Sunday New York Time Crossword - Sound Moves

Daniel C. Bryant did quite a bit of rewording in this puzzle, creating homophones of well-known phrases. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I bit on thinking the first ten letters of "Tax break for Gumby?" would be claymation, but it was clay man exemption. I could never figure out why Gumby would go for the ice cream when his Gumbometer would tell him of the inevitable result.

I believed that the blessing of a ship board romance would have something to do with seal of approval. It did, being sea love approval.

Will is so going to get letters about illegit. Illegit may be in the Urban Dictionary, fo' shizzle, but that doesn't make it a word.

Crosswords love Adela Rogers St. John.

I was aware that Burl Ives was the singer of "Little Bitty Tear." I've played his song "Call Me Mr. In-Between."

Lenin should be clued as "Founder of a nation which killed 20,000,000 to 40,000,000 people" instead of "Leader with a goatee."

Enslaved didn't fit as an answer for "In hijab, e. g.," but veiled did.

This puzzle was called Could You Reword That Please? in the Across Lite file, but it was named Sound Moves when it appeared in the Star-Tribune.