Here are the nudges, though at times they are less like nudges and more like a set of directions.
Nudge 1 Wait a minute. This first clue at 1 Across has two possible answers, and they’re the same except for the first letter. What kind of a lousy constructor would make a clue so ambiguous?
Nudge 2 Using the clue at 1 Down doesn’t help. It has the same ambiguity — two legit answers that differ by a single letter. But wait, those two possible letters are the same ones as for 1 Across.What’s going on, and which letter to choose?
Nudge 3 One of those clues contains the word earlier in parentheses, the other contains the word later in parentheses.
Nudge 4 The clues at 20 Across and 35 Across also have earlier and later but not in parentheses. They both refer to the relative positions of letters in the alphabet.
Nudge 5 Maybe that tells you which of the pair of letters to choose.
Nudge 6 Try that with the Across earlier/later entries plus the entry where the key letters are the same.
Nudge 7 Now erase those letters and fill the squares with the letters indicated for the Down entries. (You didn’t really need this nudge. If you’ve gotten this far, you knew what it had to be.)
Oh, and on my first go-round, I missed KEELS/HEELS and YOUR/YEAR as part of the solve so that reading around the outside of the grid in a clockwise fashion, I got Mr. Ed -- but I was pretty sure that wasn't it!