Everything I know about the number one sitcom in America, CBS' Two And A Half Men, I've gleaned from commercials and half of an episode watched (without headphones) on an airplane. Here's what I've gathered: Modern-day odd couple raises a kid, Jon Cryer's character gesticulates a lot, the kid eats a lot (fat = funny!), and the desperation behind Charlie Sheen's dead, dead eyes might as well be a fourth lead character.
But despite my advanced studies into the show (probably 15 minutes altogether, most of it without sound, the rest of it 30-second ads), I still have many questions about Two And A Half Men, like "Why?" "Can this be stopped?" and "Where, besides re-runs of My Two Dads, do the writers get their inspiration?"
Today, while reading the Daily News, I got an answer to that last question. Apparently, many of the show's red-hot zingers are based on Charlie Sheen's personal, prostitute-filled life. Why, they've made fun of his love of escort services (ZING!), and his weird, needlessly murderous relationship with a Real Doll. What? Yes:
But the sitcom got even closer to the bone when mother and son began to banter about an inflatable sex doll. "I tried it once," said Charlie Harper. "But I prefer a real woman."
Sheen also knows something about this subject. A few years back, we're told, he bought a $6,000 anatomically correct latex girl dressed in a cheerleader's outfit…But then came the night when, according to our source, Sheen tried to get two female party companions interested in a foursome with the bouncy cheerleader.
"They couldn't stop laughing at him," says the snitch. "Charlie got so mad that he ran the girls out of his house. Then he took a meat cleaver and chopped one of the doll's hands off. He and his bodyguard tried to dispose of it, like it was a real body. They wrapped it in a blanket and drove around in the middle of the night till they found a Dumpster."
Clearly, this is why Two And A Half Men is the number one TV comedy in the country: Charlie Sheen is a fountain of hilarious, sitcom-ready material. This week, it's a passing reference to escorts, or a remark about an inflatable sex doll. But pretty soon it'll be a barbed quip like, "Why don't you cut off my hand and throw me in a Dumpster, then?" or Sheen's character wearing a "No Bald Chicks" t-shirt, or a hilarious scene where Sheen's character lovingly teaches the fat kid how to dismember his very first Real Doll.