23 Judge Me Tender

Homer and Bart participate at an "Ugliest Dog" contest in Springfield" contest, entering Santa's Little Helper. At the contest, Moe feels neglected because nobody wants to let him sit next to them (Agnes Skinner even sets the chair next to her on fire). Moe sits on the ground until he notices that the judge, Krusty the Clown, is not managing to entertain the crowd due to his lack of enthusiasm over his work. He taunts and insults Krusty for his inability to be funny, despite being a clown. Angry, Krusty leaves and offers his job to Moe, much to the delight of the crowd, who then urges him to replace Krusty, and to which Moe agrees as he now has a place to sit. During the competition, Moe makes sardonic, offensive but undoubtedly funny comments about all the ugly dogs, but chooses the Simpsons' dog (under the alias of Satan's Little Helper) was the winner because the Simpsons disguised their dog's buttocks as if it were his face, leaving Santa's Little Helper upset over his appearance until Lisa comforts him later. After that, Moe becomes the judge of most Springfield competitions (including a bully competition at the beach) and is offered a job as one of jurors of American Idol, since that several other programs with the opportunity of this kind of job were suddenly cancelled.

Moe flies to Los Angeles and becomes a protégé of Simon Cowell, who them explain all the details of their job, but before his first show, Cowell shows several clips of people (including Mr. Burns) who think the judgments of Moe are very offensive and became angry with him (with even the usually innocent and good-natured Ralph talk so baldly about Moe that most of his words have to be censored). Cowell warns him to not "become the mean judge, like I did", since he himself does not have many friends. He tries to be more positive, but Cowell mocks his judgment of a contestant, he realizes that Cowell tricked him; angered, Moe threatens Cowell's life on air, but is apprehended by security and expelled from the building.

Meanwhile, Homer feels bored after Moe closed his bar to judge competitions and decides to spend time with Marge. After his presence at the house becomes too annoying, Marge decides to help him to find a new bar, but when this fails (due to the obnoxious customers), Grampa advises Marge to put Homer in a round of golf, where he will become too distracted to even bother her again. However, before the game begins, Marge meets an elderly man who tells her that he got addictive to golf and barely saw his family again. Marge them realizes that she was going too far and stops Homer from playing, and they both end up having make up sex. In the end, in the reopening of his tavern, Moe explains that he was put on trial and, as punishment for his sociopathic behavior, he is not only banned from California, but is also forbidden from ever judging anything again anywhere in the country (he cannot even express his opinion on how much beer a person could drink before driving). But fortunately for Moe, he is also forbidden from watching the Fox network, something that he acknowledges as being a blessing in disguise, as this leads to an increase of the customers in his bar, including Rupert Murdoch, who asks him to put on The Jay Leno Show.