After T.D., Carolina, and Martha announce the vocabulary about personality (with the first two as news reporters and the latter as the "news fairy"), Helen is seen in her house on a hot day. She tries to cool off by a fan, but the dogs get in her way, then the phone rings. It turns out to be Alice, looking forward to Tiffany Blatsky's pool party the next day. Then, T.D. phones up and invites Helen and the dogs over to the Oatley house, where he and Truman are playing Go Fish in a kiddie pool with laminated cards.
They all have fun in the pool, except for Skits who runs in the sprinkler with the toddlers. Just then, Alice arrives, revealing that she was late because she needed to buy more of her special sunscreen which she needs due to sun-burning easily. They have fun together with one another, the toddlers, and Mrs. Oatley, but Alice keeps reapplying her sunscreen until she turns orange.
When her friends point this out, she screams and runs home, with her friends following over. They initially think she's sunburned, but Mrs. Boxwood determines that it isn't sunburn, but rather the sunscreen dyed her skin. She tries to wash it off, but it doesn't work, so she decides it will have to wear off. Alice is none too pleased at this, since Tiffany's pool party is the next day, and when Ronald teases her about it, she even cries.
She phones up Helen and says she won't come to the party as she's too shy. Helen then rounds up Martha, Skits, T.D., and Truman and decides that they must work together to return Alice's skin to normal. Truman tries Mrs. Oatley's body scrub, T.D. tries lemons (since his grandma uses it for freckles), then they all try dousing her with fish juice so that Nelson and five other cats will lick it off, but nothing works. T.D. suggests sunglasses that make everyone see in monochrome, so that no one will notice the orange, but those haven't been invented. Then, Martha gets another idea.
She tells everyone, and at the party, all the invitees have dyed themselves orange, except for Ronald, who runs off screaming.
This episode provides examples of
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Martha wears a pink tiara as the "news fairy".
- Animals See in Monochrome: Martha claims she can't see Alice's orange skin as she can't see colour, then T.D. wants to invent sunglasses that make everyone see in monochrome, which is apparently how dogs see.
- Argument of Contradictions: In the intro, T.D. and Carolina start yelling, "Vicious!" and "Sweet!" at each other when arguing over which of those is a vocab word.
- Big "NO!": Martha screams, "NO!" when she thinks Alice is dying.
- Black Comedy Burst: When Mrs. Boxwood says that Alice's skin has been dyed, Martha thinks Alice is dying.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Alice says, "Not helping", meaning that the lemons aren't working to get rid of the dye, T.D. apologises because he thinks she meant the comment about him seeing her skin as one big freckle wasn't helping.
- Continuity Nod: Martha tries to convince Carolina to go along with her plan by saying, "I covered for you in the school play, remember?". This happened in "Martha Plays a Part".
- Damned by Faint Praise: Truman tries to be nice to Alice by saying that she looks like a "fresh, juicy orange".
- Double-Meaning Title: The episode's title refers to Alice coating herself in sunscreen, and to her trying to hide the fact that she did so.
- Embarrassment Plot: The plot of this episode is that Alice is too embarrassed to come to a pool party after accidentally dyeing her skin orange.
- Eye Scream: At one point, Alice accidentally sprays her sunscreen in her face, which stings her eyes.
- Flashback: When Alice is complaining about how she sunburns easily, we see a scene from the past with her getting sunburned through her shirt after playing at Dog Head Lake with Ronald.
- Funny Background Event: At one point in the Oatleys' yard, the redheaded girl baby is seen spraying Mrs. Oatley with a hose in the background.
- Fun with Homophones: Mrs. Boxwood explains that Alice's orange skin isn't sunburn, but dye. Martha screams, "She's gonna die?!".Mrs. Boxwood: "No, not D-I-E. D-Y-E!"
- Group Costume Fail: Alice accidentally dyes her skin with orange sunscreen, so her friends dye themselves orange at the pool party to keep her from being embarrassed. Ronald, Alice's brother, is embarrassed since he's the only one not dyed.
- Helping Another Save Face: Alice accidentally applies too much orange sunblock and ends up dyeing her skin orange. However, it won't have time to wear off before the day of a pool party, so she doesn't want to go because she'll stick out with her orange skin. To ease her shame, Alice's friends dye themselves orange at the party too so she won't stick out.
- "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Helen covers her eyes when the cats are licking Alice, due to their rough tongues hurting.
- Insane Troll Logic: As pointed out by Helen, Martha Hates Baths, yet enjoys playing in a kiddie pool, despite both being containers of water.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Mrs. Boxwood says that no one will notice Alice's orange skin, but then Ronald sees her and immediately comments on it.
- Irony: Ronald thinks that Alice will make a fool out of herself being orange at the party, only to leave in shame when he's the only one there not orange.
- Mistaken for Dying: Martha initially thinks Alice is dying when Mrs. Boxwood says that she's been dyed.
- The Pratfall: When the toddlers at Mrs. Oatley's home daycare are seen running in the sprinkler, a little boy falls on his butt.
- Sea of Sand: The Lorraines own a painting of a sandy desert.
- Silent Whisper: Martha inaudibly whispers her plan to the humans.
- Speak in Unison: When T.D. suggests having everyone wear "dog-vision sunglasses", his friends echo, "Dog-vision sunglasses?!" in unison.
- Split-Screen Phone Call: When Alice, then T.D., then Alice again is on the phone with Helen, they're shown on a split screen.
- Stock Animal Diet: Exploited. Alice's friends get cats to lick her by covering her in fish juice.
- Thirsty Desert: Subverted. Helen is seen walking along a desert-like background, sweating, then the camera pans out to reveal that she's in her house on a hot summer's day and the desert background was just a painting.
