This may be a hard grid and the meta may be hard to piece together but I think if you can get through the grid, the metanism should jump at you. (It's a bit of work piecing it together-- not hard; just long)
Okay... because the straightforward and not that difficult meta was being completely obfuscated by complex and convoluted grid clues I have added simply grid clues in the majority of clues that have nothing to do with the meta. I'm not kidding. The…
The title came to me while I was lying in bed. Constructing this was a bear. It's convoluted and maybe I'm going to pay people to attempt it. But I had to work my way through it. (The punchiness of the [non-themer] clues have nothing to do with…
This was originally going to be a meta, but I figure the humor can be more visible if I make it a themed puzzle. Also I don't have to twist myself into knots turning these four jokes into a coded message that never fits right any way.
You can do better. And so can I. I did this one before but it didn't go over well. But I really liked the mechanism and I think I made it better this time. (Unless I made it too easy.)