Thomas

Near as I can tell, the prank was that the theme is utter nonsense and you just fill in the phrases from the crossing letters.

Chart and graph are not synonymous in the sense of 21A. Graphs represent a function, whereas charts plot some data. There is no PIE graph.

13A's clue is incorrect. Google.com is rightly a URI; <a href="https://google.com" target="_blank">https://google.com</a> is a URL (and a URI). Without the protocol, we cannot call it a URL.

I came to look for 48D in "tricky clues" because neither "Larrup" nor WHAP mean anything at all to me, but for the onomatopoeia of the latter. Huh.

The clue for 37A is wrong. 35:1 or 1:35, but not 36:1.

I still have absolutely no idea what HANK has to do with hair.

It's clear that the columnist and I think different things with our brains: I suspect this was my fastest Thursday ever. When AD HOC COMMITTEE clearly didn't fit and then OCCAM was right there, I put all double letters in rebuses long before reaching the revealer. I can thank the classic SNES/arcade game "NBA Jam" for giving me familiarity with Mr. OLAJUWON.

In the rebus boxes, just put the first letter (say, A). AMEN and A/AMEN are not accepted. This is unfortunate.

Futura 12 point bold is a font. Futura is a typeface.

It is absolutely *wild* that the letters matching the shaded and full answers cannot be entered as a rebus (e.g., "CG" for the fifth letter of 35A).

9D breaks the crossword rule of the clue matching the answer in grammatical number. CANNOLI, being plural, cannot be an "Italian dessert menu staple." They are, however, Italian dessert menu staples.

For 30A [T-bone or porterhouse] I tried SYNONYMOUS but it didn't fit