This episode provides e-x-a-m-p-l-e-s of:
- Cheaters Never Prosper: For both Timothy and Penny. Timothy accepts help from the Gross Sisters, who feed him the answers through an earpiece, only for him to get caught due to the earpiece picking up a signal from a fast food restaurant's intercom. In addiiton, Penny admits to cheating on the spelling bee due to her father mouthing the answers, causing her trophy to be revoked.
- Disqualification-Induced Victory: With both Timothy and Penny being disqualified, Debbie Chang is declared the winner.
- Here We Go Again!: Despite learning his lesson to never use his children to relive his glory days,
Oscar sees BeBe and CeCe spelling while playing with blocks. - Laser-Guided Karma: Not to Penny, but to Oscar. Oscar only cared about reliving his glory days through his child and Penny ends up being a disqualified winner of the bee.
- Sore Loser: All of the parents are upset that their kids didn't win the spelling bee. Special mention to Oscar who is upset that Penny was exposed as a cheater.
- Spelling Bee: This episode is even titled after this trope.
