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Two and a Half Men is a sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn that aired on CBS for 12 seasons and 262 episodes, premiering on September 22, 2003 and airing its series finale on February 19, 2015.

Ladies' man Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) is living the good life as a successful jingle writer in a seaside mansion in Los Angeles. That is, until his unlucky brother Alan (Jon Cryer), who was thrown out by his ex-wife, moves in, bringing his ten-year-old son Jake (Angus T. Jones). Now, not only does he have to cope with Rose (Melanie Lynskey), the stalker who lives next door, Evelyn (Holland Taylor), his conniving and guilt-tripping mother, and Berta (Conchata Ferrell), his sarcastic housekeeper, but also Alan's various neuroses and Jake completely lacking any sort of tact or personal hygiene.

Unfortunately, however, Charlie's womanizing nature eventually catches up with him in 2011 when he catches a train the hard way. Enter suicidal billionaire Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher) as the new owner of Charlie's home. After quickly becoming friends with Alan, he continues to let him and Jake live with him while they get over the loss of Charlie.

The show's eighth season was cut short after Sheen was fired due to his self-destructive breakdown in 2011, one effect of which was a public feud with co-creator Chuck Lorre. The show continued with Jon Cryer taking Sheen's place in the lead role, joined by Ashton Kutcher as co-lead Walden Schmidt. In the eleventh season, Angus T. Jones (who plays Jake) had his part changed to a recurring role due to college commitments, but did not appear onscreen again until his cameo in the series finale two years later.


Tropes Tropes Tropes Tropes, mainly Tropes:

  • Aborted Arc:
    • With Charlie Sheen gone, the story of the decidedly odd Love Triangle of Charlie, crazy Rose, and "Manny Quinn" will never be resolved. Well, the Charlie/Rose/Manny issue has been somewhat resolved due to Charlie being dead.
    • Whether Judith's new baby is Alan's or Herb's was never really resolved, since Judith's actress left the show.
  • Abusive Parents:
    • Evelyn eats the souls of children, as Alan points out. In fact, both Charlie and Alan's behavior can be partly explained as different reactions to growing up with a cold, self-centered, narcissistic mother and a weak or absent father.
    • Judith herself isn't the best mom, or even human being, ever. Considering how both Charlie and Alan seem to suffer from a Freudian Excuse and possibly Oedipus Complex, one can easily deduce Judith is not much better than Evelyn. Seeing strange men in front of her underage son? Check. Verbally abusing him and his father? Check. Gold Digger and Hypocrite? Check, Check, Check.
    • Alan has shades of this in later seasons, mostly due to how dismissive and neglectful he is to Jake, as well as how often he insults Jake to his face. It's no wonder that Jake's turned out how he has.
      • To be fair he tried to be a decent parent in the earlier seasons (when Jake was younger) but between Charlie's hedonistic lifestyle, Judith's emotional and financial abuse, Jake himself growing into more of an irresponsible idiot, you can see that Alan may be just cynical and doesn't really care anymore (sometimes, this sadly happens Truth in Television).
  • Actor Allusion:
    • Charlie, every now and then, goes to a psychiatrist played by Jane Lynch. In "Chocolate Diddlers or My Puppy's Dead", he and Alan go home after one visit and watch Glee, to which he responds "that tall blond in the red tracksuit is freaking me out".
    • In "People who Love Peepholes", Alan says that "when I was in high school, I was dating a poster of Molly Ringwald". Before Two and a Half Men, Jon Cryer was most famous for Pretty in Pink, where his character, Duckie is hopelessly in love with Ringwald's. In the season 12 premiere, Alan dresses as Duckie for Halloween.
    • In "A Giant Cat Holding A Churro" Alan confronts his girlfriend Lyndsey, played by Courtney Thorne-Smith, with her playing in a softcore porn movie when she was younger. She then tells that the producer had said he could get her on Melrose Place. Courtney Thorne-Smith was a Melrose Place regular for the first five seasons.
    • A somewhat atypical example. When Alan starts believing himself to be Charlie out of grief, he ends up institutionalized, and imagines he's calling up hookers like Charlie did. Upon "hanging up", he utters Charlie Sheen's own infamous post-firing catchphrase "Winning!". (This is as much an allusion and a jab at Sheen, of which season 9 has plenty).
