Bart has to deal with his guilt after he betrays Lisa. Meanwhile, Homer begins playing chess, and everyone in Springfield becomes impressed by his talents.
Tropes:
- Anthropomorphic Personification: Bart's guilt appears as a trollish version of himself. We also see Lisa's guilt, as well as several personifications of Homer's emotions.
- Art Shift: The Couch Gag, once again produced by Stoopid Buddy Studios, mixes this up with both Medium Blending and Crossover as a 2D-animated Homer tries to get back the ship painting from The Nerd.
- The Atoner: Bart feels so bad for throwing away Lisa's new hat he goes to the junk yard to recover it.
- Brick Joke: Homer has trouble at the Krusty Burger drive-thru and ends up ordering too much. Later, when Lisa looks for her hat, the car is filled with burger wrappers.
- Cast as a Mask: Averted when Itchy disguises as Garfield; as a result, "Garfield" has a voice similar to Homer (due to Dan Castellaneta, Homer's voice actor, also voicing Itchy.)
- Continuity Nod:
- The store where Lisa buys her new hat has several "Bort" license plates.
- Also all of the objects on the Simpsons' roof.
- Prior to its slow mutation, the appearance of Bart's guilt recalls an Off-Model Hugo Simpson from "Treehouse of Horror VII."
- Dark Is Not Evil: Gross and grotesque as it is, Bart's guilt is just doing its job: goading him to atone for his actions after hurting Lisa. On the other hand, his soft-spoken, Sunday-dressed "denial" wanted to "protect" him by having him ignore the whole thing.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The California Raisins fire scene parodies the famous Face Melting scene from the movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
- Drive-Thru Antics: Homer tries to order five meals at the Krusty Burger drive thru, but the attendant keeps getting the math wrong. Leads to a Brick Joke later on, when Lisa looks for her missing hat and the car is stuffed with hundreds of discarded wrappers, including the trunk.
- From the Mouths of Babes: Homer says this word for word when coming across four winter-clad kids cussing up a storm in the opening.
- Full-Body Disguise / Latex Perfection: The Itchy and Scratchy cartoon "The Garfield Assassination" has Itchy disguise as Garfield this way.
- Idiot Savant: Moe describes Homer this way with regard to his chess-playing ability.
- I'm Melting!: One of the claymation raisins in the intro dies like this when their set catches fire.
- Kick the Dog: Knowing full well how much it means to her, Bart throws Lisa's beloved new hat from the car window out of spite because it got her a compliment from the same bullies who laughed at him.
- Neck Snap: How the personification of Bart's guilt deals with his personified denial.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Rod and Todd are able to levitate the crushed car by praying, after which they get nosebleeds.
- Same Surname Means Related: Norwegian Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen is Carl's cousin.
- Shout-Out: The title is based on The Cat in the Hat.
- Sore Loser: Homer's Dad refused to play chess with him again because Homer defeated him once.
- Suddenly Always Knew That: Homer is brilliant at chess of all things because, when he was a kid, his determination to beat his dad caused him to take lessons and work hard to hone the skill. Even Marge didn't know this about him.
- Take That!: To the California Raisins in the opening."We're in the cookies you hate to eat. An unpleasant surprise when you trick or treat."
- Wasn't That Fun?: Bart's personified guilt grows larger and more grotesque the longer he refuses to accept it, which Bart simply laughs off because he likes gross things. It tries to call his bluff by eating him and (non-graphically) pooping him out, to which he laughs and yells, "Again! Again!"
- You Remind Me of X: Played for Laughs between the young Homer and the professor who taught him to play chess when the usual implication of the phrase "You remind me of my son" is Subverted:Homer: Oh? Where is he now?Professor: He's right over there. (Zoom out to reveal another kid hanging out in the room.) He just doesn't like chess!
