Hank becomes the shop teacher for Tom Landry Middle School while Peggy aims to win another Substitute Teacher of the Year Award (and gets Hank in trouble for allegedly bringing weapons to school).
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: It is heavily implied that Peggy was the one who informed Moss about students bringing tools to school to get Hank fired, as he was easily going to win Substitute Teacher of the Year.
- Analogy Backfire: Hank tries to convince Principal Moss about how shop class is important and says if a kid has a tool in both hands, they have no hands left to do drugs. Moss facepalms and says if a kid wants to do drugs bad enough, they'll just put the tools down.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Peggy tells the class about how she's taking her name off the Substitute Teacher of the Year Award ballot after Hank's suspension. Instead, she's running as Mrs. Hank Hill.
- Brick Joke: Among Peggy's attempts to be a "cool" teacher, is freezing a rose with liquid nitrogen during a chemistry class, only to accidentally throw it through a window. Later in the episode, Hank mentions "that broken window in the chemistry lab" when he's talking about how run-down the school has become.
- Cabin Fever: Hank gets incredibly restless being at home after being forced to take a vacation, especially when he finds nothing to do. He even goes as far as pulling a fresh leaf off a tree to rake it, and eventually ends up going with Dale on one of his extermination jobs to pass the time.
- Chirping Crickets: Peggy gets this at the end of her speech after winning her Substitute Teacher of the Year Award when she exclaims she's "King of the School", as the cheering crowd who were actually cheering for Hank quiets down after he walks offstage. Her proclamation is met with awkward silence and the only noise heard is the screeching of the microphone.
- Cool Teacher: While his time teaching shop class is brief, Hank makes an impact with students, getting them interested in working with tools and quickly becoming popular at the school.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Peggy does this to Luanne when the latter says since she's a pre-ed major, she could be a substitute teacher. The former laughs at her, then saying Peggy wasn't laughing at Luanne, she was laughing at her idea.
- Epic Fail:
- When Hank sees the classes' birdhouses prior to the moment it momentarily became a study hall. While they were pretty amateurish at best, Joseph's was easily the worst, just basically being a triangle with three slabs of wood. Hank then tells him his father (Dale, not John Redcorn) doesn't need to find out about this.
- During Peggy's demonstration for chemistry class, she freezes a rose with liquid nitrogen and despite her best efforts, she can't seem to shatter and and tries to throw it against the wall, but it instead breaks the window. Becomes something of a Brick Joke later on when Hank has his students fix the school and mentions the broken window in chemistry class.
- Fired Teacher: Happens to Hank when he gets suspended for asking his students to bring tools to school, due to the zero-tolerance weapon policy.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Peggy gets jealous of Hank's success as teacher when he proves to be way more popular than her.
- Heh Heh, You Said "X": Bobby gets a chuckle while working on a birdhouse when Hank tells him to clamp his butt joint. This of course goes over Hank's head when he suggests he uses a miter joint, and when Bobby asks him to repeat what he said, he just thinks Bobby's rubbing it in.
- House Squatting: Dale reveals to Hank that this is one of the benefits of his job: since spreading the pesticide only takes a few days at most but the actual fumigation perioid is usually a week or two at minimum and since he doesn't care about being exposed to his own pesticides and the houses he fumigates are covered by a tent to prevent passerby from seeing what he's doing, he essentially has full reign of the house for that perioid of time, which he makes use of by doing things like bathing in their hot tubs, trying out their bidets or digging through their medicine cabinets to try out the strength of their contact lenses.
- It's All About Me: Peggy really lets her two-time Substitute Teacher of the Year Award wins go to her head as she goes on to win a third. And after Hank's suspension, she runs under his name to piggy-back off his popularity, which succeeds in getting her third award. And while the students give light applause for her win, they really cheer when Hank walks on stage to give Peggy her speech. Hank is flattered by his reception while Peggy thinks they're all cheering her.
- New Job Episode: Hank takes a temporary job teaching kids shop after being forced by Buck to take a vacation.
- Noodle Incident: When venting to Dale after being fired from teaching, Hank makes an analogy about how using a saw as a weapon makes as much sense as using a gun to cut a two-by-four. He then says that's how his dad built his tree house. And how he cleaned it.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Carl acts as this for Hank, due to the school budget not having enough money for supplies (or a gym floor broken by a teacher). And he's not even willing to supply Hank with the essentials, such as wood.
- Only in It for the Money: Inverted; Hank teaches shop class for free. He won't be able to get paid due to the budget constraints, but he doesn't care; he just wants to show kids the joys of shop.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Peggy dedicates her third substitute teacher award to "all subsitute teachers who've fallen out of a plane without a parachute and survived and won the award for the third time".
- Pet the Dog: Clark Peters, usually The Bully, lets Hank know Bobby got in trouble with Principal Moss for bringing his tools to school.
- Political Overcorrectness: Hank asks his students to bring tools to school to work on projects, but then he gets suspended because of zero-tolerance weapons policies, as Principal Moss states if they can be used as weapons, then they are weapons and how he can't budge on the issue.
- Rousing Speech: Hank gives a good one to his former students who come to his garage to work on their projects:Hank: (after Susie asks if they can learn about routers) Good idea, Susie, but it's not my class anymore. I could fight for reinstatement, but I gotta get back to the propane game on Monday. (The kids moan in disappointment) But that shouldn't stop you from pursuing your own dreams of wood, plywood, pressed fiberboard, and if you've got the talent, metal. You see, shop doesn't have to happen in any special place, as long as it's well-lit and the outlets are grounded. Because shop is bigger than any classroom or garage or stupid policies that makes tools illegal. It's in our hearts. (Hank looks away as he gets teary-eyed before regaining his composure) Okay, let's sweep up.
- Shop Class: The episode is one big love letter to shop class, with the kids taking joys in working on their own projects as well as making repairs to the school.
- Shout-Out: When Peggy reads the list of votes for the Substitute Teacher of the Year, the nominees are Hank, Peggy, undecided and Lara Croft.
- Signs of Disrepair: When saying his class will fix up the school, Hank says he can fix the school letters that fell off. And Bobby adds if they do, people will no longer be able to make fun of them for going to "Om Landy Middle School".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: While the episode presents it as a case of Political Overcorrectness, most school districts do have a very strict policy against students bringing any kind of sharp objects from home such as tools. Hank's idea of having kids bring their own tools to shop class was doomed to get him in trouble eventually.
- Take That!: Peggy exclaiming she's "King of the School" is one for James Cameron, who exclaimed he's "King of the World" at the Oscars after winning his awards for Titanic.
- Toilet Paper Prank: Dale offers to do this to Principal Moss's house for Hank after his firing. Hank then said it wasn't just Moss, it was also the school board. Dale then adds that will take more paper.
- Vacation Episode: As in the literal definition of vacation being "taking a leave of absence from work". Hank is forced by Strickland to take a two-week vacation. Buck makes him not out of concern of his well-being, but to make sure his insurance rates don't go up. Hank isn't particularly happy about it.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Between being forced to take a vacation from Strickland and being fired from school, Hank declares this the worst vacation ever.
