Australia. Like the majority of television court shows, Judge Joe Brown is a form of binding arbitration. The show's producers maintain the appearance of a civil courtroom. Ratings As far as ratings in the legal/courtroom genre go, Brown's program ranked in second place during its entire run, typically just above The People's Court and significantly below Judge Judy. Consequently, Judge Joe Brown was the highest rated male-arbitrated television series during its run. Adjudicating approach According to Roger M. Grace, editor of the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, for the most part, Brown had a languid and perfunctory nature about him, particularly while gathering all the facts and trying to figure out the case. Occasionally, however, once he suspected a party of being guilty, Brown had become particularly cantankerous as shown in his irritated, quarrelsome communication. Brown had also subjected these litigants to harsh tirades and judgmental commentary. At several intervals throughout many of the cases, Brown had been seen up on his feet in the midst of a tirade, pacing and raging around the bench area. In these moments, he'd also been known to sit atop the desktop of his bench to add emphasis to his long, angry tirades. The harshest of Brown's tirades had generally been delivered to men whose behavior he regarded as particularly irresponsible or egregious. In these moments, Brown flinged out his personal values and guidance at men, such as: "Grow up and be a man", "You don't know nothing about manhood", "Quit acting like you haven't got any home training", "Be a civilized human being and stop trying to be cool", "Quit acting like a thug", "Take responsibility", and "Have a sense of class and decency." Brown had been criticized for these behaviors for "lacking self-control." Brown tended to allow "victimized" or "wronged" litigants ample opportunity to also berate "guilty" litigants, often delighting in this and listening in amusement; moreover, he allowed audience applause and laughter at the guilty litigant's expense so that the whole courtroom was against the guilty party. With brasher litigants than other courtroom programs, however, perhaps due to the nature of the cases or at least Brown's approach, guilty litigants on Judge Joe Brown had been known to act out. On past episodes, many litigants who were perceived as guilty by Brown and treated accordingly had not hesitated to chuck items around the courtroom (such as water), disrespect the judge, or threaten the other