Series / Judge Joe Brown

He’s a real judge. In his courtroom, everyone has the right to a fair trial, but if they’re proven wrong, he has the right to make them pay. Judge Joe Brown.

Judge Joe Brown is an American arbitration courtroom series that ran in syndication from 1998 to 2013, and was presided by former State Criminal Court judge Joseph B. Brown.

---

This show provides examples of:

• Accent Interest: Brown has a very distinctive Tennessean accent.
• All Just a Prank:
  • At least two cases have been confirmed to be faked by the parties involved in order to make some quick cash: A 1999 case about a painting damaged at a rock concert, and a 2006 case about transvestite strippers hired for a bachelor party. In both instances, Brown ruled in favor of the plaintiff for the full amount they asked for, based on the strength of their fabricated evidence.
  • A Subverted example from the February 14, 2000 episode: The plaintiff sues her former friend, alleging that she damaged her property during a fight they had in the aftermath of a daytime talk show appearance. The plaintiff claims that, to get onto the show, they faked a story about the defendant sleeping with her boyfriend, only to find out shortly after the taping ended that the defendant actually did sleep with him. Brown is immediately skeptical of this story, pointing out that if all three of them were so eager to fake that story to get onto the talk show, then what was to stop them from faking this story to get onto his show? He ultimately accuses them of trying to squeeze free money out of him and dismisses the case.
• The Announcer: Ben Patrick Johnson in seasons 1-7, then Rolonda Watts for the remainder of the run.
• The Artifact: Most cases in the early seasons ended with Jacque interviewing the litigants outside the courtroom, in a manner almost identical to The People's Court. As the seasons went on, these segments became less and less common, before eventually getting dropped from the show altogether by 2006.
• Audience Participation:
  • The Studio Audience would frequently applaud whenever they agreed with a point that Brown made, especially if it was a statement that insulted the litigant who Brown considered liable.
  • Played Straight with the Joe’s Jury audience polls in 2005-2009, where the audience voted on whether or not they felt the plaintiff was successfully making their case.
• Bad Liar:
  • September 1998: One of the show’s earliest episodes featured a woman suing her ex-fiancé for assaulting her while she was driving, resulting in injuries so severe that she needed facial reconstruction surgery. The defendant, currently serving a jail sentence for this very incident, testifies that the first punch he threw did happen the way the plaintiff described it, but says that it was the only time he has ever punched her, then claims that the blow which destroyed the left half of her face was caused by him inadvertently whacking her face with his elbow. Brown then spends the better part of the half-hour COMPLETELY roasting the defendant for being an abuser who’s trying to cover up his actions with these Blatant Lies, which is only further reinforced when the plaintiff describes numerous other instances of domestic violence, and the only rebuttal the defendant weakly offers is that she wasn’t innocent either. Needless to say, Brown awards the plaintiff the $5,000 maximum.
  • October 25, 2010: Very likely an example of a Determined Defeatist, a defendant getting sued for crashing his ex-girlfriend’s SUV into a telephone pole argues that he shouldn’t be held liable because the pole suddenly jumped out into the middle of the road, so there was no way he could have avoided crashing into it. When the plaintiff testifies that the defendant appeared to have been drinking shortly before taking the vehicle, the defendant admits to it, but insists “the drinks don’t have nothing to do with what happened”. Brown laughs off this sham of a defense and awards the plaintiff the $4,351 she asked for.
• Berserk Button: Brown is generally laidback compared to the likes of Judge Judy, but con artists, domestic abusers, welfare fraudsters, and especially perpetuators of the “hip hop lifestyle” are virtually guaranteed to set him off into a yelling fit. Litigants who constantly interrupt the other party's testimony and talk back to Brown also draw his ire.
• Beware of Vicious Dog: Cases involving pitbull attacks seemed to appear on a surprisingly common basis. Brown never wastes an opportunity to display the chart showing that pitbulls are overwhelmingly the #1 dog breed that causes injuries to humans and other animals, and he sometimes rants about how pitbull owners arrogantly assert that their dog could do no wrong more often than owners of other dog breeds.
• Body Language: Brown is very critical towards litigants who exhibit a lax composure in his courtroom, especially women who put a hand on their hip (likening it to something a teenage girl would do, rather than a grown adult) and men who don’t stand up straight.
• Catchphrase:
  • “I'm protecting womanhood and promoting manhood!”