    • "You Do Know What the Lollipop Is For":
      • Walden comes down the stairs, and then is taken aback when he can't remember why he came downstairs. Alan suggests "Maybe too much (imitates inhaling a joint) oh hey, dude, where's my car?" Ashton Kutcher starred in the 2000 stoner comedy Dude, Where's My Car?.
      • In the same episode, Missi (Miley Cyrus) tells Jake on the beach an Orphaned Punchline of "And that is why you don't smoke pot in church". This may be a reference to Cyrus' 2011 salvia incident (and her self-deprecating Real Life nickname of "Bob Miley" due to the same incident).
    • A 2013 episode featuring Emily Osment as Ashley, the promiscuous teenage daughter of a middle-aged woman Jake is dating who Jake cheats on for, has Alan arguing with Walden about the affair in front of her. Walden sarcastically calls her "Hannah Montana". Emily played Miley Stewart's BFF Lilly Truscott in the Disney series. May be even more of an allusion as Jake is moving on from his relationship to Missi at the time.
    • In "How to Get Rid of Alan Harper", Walden's girlfriend proposes a game of "bang, marry, kill", with Angelina Jolie, Mila Kunis and herself. Later, when she cancels her date with Walden and leaves, he says: "Better hope I don't run into Mila Kunis!" She responds: "Yeah, like that's gonna happen". Mila Kunis is Ashton Kutcher's real-life wife.
    • "Lan Mao Shi Zai Wuding Shang", where Mila Kunis guest stars has as Vivian, has several.
      • When she introduces herself:
        Walden: That's a beautiful name.
        Vivian: Thank you. My parents got it from that '70s show. What was it called? Maude!
      • When Walden invites her to stay the night because it really started to rain, she says: "It's just a little water. I'm not gonna melt. (spoilers for a then-recent film of hers) It's not like I'm the Wicked Witch of the West."
      • When they talk about dating:
        Vivian: So what's your deal Walden? You're a good-looking guy, rich, Malibu beach house... I bet you only date hot actresses.
        Walden: God no, I'd never date an actress. They're all crazy.
        Vivian: I'm sure they're not all crazy.
        Walden: Trust me, they are.
        Vivian: I don't get this whole fascination with celebrities anyway. I mean who cares who's dating whom or who's engaged to who, or who has a sex tape that no one will ever, ever see?
    • Detective Wagner in "Of Course He's Dead" is played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Alan ends a conversation with him with "Hasta la vista", and when Christian Slater claims that he's not Charlie Harper, Wagner says "Yeah, and I'm the Governor of California."
    • One episode features Ken Jeong as a nurse. Jeong is a licensed physician.
  • Adam Westing:
    • Charlie Harper is clearly based on Charlie Sheen, the actor who plays him. Though it seems this is the opposite of how it normally goes because Harper is the less exaggerated one.
    • Missi, as played by Miley Cyrus seems to be an exaggerated version of the actress complete with a hillbilly accent.
    • Michael Bolton makes several appearances which reduce him to "When A Man Loves A Woman".
  • Aesop Amnesia: Charlie seems to go through this every time he gets involved with an older woman. He ascertains that's he's fine dating one older woman and then goes through the whole thing all over again with another older woman.
  • Age Insecurity:
    • Evelyn Harper is in the habit of lying about her age, even going so far as to try to get her uncooperative grandson Jake to lie about HIS age so she can maintain the charade. She gets very angry when one of Alan's girlfriends tries to throw a surprise party for him because revealing his age would prove her deception.
    • A rare male example is her son Charlie, who will constantly pretend to still be in his early thirties/late twenties. Amusingly this is such second nature to him, Charlie will even try it on Alan.
      Alan: Why do you do that? I'm your brother, I know how old you are.
  • The Alcoholic: Charlie was definitely this. At first he wasn't too bad and just drank a lot and was drunk every now and then. In later seasons, he always had a drink in hand or poured himself one when he was at home and was often well on his way to being drunk or already drunk.
  • The Alleged Car: Alan's less-than-10-year-old Volvo is inexplicably this (despite being a 2001 model, they also insist on calling it a 1989).
  • All Just a Dream: Alan's Humiliation Conga that spans most of the episode "Frodo's Headshots", from learning Jake's tutor is pregnant to seeing Walden making out with his girlfriend to being booted out of the house to being shot to death just as he was about to go out with someone.
  • All Men Are Perverts: Only applied to Charlie at first, but over time most of the male characters were sex-crazed idiots.
