A sleepy Marge is too tired on Valentine's Day to have sex with an eager and well-prepared Homer, who dejectedly leaves the house. He sees a billboard for a school offering extension courses. He goes to the school and attempts to take a course on stripping for his wife, which Dr. Hibbert teaches, but is kicked out for hogging the stripping oil and ends up in the Successmanship 101 class. The class teaches Homer how to succeed in the workplace. It gives Homer inspiration, and he investigates problems at the power plant, so he develops solutions to the problem—all of which are rejected by Mr. Burns, without reading them. This angers Homer after overhearing Burns admit that the plant’s real owner is a canary to protect Burns from responsibility for any wrongdoing by the power plant. Homer, with Bart’s help, devises a plan to overthrow Burns by releasing the bird from the plant to the Canary Islands. After the bird is released, he tells Mr. Burns that inspectors are here to check the condition of the plant. Out of panic, Mr. Burns, who is unable to find his canary, names Homer the new owner. Homer reveals that it was all a ruse: there are no inspectors; and he had tricked Mr. Burns. As Homer’s first act during his brief tenure as the plant’s owner, he fires Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns then heads to the Middle East with Smithers to purchase a great deal of opium.

However, problems ensue when Homer is in charge of the plant. He has less time to do things with the family, much to their disappointment. He is forced to lay off employees at the plant, making himself miserable. He has to listen to the plant’s woes from his analysts while on vacation. One night, Mr. Burns visits Homer (mentioning that Smithers was arrested and sentenced to 80 years for opium possession, but seems to be ecstatic to have been put in a Turkish prison) and shows him the people who he was too busy working to have good relationships with. He makes Homer understand how much he has missed his family. So Homer decides to quit as the owner and give back ownership to Burns. However, Burns already has plans to take back ownership of the plant and drugs Homer. He then manages to cart an unconscious Homer to the cemetery, where he wants to encase him in the wall of a crypt. Unfortunately for Burns, he is too weak to carry each brick from the cart to the intended wall. By the time he manages to finish a couple of layers, it is daytime. Homer wakes up and steps easily over the few layers of bricks that Mr. Burns had painstakingly managed to cement in place. He tells Burns that the power plant is his again and walks away. The next time we see Homer, he is having a barbecue with his family and much happier to be back to his old life.

[edit] Cultural references

The title is a pun on the word C.E.O.
The song that Homer accidentally gives Maggie for bedtime is "Sex Bomb" by Tom Jones and Mousse T. from the album Reload.
The fact that the barbecue at the end is billed as "Homer's 305th Everything Is Allright BBQ" reflects the murky question of exactly how Simpsons episodes were numbered around this time. Officially, “C.E. D’oh” is the 306th episode in the show's history. However, if “Barting Over” is the 300th episode then this episode would officially be the 304th to air.
Dr. Hibbert's exotic-dancer name "Malcolm Sex" is a parody of Malcolm X, along with Hibbert's risque catchphrase that's a take-off of X's credo "By Any Means Necessary".
The scene where Burns attempts to trap Homer in the crypt is a reference to the Edgar Allan Poe story “The Cask of Amontillado”.
The scene in the Successmanship 101 class is a parody of a famous scene from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross where Alec Baldwin's character gives a group of unsuccessful salesmen a combination of pep talk, insults, verbal abuse, and self-promotion.
Bart and Millhouse were making fun of baseball's most troubled teams the Montreal Expos and the Tampa Bay Rays respectively. The two also make fun of their respective pitchers Tomo Ohka and Esteban Yan in the episode.
Nelson's comment that Billy Crystal "is the man at the baseball park that everyone hates" is not the first time the show has insulted Crystal. In “New Kids on the Blecch” Marge says she is a "regular Billy Crystal", leading Bart to sarcastically quip "You got that right!"
The scene in which Burns mentions Smithers being taken to a Turkish prison eagerly is reference to Midnight Express and a man imprisoned in Turkey for smuggling drugs who willingly has a homosexual relationship with another prisoner. The fact that Smithers has been established as a closeted homosexual suggests that such an environment might be quite enjoyable for him.
The scene where Homer is chastised by Dr. Hibbert is a parody of the famous scene from The Paper Chase.
The product Homer use all over his body is Oil of Oh Yeah is a parody of the Oil of Olay.
A picture of the corporate hierarchy shows the shiny rod in charge of Homer, a reference to the episode Deep Space Homer.