  • “You better man up, son!”
  • “Oh, and by the way…”
  • “T.C.O.B.: Taking care of business!”
  • “If you listen, you may learn something!”
  • Whenever Brown dismissed a case in the later seasons: “DENIED!”
  • One for Ben, Rolonda, Jacque, and Jeanne: “It's Joe time!”
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • October 20, 1998: A woman sues her ex-boyfriend for assault, but fails to adequately explain how someone like him (who walks with a cane) could possibly have the physical prowess to cause the injuries she claims he did, while the defendant alleges that she’s hot-tempered and any hit to her was done in self-defense. When it becomes clear that Brown is about to dismiss the case, the plaintiff suddenly throws her mic to the ground, begins to storm out, and then cusses out both the defendant and Brown before Holly finishes dragging her out of the courtroom, prompting Brown to slyly remark “ma'am, I think you're illustrating his point now!”
  • February 11, 2010: A defendant being sued for a hit-and-run accident with a rental car gets yelled at by Brown for claiming to have nothing to do with it despite overwhelming evidence that he has a history of crashing rental cars. When Brown says that he’ll send the evidence over to the district attorney, the defendant proceeds to cuss him out, storm out, and then makes a censored threat towards Brown before exiting the courtroom.
• Crossover: One episode of the UPN sitcom One on One involved Flex and Duane suing each other on Judge Joe Brown over a used car sale gone wrong. Brown, Jacque, and Holly all appeared as themselves.
• Deadpan Snarker: Brown is arguably the most straightforward example of this as far as TV judges go, never wasting an opportunity to call out incredulous claims made by the litigants and then framing it into the story in a manner that sounds as ridiculous as possible.
• Didn't Think This Through: One of the most ridiculous cases in the show’s history happened on the September 23, 1998 episode, in which a jilted bride sues her ex-boyfriend for wedding expenses, while he countersues for harassment. It quickly becomes apparent that the defendant never had any interest in marrying the plaintiff and repeatedly told her this, but when presented with evidence that he applied for a marriage license with her and attended the wedding rehearsal, his defense is that he did these things because he thought she’d finally leave him alone about marrying her. Nevertheless, the tables quickly turn on the plaintiff when it’s revealed that her and the defendant weren’t even living together in the time leading up to the wedding and she hadn’t met any of the defendant’s family members, and once she admits that she didn’t even visit the defendant’s new address a single time before the wedding, Brown declares that he’s had enough and dismisses both cases.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The earliest-taped episodes of the first season, which resurfaced on Pluto TV in 2021, featured a number of differences compared to the rest of the series: Brown had an undyed gray mustache, Holly introduced Brown as “the honorable Joe Brown, judge presiding” instead of the familiar “the honorable Judge Joe Brown presiding”, and Jacque offered commentary going into commercial in addition to the usual commentary coming out of commercial.
• Epic Fail: The May 18, 1999 episode featured a case where a woman sues her ex-husband for breaking her camera during a child pickup in front of their children’s school, claiming that he deliberately assaulted her and she has the tape to prove it. The defendant alleges that the plaintiff was actually the aggressor in this situation, and not only was she not supposed to pick the kids up at that time and location, but he only broke the camera because she kept taunting him, repeatedly refused to back away from him, and then started to hit him, prompting him to act in self-defense. The tape is played, and it proves that everything said by the defendant was true. Brown is genuinely amazed that the plaintiff was stupid enough to bring in evidence that validated the defendant’s testimony, and promptly dismisses the case. To add insult to injury, the humiliated plaintiff claims that it was her current husband’s stupid idea to even file the case to begin with, then tries exiting through the wrong door and cusses at Holly when she corrects her.
• Evil Matriarch:
  • May 20, 1999: A woman sues her son and daughter-in-law for an unpaid loan, but it quickly becomes obvious that she doesn’t particularly care for her daughter-in-law. This gets cranked up to eleven when the defendants play back a half-dozen answering machine messages where the plaintiff drops numerous Cluster F-Bombs, repeatedly insults her daughter-in-law, threatens to tell the daughter-in-law’s parents about the abortion she paid for, claims that her son was having an affair, and threatens to ruin the couple’s reputation within the community they live in. Brown is ENRAGED that the plaintiff would try to sabotage her son’s marriage just because of her personal beef with her daughter-in-law, and points out to the defendants that they very easily could’ve won a countersuit for harassment had they filed one. Nevertheless, he puts his personal feelings towards the plaintiff aside and awards her the $1,250 she proved the defendants owed.
