Kirk becomes sick of his family being a Cosmic Plaything and tries to have the inciting incident - his ancestor building a gazebo that collapsed due to a poorly planned event - whitewashed from history.
- Book Ends: Kirk’s crusade to control education begins and ends with an incident where a Van Houten builds a gazebo that falls apart due to poor party planning.
- Comically Missing the Point: Marge, concerned about Homer making money off the political division in Springfield, quotes Mark 8:36 ("What does it profit a man if he gains the world, but loses his soul?") Homer responds, "Uh, he gains the world."
- Day of the Jackboot: Kirk getting his way turns Springfield into a dystopia straight out of Fahrenheit 451.
- Discontinuity Nod:Gloria Prince: It's essential that all of Springfield's darkest chapters be taught. The monorail, Lady Gaga's visit, and the gazebo collapse. If our kids aren't made to feel ashamed of the past, how will they learn to be ashamed of the future?
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The episode obviously spoofs the debate surrounding the teaching of "Critical Race Theory" in schools, with dissenters arguing that such curriculums are geared toward shaming white students for past acts of racism and advocates maintaining that the alternative amounts to historical censorship. In this case, the debate is about a historic incident in which one of Kirk's ancestors engineered a faulty gazebo that collapsed.Kirk: I'm here to officially protest the teaching of the Great Springfield Gazebo Disaster. It makes our children hate our town and me hate myself.Chalmers: The Gazebo Disaster? But we plan to tread water on that unit for months. We're doing two weeks on the substandard metal bracing alone.Kirk: Not anymore. I demand that you ban Critical Brace Theory now!
- Halfway Plot Switch: The first half of the episode focuses on the parents home-schooling their kids while the school is temporarily closed. But then Kirk read about the story of the gazebo collapse and gets depressed, sending him to Moe’s, whereupon he decides to get the story whitewashed from history.
- Have a Gay Old Time: The 1800s Professor Frink ancestor/equivalent tells everyone to “stop making love, in the old-timey sense”.
- Here We Go Again!: In the future, parents vaporise a Dr. Seuss-esque teacher for telling the story of the second gazebo’s destruction.
- Never My Fault: Despite Mayor Van Houten willingly admitting the Gazebo collapse was his fault, Kirk thinks that his family is being unnecessarily demonised.
- Present-Day Past: A lookalike of Kumiko appears being romanced by a Comic Book Guy lookalike in the past, whereas in the modern day, she only moved to town a few months ago in Comic-Book Time.
- Putting on the Reich: The people Kirk hires to enforce his anti-education crusade wear Nazi-styled uniforms.
- Take That!: The entire plot is one to people who want important historical events removed from history curriculums because they don’t like them being taught.
- Time Skip: After Chalmers folds on the gazebo incident being a part of history, we cut to three weeks later, by which point Kirk fully controls the town.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Moe telling Kirk to “man up” causes him to launch his crusade.
