Once Upon a Recession
by Norman Wizer
edited by Mike Shenk
October 30, 2009

Full answers available on WSJ's crossword puzzle page or with the following week's puzzle on WSJ's online Lifestyle page.

Theme: Nursery Fame No Guarantee
Downturn Hits Fabled Characters
{23A Snow White ...} HAD TO LOWER THE OVERHEAD
{39A Little Miss Muffet...} SOLD ALL OF HER SPYDERS
{56A Tom Thumb...} WAS FORCED TO DOWNSIZE
{82A Little Jack Horner...} DECIDED TO CUT CORNERS
{99A Goldilocks was...} JUST BEARLY GETTING BY
{119A The Three Little Pigs found...} THE WOLF WAS AT THEIR DOOR
After string of letterplay puzzles, contentplay that is not only clever but suited to its venue. On that happy note, I'm off on vacation. Back next week.

Commentary: A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
I'll be in New York City without a laptop. Since I get the NYT and WSJ puzzles online, I'll be puzzlepenic! No seriously, it took me far longer than I wish to admit to figure out the solution to this problem. Sigh.

Katherine Walcott
Puzzle Fan