  • May 26, 2010: An 18-year-old man sues his mother for draining an $8,000 college fund awarded to him in a lead poisoning settlement when he was 16. Brown doesn’t hesitate to interrogate the defendant about where the money went, and she claims she spent it on a new car after hers broke down when they were moving, and tries to argue that this purchase ultimately benefited the plaintiff. Brown points out the obvious fallacy that it couldn’t have benefited the plaintiff that much if he (and all but one of his siblings) was already old enough to drive, and then explains that she was supposed to obtain permission from a probate court to use the money in this manner. The defendant’s stepdaughter then testifies as a witness for the plaintiff, alleging that a fraud investigation was underway for a credit card opened in her name with the defendant’s address and phone number, causing Brown to chastise the defendant for taking advantage of her own children to make money for herself and laments that she deserves to go to jail for these offenses. Needless to say, he awards the plaintiff $8,000.
• The Freakshow: The October 30, 1998 episode featured a bearded lady suing her circus co-worker, a dwarf, for an assault. Despite the very unusual appearances of both litigants, the case was Played Straight by Brown (and ultimately dismissed due to lack of evidence).
• Frivolous Lawsuit: The October 29, 1998 episode featured a woman suing her ex-husband for failing to return her $500 camcorder; it is quickly revealed that the plaintiff is paying her ex-husband alimony because he is disabled due to an incurable diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. The defendant files a countersuit for $47, claiming that he felt the plaintiff should have paid $12 for their daughter’s dance lessons and $35 for their daughter’s Judaism class, and he’s holding onto the camcorder until she reimburses him for these payments. Brown COMPLETELY EXPLODES at the defendant for having the gall to file such a frivolous countersuit when it was technically the plaintiff’s money to begin with, since she’s the one paying him $1,000 a month because he isn’t bringing in his own income. Brown then finishes off the case by doubling the plaintiff’s award to $1,000 out of spite towards the defendant.
• Get Out!:
  • Brown occasionally kicks parties out of the courtroom who he sees as overly disruptive/disrespectful. This most frequently happens with loudmouthed witnesses, but sometimes happens with the actual litigants as well (in at least two instances, he kicked the defendant out before they even presented their own testimony!).
  • ca. 2009 amidst an argument a man barked at Brown who then had the man arrested.
  • A compassionate Subversion of this trope is seen in cases where children are brought in as witnesses to disputes between separated parents and/or subject matter inappropriate for their age. In these instances, Brown politely asks the children to be escorted out of the courtroom by the bailiff and brings them back in only if their testimony is needed to validate his ruling.
• Grumpy Old Man: Brown’s persona to a T.
• The Host: Court reporter Jacque Kessler filled this role in the first 12 seasons, followed by Jeanne Zelasko for the last 3 seasons.
• In-Series Nickname: Brown routinely referred to bailiff Holly Evans as “Miss Holly”, and then gave her successor Sonia Montejano a similar nickname: “Madam Sonia”.
• Jerkass:
  • November 8, 2004: In a seemingly cut-and-dry case about a mother who loaned her 24-year-old daughter $1,030 for rent, the daughter turns out to be easily the most disrespectful defendant in the history of the show, if not any court show ever: She proceeds to scream at the top of her lungs for nearly the entire episode, interrupt the plaintiff and Brown at every available opportunity, repeatedly mock Holly and the Studio Audience, and drop a series of Cluster F-Bombs over the course of the half-hour. Things go From Bad to Worse when she brags about how her mother and the welfare state pay for everything she has, then promptly criticizes her mother for only caring about money. And then when Brown offers a slave mentality analogy to the way she behaves, the defendant interjects that she was descended from Panamanians who weren’t enslaved and doesn’t care about what happens to other black people, then she repeatedly whines that Brown should just end the case already. Brown somehow stays surprisingly calm the entire time, but ultimately gets the last laugh when he boosts the plaintiff’s award to $2,580 and offers to send the plaintiff a tape of the episode to convince Child Protective Services that the custody of her daughter’s child should be transferred from the defendant to her.
  Jacque: The defendant screamed for the better part of this entire case. Somewhere in the rants, she insulted just about everyone in the courtroom. Clearly, there are problems. She loses.
