Marge goes to parenting experts for advice when she thinks that Bart is on the road to failure. At a seminar, one expert promotes the value of high self-esteem and giving kids praise to keep it high. Following their advice, Homer opens a trophy store to sell participation trophies for parents to give to their kids, much to Lisa's dismay at the devaluing of genuine accomplishment.
This episode contains examples of:
- All for Nothing: The episode ends with the watch accidentally being broken by Bart.
- An Aesop: For once Homer learns a lesson that Marge doesn't. Marge and Homer are eagerly engaged with whatever parenting advice that is most recent, but Homer manages to go a new direction by making an informed decision based on the circumstances and not because it fit a clever acronym being told to them. There will always be someone telling you how to raise your children, each one with wildly different ideas from the other, but you have to decide for yourself what is best for the individual child.
- Adults Are Useless: Lisa and Groundskeeper Willie both share the opinion that parents would rather be told what to do by supposed 'experts' than do any actual parenting themselves.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Marge initially starts with parenting advice that involves giving praise to the child to boost their self-esteem and confidence, but this results in awards for merely existing and the children who actually try harder get rewarded with the same, which makes their accomplishment feel lesser for it. Homer gets involved with another program that enforces a sing or swim mentality and that children need to fight for every ounce of respect, but this results in writing off Bart as a screw-up even though he really was trying to do better, and Lisa gets her actual earned trophies removed as part of the "anti-trophy" movement. Homer ends up discovering the vicious cycle and found a way to show Bart support while also letting him acknowledge his mistakes.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: Homer at least nudges things in the right direction when, after finally obtaining the watch, he gives it to Bart instead of keeping it for himself as he desperately wanted to do, realizing that all of his son's self-esteem has become wrapped up in Abe's gift. While he doesn't go as far as walking back his claim that Bart's a screwup, he admits to being the one who made him the way he is.
- Brick Joke: The episode opens with a new arrival in "Frog Heaven" watching in horror as Bart subjects his corpse to various comedic indignities in biology class. When Bart later chooses to behave himself during a fetal pig dissection, two inmates of "Fetal Pig Heaven" high-five each other.
- The Chain of Harm: Abe claims that the cycle of father-son abuse among the Simpson men dates back at least to his own grandfather while Homer implies that it goes even further back.
- Comically Missing the Point: Lisa's new experts advise was about how too much praise without merit can make children over-entitled, Marge oversimplifies it as 'trophies are bad' and gets rid of all the kids' trophies, including Lisa's despite the fact she actually earned (most) of them. When Lisa tries to make her 'actual' point for getting an expert with an opposite theory to the previous ones and asks what Marge will do when 'another' expert comes along with an entirely different theory on self-esteem, Marge eagerly asks her who this expert is and about their theory.
- Comic-Book Time: Homer's implied date of birth continues to move up from its original placement in 1956 in the early 90s—this time, he has what's implied to be a lifelong obsession with a watch that Abe has only owned since 1982.
- Continuity Cavalcade: The Couch Gag is a lineup of various pets and other animal companions that have been linked to the family over the years, including:
- Raymond Bird ("How Munched is That Birdie in the Window?")
- Santa's Little Helper's first litter ("Two Dozen and One Greyhounds")
- The Screamerpillar ("The Frying Game")
- Mojo ("Girly Edition")
- Snowball II
- The Homer-like raccoon ("Smoke on the Daughter")
- Lou ("Apocalypse Cow")note
- Nibbles (school hamster first seen in "Skinner's Sense of Snow")
- Plopper
- Pokey ("The War of Art")
- Santa's Little Helper
- Stampy
- Pinchy ("Lisa Gets an A")
- Laddie ("The Canine Mutiny")
- Jub-Jub
- Princess ("Lisa's Pony")
- Bolivian Tree Lizards ("Bart the Mother")
- Bongo ("To Cur With Love")
- Strangles ("Stop! Or My Dog Will Shoot")
- Continuity Nod: The Simpsons' Rumpus Room is glimpsed for the first time since Season 5.
- Freudian Excuse Denial: Homer in sarcasm form when Bart judges him to be obsessed with Abe's watch.Homer: Ooh, thanks for the analysis, Dr. Freud. Next you'll be telling me that this whole trophy business, and, in fact, all my get-rich-quick schemes over the years, are born of a desperate need for approval from a father who couldn't show love. Likely because of his traumatic relationship with his own father, and his before him, and so on. But, unfortunately, Dr. Freud, that couldn't be further from the truth, Doctor.
- Fun with Acronyms: In the end, Homer tells Marge he follows his gut and shows her a book titled Give Up Trying.
- Get-Rich-Quick Scheme: Homer implies that his propensity for this kind of thing over the course of the series has been driven by his need to seek approval from Abe.
- Grandparent Favoritism: Homer has long hoped to one day be given Abe's watch, seeing such a gift as a sign of having finally succeeded in his father's eyes, and is shattered when he gives it to Bart instead.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Endless praise should not be given to children willy-nilly just for the sake of boosting their self-esteem. Awards are for those who put in the effort to earn them. An award not earned is not one that's deserved. Lisa immediately recognizes the problem with the participation trophies promoted by the parents to help their troubled kids; while they can help boost confidence, that only comes when the child knows they have succeeded.
- Hidden Depths: Homer's written a novel about his longing for his father's love and the cycle of abuse in the Simpson family.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: According to Abe, his own father's bad parenting wasn't his fault because he was "focused on his career as a professional child-beater."
- It Runs in the Family: It turns out the Simpsons' father issues go back to Abe's own grandfather, with his son, meaning that at least four generations of Simpsons men have really screwed-up relations with their dad. And Homer implies it goes even further than that. When Bart breaks Abe's watch, Abe strangles him the same way Homer usually does.
- Loser Son of Loser Dad: The episode all but states that this trend in the Simpson family is caused by the tendency of the fathers to discourage their sons.
- Memento MacGuffin: Abe treats his watch as a Simpson family heirloom. It's been in the family since it was stolen off a corpse at Gettysburg...in 1982.
- Sad Clown: Bart's tendency to goof off in class is caused by the fact that he's long ago Stopped Caring: Abe's faith in him as symbolized by his gift of the watch spurs him toward better behavior.
- Society Is to Blame: Bart baffles Marge by attempting to blame his bad grades on "so-key-ity" ("You know, that's what everyone blames for everything!")Marge: ...Society?Bart: That's the guy!
- Tempting Fate:
- The frog spirits discussing the fate of the body of one of them, with the older frog spirit's hoping that things will go well for the treatment of the frog's body being dissected by Bart promptly proven wrong.
- After losing Grampa's watch, Bart hopes it won't be found out but Gramps tells him a magazine wants to interview them because of it.
- Title Drop: The name of the episode is also the name of a self-published novel written by Homer, which Bart claims demonstrates Homer's obsession with Abe's watch.Homer: Well, the character of John Homer is only partly based on me.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Homer gives one to Marge about Bart while he doesn't think the boy can hear him. Telling his wife that showering him with praise for nothing hasn't made him do better as she hoped. He's still just a lazy screw up whose terrible at everything he does because he refuses to put in any effort.
- Values Dissonance: If Abe is to be believed then parents have always looked to experts on how to raise their children. In modern times they go to seminars on how to build self-esteem or encourage excellence. When Grampa was a child they went to his father's seminars on how best to strangle children.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Apparently, the Simpsons' males have been doomed with this because of problems with their own fathers, going back to Abe's dad having a screwed-up relationship with his father.