  • All Women Are Lustful: Every woman acts flirtatious towards guys who have a lot of money.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: After suffering a Near-Death Experience when he claims to have seen a vision of his father telling Charlie to "take care of your mother", Charlies starts bending over backwards looking after Evelyn, despite being confused by the request becasue his father hated Evelyn. Then one night, he's watching a gangster movie on TV with Evelyn and hears two gangsters talking about "taking care" of a female witness and the pieces fall into place for Charlie.
    Charlie: [looking skyward] Sorry, I misunderstood.
  • Animal Athlete Loophole: There is an off-hand joke about a movie involving a dog playing hockey in one episode.
  • Anorgasmia: One episode has Charlie being unable to bring Chelsea to orgasm, which leaves him extremely upset as he's always been proud of being a very satisfying lover... until Chelsea confesses she's feeling off due to finding out her ex-husband is getting married meaning he's "over her". The very next night, we hear her Immodest Orgasm from the distance.
  • Armoured Closet Gay: Chelsea's father seems to be just as racist and homophobic as his wife, before it's revealed he's had feelings for his old war buddy for years.
  • Artifact Title:
    • The show worked overtime at trying to avert this in its later years. First, the "half" in question (Jake) became fully grown up, making it "Three Men". It was around this time that they switched out Charlie for Walden, so they tried to make the latter the "half" man by way of his immature behavior (which evaporated completely in season 10). Then Jake ended up being written off the show (for unrelated reasons, of course), dropping it to "Two Men", so they introduced Jenny in the ‘half a man’ role, having half of Charlie’s DNA and a lot of his traits. Then Jenny ended up being Put on a Bus, and the writers gave Walden and Alan a six-year-old foster son named Louis, who fulfilled the "half" role for a while towards the series' end.
    • The show's French title "Mon oncle Charlie" (My uncle Charlie) obviously became irrelevant starting with season 9.
  • Artistic License – Biology: In "Does This Smell Funny to You?", Norman jabs Alan, and later Charlie, in the diaphragm with his cane, yet neither is affected in the slightest. A jab to the diaphragm would empty the lungs and leave them gasping for air and unable to talk for several minutes.
  • Artistic License – Cars: Alan's Volvo is a 2001 V70, yet everyone calls it a 1989 model (possibly even implying it's a 240).
  • Artistic License – Law:
    • In "No Sniffing, No Wowing", Alan's lawyer commits outright malpractice with no consequences. After Charlie sleeps with her paralegal, she gives Judith and her attorney everything they demand without Alan's consent. First, she can't enter anything into the agreement without Alan's signature, which he wouldn't do, and second, even if she did somehow enter it, she's not acting in Alan's best interests and is liable for damages. In Real Life, the agreement would be illegal, Alan would have gotten a lawyer that would stand up for his rights, and she would have been reported to the Bar Association of California and sued the difference of what she and Alan agreed he would pay and what he would have paid. This is to say nothing of the fact she got Alan to get Charlie to perjure himself and say under oath that Alan bought a set of books before he met Judith (he didn't) - though admittedly, this says more about Charlie than it does her. She does, however, mention that her sleeping with Charlie was a breach of ethics and Alan could sue (though he never does).
    • In one episode, Judith informs Alan she has bought a life insurance policy on Alan without his consent, requiring him to pay the premiums. Besides the privacy infringement, this is illegal in most states and is not permitted by insurance brokers, as they require medical questionnaires and have the right to require an examination and check past medical records, requiring the applicant's signature and consent.
  • Ascended Meme: When Alan believes he's Charlie, he states "Winning!" A reference to Charlie Sheen's Memetic Mutation, "bi-winning."
  • Ashes to Crashes: Charlie's ashes end up on the living room when Alan is startled by Walden.
  • Back for the Finale: Damn near everybody, from Chelsea to Mia to Kandi to Lyndsey, and even Jake stops by for a fourth wall-breaking scene.
  • Batman Gambit: In "Kinda Like Necrophilia", Charlie manipulates Alan to get him to steal his girlfriend and dump her for him, while making Alan think he was hurting Charlie for it.
  • Big, Screwed-Up Family: An understatement for the Harper family.
  • Bigger Is Better in Bed: According to Alan, Walden is hung like an elephant. Berta and Judith are impressed when they see him naked.
  • Bilingual Bonus: The Chinese-character tattoos on Isabella's right arm mean "true love."
  • Black Comedy
    • The episode "A Sympathetic Crotch To Cry On". Dear. God.
