Grid: quarter-hour; meta: 10 extra 

Matt Gaffney’s Wall Street Journal contest crossword, “I Almost Gave Away the Ending” — Conrad’s writeup.

This week we’re searching for a two-word phrase. I noticed the clue for MALES (“Lions with manes”) whereas filling the grid and thought it was odd. Same for IRAN (“Major producer of iron”) and CLUE (“Hint on “NYPD Blue”). I scanned the grid after I accomplished it, noticed no apparent theme entries, so I centered on the odd clues. I had the rabbit: there have been eleven clues who’s final phrase had one letter modified from its matching entry:

WSJ Contest – 12.02.22 – answer

• [9a: “The Maltese Falcon” actor]: A(S)TOR 
• [14a: Performer who doesn’t need a mike]: MI(M)E
• [17a: Major producer of iron]: IR(A)N
• [21a: Lions with manes]: MA(L)ES 
• [37a: Goal of counting sheep]: S(L)EEP 
• [39a: Hint on “NYPD Blue“]: (C)LUE
• [47a: Food in a Monty Python sketch starring John Cleese]: C(H)EESE
• [53a: It can swallow an octopus whole]: WH(A)LE 
• [60a: Any of Hanukkah’s eight]: (N)IGHT
• [66a: Classic asset to hold]: (G)OLD
• [67a: Number of apples Hippomenes threw]: THRE(E)

The modified letters spell our contest answer SMALL CHANGE. That was a 100% lock for me, however I didn’t initially see a connection to the title. So I requested my pals. They identified that that the “ending” phrase of every clue was modified. Also: the reply was within the grid, not the clues: you needed to remedy the grid to get the reply. Another strong meta from Matt; I loved the mechanism. Readers: let me know the way you made out, and please share your first foothold on the mechanism.