It's Just Us!

Today's Gail Grabowsky puzzle is called "It's You and Me." The word "us" was hidden in all the theme answers:

20A: End of some game shows (BONUS ROUND). Oh, how I miss the daytime game shows! The bonus round started in the 1960s with "Beat the Clock." The wife of the contestant would try to unscramble a quote within 20 seconds for a bonus prize. My favorite concept of a bonus round was to ask the contestants how studio audiences responded to a question. This concept started in "Match Game" and picked up in "Family Feud." Below is a video of "Family Feud" bonus round where the family started off poorly but made a nice comeback.

55A: Row of dancers in a musical (CHORUS LINE). I saw "A Chorus Line" toward the end of its original run (see video below). Although there were some very good songs, I didn't think it was that great as a play. It was about a bunch of has-been dancers looking for one last chance at a career. It did, however, win several Tony Awards and was one of the longest-running shows on Broadway. We did a rip-off of "A Chorus Line" in my senior year of high school. We called it "Stagestruck." The movie version was absolutely horrible.

10D: Current condition (STATUS QUO). Not to be confused with the British band of the same name. 

31D: Performance in a tent (CIRCUS ACT). Every spring, my family used to go to the circus. It was a very long (almost 3 hours) and boring affair. My favorite acts was the trapeze artists. I was into gymnastics and acrobatics at the time and wished I could perform their death-defying stunts. When I learned later how Ringling Bros. treated the animals, I vowed I would never take my son there. Instead, we took him to the Big Apple Circus , which was only one ring and featured a very funny clown named Grandma. BAC treats their clowns very well and offers them pension plans upon retirement. 

Today's cryptoquote is by Edward ("Ted") M. Kennedy (1932-2009):

Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits.

Did he say this before or after Chappaquidick? The former Massachusetts senator (47 years!) was just a mediocre student in school (compared to his older brothers). Teddy was caught cheating at Harvard (gasp!). He also saw lots of trauma in his young life: the untimely deaths of his brothers Joe, Jack, and Bobby, the labotomy of his sister Rosemary, and the airplane crash that killed his sister Kathleen. He turned out to be one of the most prolific speakers of our time, but he never quite caught the brass ring (President of the United States), thanks to the Chappaquidick incident.

Violence never solves anything, my friends.

Till tomorrow. . . . 

Signing off,

The Puzzlechick

P.S. On a sad note, Whitney Houston died Saturday afternoon at the age of 48.  All around the world, people sang her praises. We had a moment of silence for Whitney at Zumba yesterday. Come on, people! In truth, she was an addict. Marrying Bobby Brown killed her career and her life. They haven't revealed the cause of death yet, but I am sure drugs were involved. Whitney's music was definitely not our style. In fact, Matthew and I called her "Witless." Because of her, Taylor Dayne's career was ruined. Besides being a childhood friend of my husband's, Taylor is a much more talented singer.