The "i" button on my iPad app tells me that upon completion, an animation will show up. It did not on my device, and if it didn't on yours, you might be uncertain what the theme was actually about. Thank goodness then, that there are dedicated bloggers who take the time to figure these things out for you!
The revealer is at 38A: Renounced ... or a phonetic hint to reading the answers to the starred clues (FORGONE). What you need to do in each of the indicated answers is to remove the four instances of a repeated letter, and the remaining letters in order will spell the actual response to the clue. Thus, 17A: *Honeybunch (STUTTGART) has 4 Ts. Removing them will leave "sugar," the answer to the clue. The other three are:
25A: *Afternoon socials (TELLALLS) - "teas."
49A: *Worms or flies, often (BASSISTS) - "bait."
60A: *____ Beach, Calif. (APIASAMOA) - "Pismo." This one is particularly impressive, utilizing the capital of the Oceania country to hide the answer.
I know that there are algorithms that will do this work for you, but the concept is still human born. You have to come up with the idea, formulate your query, and then find examples that will fit into a grid in symmetric fashion. We're a long way from AI doing this sort of thing on its own, folks!
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| IGUANODON |
Some may CAVIL at the fact that there are answers in the grid longer than the theme answers, such as 21A: Back-to-basics regimen (PALEODIET) (nice non-QMC!) or 54A: Right now (ASWESPEAK), but that doesn't bother me.
A couple of very nice QMCs on the long downs at 8D: Sketchy activities? (ARTLESSONS) and 28D: Show that ends in disarray? (STRIPTEASE). Very nice, and a great start to The Turn!
- Colum
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