  • September 16, 2009: While not as extreme as the above example, the defendant in a case about how she hasn’t repaid a $1,000 loan to the plaintiff’s mom also proves to be exceptionally disrespectful, repeatedly interrupting the plaintiff’s testimony, then hurling insults towards both the plaintiff and Brown whenever she speaks. When it’s finally her chance to testify, she claims that offering the plaintiff and her mother discounts in her side-gig as a hairstylist should be enough to offset the balance of the loan, then nonchalantly admits that she doesn’t report her income as a hairstylist in her welfare forms. Brown COMPLETELY tears the defendant apart for taking advantage of the plaintiff’s mother’s kindness and committing a felony by defrauding the welfare system, then doubles the plaintiff’s award to $2,000, prompting the defendant to continue yelling at Brown as if the case wasn’t over, while Sonia is hauling her out of the courtroom.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: The defendant on the November 8, 2004 episode was a 24-year-old lesbian who had been a teen mom, and she brought in her masculine-looking girlfriend as a witness. Brown remarked that the defendant wanted her witness to be “the father to [her] child” and that she was “supposed to be a man”, prompting the witness to angrily jump out of her seat and pull up her top to show that she was wearing a bra underneath.
• La La La Not Listening: If Brown gets especially fed up with a loudmouthed litigant and realizes that they won’t stop trying to interrupt him, he’ll often just steamroll his ongoing rant over anything the litigant says and flat-out doesn’t acknowledge any of their interjections.
• Long Runner: Lasted 15 years, running from 1998 to 2013. At the time of its final season, it was the third longest-consecutively-running court show in history, eclipsed by only Judge Judy and The People's Court, but it has since fallen to fifth place.
• Miranda Rights: In any instance where the defendant has a case pending in criminal court which is related to the same incident addressed in the small-claims case, Brown is always quick to warn the defendant that anything they say on the show can be used against them in the criminal proceedings.
• No Listening Skills: The first case on the July 19, 2010 episode involved a woman suing her witness’ friend over the sale of a used car after the engine dies 5 hours later, but her testimony RAPIDLY falls apart when she admits to calling her witness when the oil light came on a couple of hours later, continued to drive the car anyway, and then called her witness again when the engine died 3 hours later. The defendant claims that, at pickup, he tried to tell the plaintiff that the car needed an oil change immediately because it had sat unused for a year, but she quickly brushed it off and was more preoccupied with tuning the radio and chatting on her cell phone over anything he said. Cue the testimony from the plaintiff’s witness, and she proceeds to back up everything the defendant said, and adds that before the plaintiff drove off, the defendant told her what he tried to tell the plaintiff, and she relayed this information to the plaintiff when she called her about the oil light a couple of hours later. Brown is genuinely baffled at how the plaintiff refused to listen to anybody and not only ruined the engine as a result, but also brought in a witness that validated the defendant’s testimony. To the surprise of absolutely no one, he dismisses the case.
  Jacque: “Somewhere along the way, the plaintiff lost her own witness. Everyone but the plaintiff agreed that she wasn’t a good listener. She can’t save her, case dismissed.”
• Point-and-Laugh Show: VERY MUCH an example of this trope, especially in cases where Brown derides male litigants attempting to be macho for acting too “unmanly” or “girly”.
• Pronoun Trouble: The first case on the November 20, 1998 episode involved a drag queen who won a beauty contest. He was introduced into the courtroom by his real name, but Brown nevertheless asked him “should I address you as Miss or Mister?” The plaintiff said that Brown could call him whatever he wanted, so Brown decided to refer to him as “Queen”.
• Put on a Prison Bus: One of the WILDEST cases in the show’s history from circa 2004 involved a plaintiff suing his aunt for his belongings after she evicted him, while the aunt countersues for the money she paid for the plaintiff’s education. Within minutes, the plaintiff nonchalantly admits to being a pothead who deals drugs in order to pay his bills without seeking a full-time job, culminating in an outright shouting match between the plaintiff, the defendant, and the defendant’s boyfriend over his laziness. The defendant then reveals that she’s been withholding the part-time income brought in by both the plaintiff and her boyfriend in her welfare forms, then spending the welfare money intended for her 6 children on both the plaintiff and her boyfriend instead. As another shouting match begins to break out, Brown yells over the litigants that they shouldn’t reveal any more information since they’re probably going straight to jail with what they’ve already confessed on national television, dismissing both cases.
