The show's success also sold a kind of fantasy to fans that Sheen could live a debauched life offscreen without any real world consequences to himself, his family or his work. 'There were no STDs and no alcoholism.nobody got hurt. ' was very much a magical show,' Lorre says. Sheen's Charlie Harper was a womanizer and hard partier who was paid handsomely from a job the audience rarely saw him do, forced to take in his brother, Cryer's character, after an awful divorce.

Lorre, who also created the ABC sitcom Dharma and Greg, says Two and a Half Men worked because the stories вЂ“ featuring Sheen playing a lecherous, millionaire jingle writer who was a thinly-veiled sitcom version of himself вЂ“ offered characters in extreme, fantasy situations without the negative consequences. Butler and Shepherd also had reputations as difficult performers Grace Under Fire ended, for example, as Butler struggled with a painkiller addiction. 'They're all built on these obscure, broken, beat up, messed up families that are just like yours.Even if its two straight guys acting like gay guys so they can adopt a kid that's a family.and if you have one, you know what one's like, and you can really relate to it, and it's fun to laugh at.'ДЄnother explanation might be executive producer Lorre, who cut his teeth as a writer for ABC's hit sitcom Roseanne вЂ“ getting a crash course on building popular shows around erratic, demanding stars вЂ“ before creating the sitcoms Grace Under Fire for Brett Butler and Cybill for Cybill Shepherd. 'These shows work because they're all built on family,' said Kutcher, who plays Walden Schmidt, an Internet billionaire pretending to be the gay partner of Cryer's Alan Harper so they can adopt a kid. So how exactly did all this happen? Kutcher had an explanation, given during a press conference with critics gathered to tour the sets of Lorre's shows in Los Angeles back in January. And the show would continue four years after Sheen was fired amid a blizzard of acid comments about Lorre, reports about drug use, fighting with ex-wives, massive partying and an increasingly bizarre media tour that forced an early end to the show's eighth season.

Stars Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer вЂ“ and later, Sheen's replacement, Ashton Kutcher вЂ“ would become the highest-paid comedy actors on television. Chuck Lorre, left, executive producer of CBS' 'Two and Half Men,' at a 2005 press conference with then-co-star Charlie Sheen.

Teo and a half men