90% of the time, that woman is my mother’s long-lost twin. Which makes it kind of funny that Mom loves the show but doesn’t understand any jokes involving the mother. We figure she doesn’t want to understand.
I still love that Halloween episode with Charlie’s girlfriend being a pseudo-witch, turning him into some zombie and giving Allan all those curses.
The girlfriend is getting real close to completing her plans when Evelyn walks in, dressed like the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Evelyn?”
“These are my sons.”
The look of fear was priceless. Anybody else notice that every Halloween episode has some reference to the wicked witch?
mmm, Melanie Linskey…she could stalk me anytime.
I like the show - it seems to derive a bit of humour just letting Charlie Sheen be himself or a parody of his public image, but it works.
I avoided it like the plague.
I mean, it has
*Charlie Sheen, for whom this HAD to be a last stand on his way to washed-up-ville, didn’t it?
*Jon Cryer, with whom I was on set of a long-forgotten show called Getting Personal, where he was not funny and came across as a desperate dick when not on camera.
*Some kid who I thought was the one from that Bruce Willis movie about meeting his childhood self
Had to be horrible. Didn’t touch it.
Then came two consecutive plane trips where episodes were shown. Now its required viewing in our house. Our favorite is Berta.
I don’t watch it regularly but if I have nothing else to do, I will tune in. That kid is a riot. I like the fact that he is not at all precocious. He doesn’t pay attention, doesn’t do well in school, and shows no self-consciousness as an actor.
When Melanie Lynskey left to do Drive, I gave up on it, since I would watch episodes waiting for Rose to show up.
Not that the rest of the show is bad, but Rose is like raspberries for me. (The fruit, not the Bronx cheer.) I love that character so much.
I love the show. I especially like Berta.
Charlie Sheen was a terrible cast, but Charlie is one of my favorite characters on TV.
“I want an earring too”
“You? You can’t keep the holes you *have *clean”
I love this show. The kid is a scream, Berta is perfect, and Charlie Sheen his hilarious. I love when the brothers rip on each other.
Damn…I don’t…I don’t know what I’m reading here.
I guess I’ll have to check it out now. You all better not be playing me like when everyone lied to me about The Blair Witch Project.
What else can you get pierced? Oh, I’ll just look it up on the Internet.
Count me among the fans of this show. We love to watch it. The housekeeper (Berta?) is great and reminds me of a very good friend of mine. She was a bouncer in a biker bar so the comparison fits. This is a great role for Charlie to be himself in much the same way as Raymond had a role as himself. Cryer to me is annoying but that is the part he plays. Sorry to see the stalker leave but the last show introduced Brooke Shields as a bit of a wacky neighbor so we’ll see were that leads.
High marks.
I also enjoy it. Actually, it is one of the two shows I actually watch with any regularity on television these days. I mean the husband-wife comedies are interchangeable, as are the sarcastic cartoon sitcoms. And don’t even get me started on the reality shows.
It is well written, well acted and fun. The kid doesn’t even get on my nerves and that is unusual for a TV kid.
Thanks for all those here who dont like the show. It clearly shows I am not crazy, as why would I imagine people who disagree with me!
Funny stuff, even though I know the next line that is coming. Good cast. It could have fallen apart if the kid was snotty or if Berta wasn’t believable.
I watched an episode on the plane on the way home from a glorious vacation in Paris this past April. Ok, I had already run out of things to do on the plane, my nap was over, lunch was at least an hour away, and I was desparate for something to distract me from the view of the far-below Atlantic to my left. Besides, it was fun to push those buttons on my own personal video screen.
Anyway, I had low expectations, but found myself laughing and enjoying the 22 minutes of sit-com hijinks **Two and a Half Men ** offered. I thought Charlie Sheen was very good, Jon What’s-his-name’s character was not a total tool, the kid wasn’t overly precocious, the situation was believable and amusing and not bathed in a redeeming MESSAGE. In short, I thought, “I could watch this show on a regular basis if it came on at a convenient time and the Sox had a night off.”
Except for one thing. The fucking laugh track! Please tell me this isn’t filmed/taped before a live audience. Please tell me it was only the airplane video that made it so. Please tell me the producers don’t believe I am so stupid that I need an in-your-face cue to LAUGH HERE!!!
I want to like the show–I DID like what I saw and sort of heard. But that stupid, hysterical laughter at chuckle-worthy moments turned me off. Guess I’ll give it a try this summer. But if that HAW-HAW-HAW laugh track shows up, I’m gone.
Well … as far as I know, it’s not a laugh track. Back in March, a friend of mine and I went to a taping of Two and A Half Men. (The episode was “Mr. McGlue’s Feedbag”, in case you’re curious.) Watching the episode in May, the laughter sounded much the same on TV as it sounded live. I don’t doubt they did a bit of sweetening, but it is indeed filmed before a live audience, and we really did laugh a lot.
Personally, I had only seen the show once when we went to the taping, but it was all we could get tickets for on that night. I DID find it funny, and the warm-up comedian in the audience did a great job keeping the energy up. They did at least three takes of every scene before moving on to the next one, so we were laughing at jokes we’d heard before, but they often changed the timing and the wording, so it was somewhat fresh for us. (In fact, this was my favorite part – watching the writers huddle between takes if a scene didn’t get the laughs they wanted.)
A couple of the scenes had been filmed the day before, but they played them for us on monitors and recorded our reaction. (The scenes they played for us had 40+ extras (in the DMV) or were in a car, so would have been difficult to film in front of the audience.)
Incidentally, Jon Cryer directed that episode, and did a great job on set. His fiancee was there, too … very attractive woman.
And as for whether they actually USED our laughter – well, yes, I’m pretty sure they did. During the taping, the world’s most annoying girl sat right behind us, and made some odd noises and random claps. Someone came from the booth and fussed at her row for making sounds that would stand out.
I have liked the show since it first aired, but agree there haven’t been too many people on the SDMB who agree with me.
I think it is well-written and am amazed at some of the jokes they get away with.
I am surprised the censors allow some of those comments, which only proves how talented the writers are to be able to come up with lines that have several layers of meaning.
If you haven’t seen the show, try the summer re-runs and see what you think - it is probably the best live sitcom on the air at this time. The cast is excellent and once you get the feel for the characters, I think you’ll find the show is very, very funny.
Huh. I’ve never watched the show because I assumed it was terrible. I guess I’ll have to give it a shot.
Thanks for that interesting info, SetApart. Seeing a live taping of a show is something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t had the opportunity. Maybe annoying girl tried to stand out so she could hear herself on the broadcast and tell her friends she was on national TV! Hah!
Two and a Half Men is now officially on my list of summer shows to watch. When the Sox aren’t on, of course. 