  Judge Joe Brown: “DISMISSED! Get out before you go to jail!”
• Rearrange the Song: A drum machine was added to the opening theme in 2002, then the Theme Tune was remade entirely with a hip hop arrangement in 2004, which remained for the rest of the run.
  • In the later seasons, Bad Girls-themed episodes used a disco arrangement of the theme song, while Bad Boys-themed episodes used a variation of the theme with an even more pronounced hip hop arrangement.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Very, VERY common, to the point where it occurs virtually Once per Episode. Brown usually caps it off by naming off every bad decision the offending party has ever made in their life, regardless of how relevant it actually is to the case.
• Saying Too Much:
  • May 5, 1999: Brown is about to rule on a cut-and-dry case about an unpaid car loan between siblings totalling $3,379.08, but right before the gavel comes down, the defendant mutters that he has the moral ground over his sister. Brown IMMEDIATELY rebukes the defendant for saying this, prompting the defendant to angrily remark “make your ruling!”, before quickly making an Oh, Crap! facial expression and exclaiming “I shouldn't have said that!” Brown completely throws the book at the defendant and chastises him for having neither the legal nor the moral ground in this case, then boosts the plaintiff’s award to $4,500 in retaliation for showing such blatant disrespect towards the court.
  • May 20, 2011: A couple who leased an apartment to the defendant sues him for property damage after he trashed the apartment, but he claims that the landlords are actually slumlords who left the apartment in such poor condition to begin with. The defendant attempts to vocally rebuff Brown grilling him for how implausible his version of the story is, but in the process, he blurts out “that was out of resentment”, effectively admitting that he damaged the apartment himself. Brown then RIDICULES the defendant for self-incriminating himself because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut and awards the plaintiffs the $5,000 maximum.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Happens occasionally with plaintiffs who storm out of the courtroom before the case is over because they get fed up at Brown repeatedly doubting the validity of their claims, but more often seen with defendants who storm out because they can’t handle Brown ranting on about how they lack any sense of self-accountability. Brown immediately dismisses the case if the former happens, or awards the plaintiff the $5,000 maximum if the latter happens.
• Special Guest: Much like sister show Judge Judy, the early seasons occasionally featured small-claims cases in which at least one of the parties was a celebrity. Notable faces who appeared in Brown’s courtroom include Ike Turner, Cherie Currie, Rick James, 2 Live Crew, and Coolio.
  • The March 24, 1999 episode is notable for featuring former Starcade host and ‘80s San Francisco TV personality Mark Richards as the defendant, in a case about child support owed for a 16-year-old daughter who he didn’t know about until the case was filed, and, mathematically, was conceived at the height of his TV career. No mention is made of his long-over-by-then TV career, but a side-by-side comparison proves that it is clearly the same Mark Richards.
• Tagline:
  • 2002-2004: “Real cases. A passion for justice. Judge Joe Brown.”
  • 2005-2008: “He’s the real deal.”
  • 2008-2013: “Experience, knowledge, and a passion for the truth, bringing no-nonsense justice to Americans everywhere.”
• Tears of Remorse:
  • September 17, 1998: An ex-girlfriend is sued for poking holes in the roof of the plaintiff’s car when she saw that her ex-boyfriend had moved on from her. It’s revealed that the defendant has a drinking problem and has since gone through rehabilitation, but when she refuses to pay for the rain damage to the interior of the car as a result of the holes she poked, Brown sends her into tears when he points out that her drunken rage with a sharp object could have resulted in a far more tragic incident than this, and ultimately awards the plaintiff $1,470.
  • June 2008: A woman sues her niece-in-law, a 24-year-old mother of 4, for failing to repay her after she posted her niece-in-law’s bail bond for not making her child support payments. It’s revealed that the defendant only has custody of one of her children and is supposed to pay child support for the other three that came from a previous relationship, and when she offers the pathetic defense that she didn’t ask to be bailed out of jail, Brown completely excoriates her for being a ridiculously irresponsible mother by blatantly prioritizing the one child she still has custody of over the other three, then acting like she doesn’t even need to be a parent to the other three anymore just because she moved onto a new husband, and left her aunt-in-law with the financial burden. Cue the waterworks from the defendant, to the tune of a $4,567 judgment for the plaintiff.
• Tough Love: Brown is clearly a firm believer in this, as his adjudicating style proves.