Movable aerial platform / THU. 5-20-21 / Entertainer once known as Queen of Las Vegas / Germanic language of the 8th-12th centuries / Yossarian's tentmate in Catch-22 / The 500s in Dewey Decimal System / She played Nicole Chapman on Fame / Tea party crasher of fiction

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This probably seems like a clever idea in conception, and I suppose it is, but from this solver's perspective it was a fat lot of anticlimax. I got the gag within the first few answers I put in the grid, and then it was just a matter of dutifully finding the remaining "feet" and also seeing if maybe possibly something besides the theme might be of interest. Opened like this: ENID (gimme), DEANS LIFE INCA MAYA ELMER'S IF YOU ... At that point I wanted IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT, but it didn't fit, so I did a little more work: NIAPEOPLES EPONYMS REUSE ALTA PAP NIAPEEPLES SEC, at which point IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT was obviously going to be right. Saw that the extra bit, "FT," was a coherent unit of meaning (i.e. short for "foot"), and that was that. Instantly knew "six feet underground" was the concept, and that I'd be tracking down five more of these "FT"s. This is all before I'd even looked at the revealer clue, which was now phenomenally unnecessary and unrevelatory. So the idea here is cool, but it just didn't play out with much "aha" force. Uncovering the "FT" answers was ... interesting. They're definitely the most unusual answers in the grid. But the magic just missed me on this one. 

The fill gets ugliest in the "FT' sections. BRYN BSA AARGH RIIS EHS is a mess, as is SCI LES ESO. The SCI LES ESO part was especially obnoxious as all of those had trying-too-hard-to-be-clever clues, and the short Down running through them had a fake-out clue: I had SEAMY and off the "A" I looked at 54D: Super-duper (ACES) and reflexively wrote in A-ONE. That's the kind of seems-intentional "trap" that gives no delight because the answers involved aren't interesting enough, and the section it appears in is already a mess of short stuff (not the place you want people stopping and noticing their surroundings). I feel bad for anyone who tried to figure out that part of the grid without knowing the theme. Messy. But the only other thing that slowed me down at all today is SCISSOR LIFT, which, really, marginal technical stuff like this is not what you want in your theme answers. I got it, eventually, but had no idea what it was. Couldn't even picture it. I assumed "aerial" meant what "aerial" usually means ("in the sky"), but that's not right. When I typed "define SCISSOR LIFT" into google, I didn't get any dictionary entries at all. Eventually found a wikipedia entry for "aerial work platform" (AWP) (see "Word of the Day," above, and please don't put AWP in a grid, thank you), and buried inside the first paragraph of that entry was the term SCISSOR LIFT. When you're building your theme, amassing what will be your marquee answers, you don't want to settle for "defensible" or "technically a thing." This leads to digruntlement on the part of the solver. 

NIA PEEPLES and LOLA FALANA headline this puzzle, which is maybe the most interesting thing about it (2D: She played Nicole Chapman on "Fame" / 12D: Entertainer once known as the Queen of Las Vegas). I don't know how anyone under 40 knows who LOLA FALANA is, since her career doesn't seem to have had much of a cultural afterlife. But then I guess a lot of solvers wouldn't know NIA PEEPLES either if not for crosswords. Still, they're both legit famous, or were, and I like their symmetrical flair here. I also like, nay, love, SPY SWAP (47A: Cover Cold War deal). Love "Clueless" but don't know the name ELISA Donovan (I'd bet money I've seen in multiple times in crosswords, as it's so crossword-friendly and there are few if any other famous or semifamous ELISAs; she's just not famous enough for the name to stick. Though ... maybe this time!) (50A: Actress Donovan of "Clueless"). ASH TREE was also unknown to me. I guess I should just be grateful I didn't run into YGGDRASIL instead. OLD SAXON (6D: Germanic language of the 8th-12th centuries) is like SCISSOR LIFT in that I'm sure it's technically a thing but come on, give your solvers something more delightful than technically a thing. Good day.