put a hat on a hat

present singular third person puts a hat on a hat · participle present putting a hat on a hat

1. idiomaticTo do something unnecessary, to go over the top

   "You don't need to put a hat on a hat.” He was saying: If you comment on it, you kill it. If there's a hat already on your head, why in God's name would you put another hat on top of it? The audience doesn't like to see you wink.

   2017 May 16, Jeffrey Tambor, Are You Anybody?: A Memoir, Crown Archetype, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Puccini's music is 'overblown', 'so huge' that there is a danger of putting 'a hat on a hat' if you match 'epic staging with epic music and epic slightly melodramatic acting'. Goold wanted it to feel more like Lars von Trier's musical[…]

   2020 November 12, Sarah Grochala, The Theatre of Rupert Goold: Radical Approaches to Adaptation and New Writing, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN

   I mean, it's kind of putting a hat on a hat. Nobody thinks a trip to the Hall of Doom is going to be as uplifting as one to the Hall of Justice. Nobody thinks Mount Doom or an abandoned amusement park or chemical factory would make as[…]

   2021 October 5, Robb Pearlman, Live Like a Vulcan, Love Like a Wookiee, Laugh Like a Hobbit: Life Lessons from Pop Culture, BenBella Books, →ISBN