mean, if " OUT" were part of a word like STOUT, where the letter string had nothing to do with the word OUT, then fine, but OUTLIE is a compound word, and one of its parts is OUT. You cannot just straight up cross OUT with OUT. But honestly this puzzle never stood a chance because of a fill decision I can't believe neither of the constructors, none of the editors or proofers, no one, vetoed: that is, the OUT / OUTLIE crossing. But the connection between them here seems really very forced. Really seems like a phrase as colorful as " KEEP YOUR PANTS ON!" deserves a better theme than this. I guess that since the themers all wear tops of some kind (?) they seem particularly pantsless. And now there's a theme about that, for some reason. Cartoon animals frequently don't wear pants. The company once operated the now closed or rebranded banners Little Burgundy (which it sold to Genesco), Simard & Voyer, Christian Shoes, Access, Pegabo, Transit, Stoneridge, Locale, Feetfirst and FIRST (which was the American version of Feetfirst). Stores in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Ireland are owned by the Group, while international stores are franchised. It has grown to become a worldwide corporation, with nearly 3,000 stores across 100 countries, under three retail banners: ALDO, Call It Spring/Spring and GLOBO. The company was founded by Aldo Bensadoun in Montreal, Quebec, in 1972, where its corporate headquarters remain today. The ALDO Group is a Canadian retailer that owns and operates a worldwide chain of shoe and accessories stores. Word of the Day: ALDO ( 57A: Brand of shoes or handbags). YOGI BEAR (62A: Jellystone Park "pic-a-nic basket" thief). WINNIE THE POOH (52A: "Hunny"-loving A.A.SCROOGE MCDUCK (24A: Disney character based on a Dickens character).PORKY PIG (17A: Who says "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!").
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