Mixing it up with the October 16 crossword

[Thomps2525]

Steve Faiella's first Los Angeles Times crossword appeared September 13, 2019. It included familiar phrases altered with names of dances: CONGAEEL (conger eel), HORAFILM (horror film), POLKANIGHT (poker night) and SAMBAOCCASION (somber occasion). His crossword today includes these theme answers:

Zombie field mouse? UNDYINGVOLE
Attendees of Biting Fly High School? TEENAGEGNATS
Text from one who can't get out of Buy Buy Baby? LOSTINDIAPERS
Comment after submitting yet another updated tax return? WHATAREFILE

"Mental conflict" is MIXEDEMOTIONS. Each theme answer contains an anagrammed emotion: love, angst, despair, relief.....although I'm not sure "relief" is really an emotion.

"Band letters" was a clever clue for AMFM. "London flat" was a clever clue for TYRE. The crossword includes two brand names, TEAC ("Audio equipment brand") and TRISCUIT ("Shredded-wheat cracker"). "Boxcars in un casino" is DOCE. That's the Spanish word for "twelve" and is not used in English. "Man, in Milan" is UOMO. That's an Italian word and is not used in English. "Really enjoyed something" is DUGIT – a phrase more appropriate for a 1967 crossword, not one in 2020. "More riled up" is IRATER. That is the comparative form is IRATE but most dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, do not include the word and I have never heard it used in speech or seen it used in writing.....until today.

"Mendel subjects" is PEAS. Gregor Johann Mendel (1822–1884) was a scientist, Augustinian friar and abbot born in Silesia in the Austrian Empire. Mendel's experiments with pea plants – between 1856 and 1863, he cultivated and tested 28,000 plants – proved that crossbreeding of plants could favor certain desirable traits. He found that there are dominant and recessive traits ("genes") passed on randomly from parents to offspring and is recognized as the founder of the science of genetics. For more information:

https://www.khanacademy.org/science/high-school-biology/hs-classical-genetics/hs-introduction-to-heredity/a/mendel-and-his-peas

I crossed an elephant with a rhinoceros. What did I get? Elephino. (Ouch!)