    Evelyn: (To dead husband at his funeral.) I've got a great ass and yours is decomposing!
    • Charlie's funeral.
      "Yeah, yeah, why can't we see the body?"
      "Yeah, I didn't come all this way to spit on a closed coffin."
      "I'm afraid due to the nature of his passing, the remains aren't exactly... spittable.
  • Blame the Paramour: Subverted. In one episode, Charlie is attacked by the husband of a woman he had been sleeping with. However, the man apologizes afterwards and even gives Charlie some advice about his promiscuous lifestyle. He then says he intends to change his locks on his house, implying he's trying to keep his wife out of their home.
  • Bland-Name Product: Played with. Jake refers to his Nintendo DS as a Game Boy, a much older Nintendo product.
  • Brain Bleach: Invoked in an episode, where the brothers discover that one of Charlie's former girlfriends has undergone a sex change and is now dating their mother. Charlie's suggestion to dealing with this? "Drink until the part of the brain that creates mental pictures dies!"
  • The Brainless Beauty: Kandi
    Alan: I need to communicate after lovemaking. I need to share.
    Charlie: Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you started boinkin' a girl with the IQ of Tickle Me Elmo!
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:
    • Although in this case literally, as Walden's ex-wife drives her car through the wall we usually never see because it's the side from which the audience watches the show. (In the episode "What a Lovely Landing Strip.")
    • Alan in the episode "Grandma's Pie", when he asked the audience if they could vote on whose dinner went worse.
    • Berta does this in "Walnuts and Demerol", where, right before the break, she says "I can't wait for the second act!"
    • The finale, "Of Course He's Dead", is full of these.
      • When Alan finds out he could inherit Charlie's unclaimed wealth, Walden looks to the camera and says "I can't wait for this to be over."
      • While Rose is about to explain the truth about Charlie, Alan tells her to start from the beginning, to which she asks "from the pilot?"
      • While Alan and Walden are being interrogated by Lieutenant Wagner (Arnold Schwarzenegger), he comments that Jake was Alan's dumb son, before Alan promptly corrects him that he wasn't dumb at the start but became dumb because it was funnier.
      • After the police interview finishes, Lt. Wagner tells them it's been going on far too long, indirectly referencing the show.
      • When Jake comes to visit, he, Walden and Alan comment on the kind of lewd jokes he used to do, followed by the three of them staring straight at the camera with silly grins on their faces.
      • In a phone call, Alan mentions that Charlie was out to kill him because he originally thought he was a supporting character, but turned out to be more of a co-star.
      • Walden states that he and Alan were no longer in show business, where Alan adds, not anymore.
      • When Lieutenant Wagner mistakenly apprehends Christian Slater, who explains he is an actor dressed up in clothes similar to Charlie and was on set at the time, Wagner proceeds to say "Yeah right, and I'm the governor of California."
  • Brick Joke:
    • In one episode, Evelyn asks Alan "More embarrassing when you were eleven and I caught you with the dog and the peanut butter?" In a later episode, Charlie tells a group of friends that he walked in on Alan and said "Alan! The dog is supposed to lick the peanut butter off you!" In "A Giant Cat Holding a Churro", when Alan tells Lyndsey all his embarrassing secrets, he starts with this.
    • In one episode where Charlie dates a foreign girl he can't understand she says her family will be coming over and he of course can't understand her and just agrees. After an entirely unrelated episode at the end she comes over with most of her entire family to Charlie's surprise.
  • Bring My Brown Pants:
    • After Walden apologizes for nearly killing them with his reckless driving, Alan apologizes for peeing on his car seat.
    • And this clip, where a father-son bonding moment gets a little messy.
    • And again, when Walden offers Alan a "small" stipend to serve on the board of his corporation. Alan's response is to make a bubble in the bath, and not with his mouth. If it had been higher, "we would have had to drain the tub".
  • Bungled Suicide: When his wife left him, Walden tried to drown himself in the ocean. Apparently he didn't realize that the water would be really cold.
    • Charlie tries this too in an earlier episode, with the same result.
    • Due to his Humiliation Conga in "Frodo's Headshots", Alan attempted to kill himself with an overdose of carbon monoxide poisoning, but the misfortunes for him only continued when the car blew out.
  • But We Used a Condom!: Charlie had a pregnancy scare in one episode. In another, he began to believe that he was the father of his ex-girlfriend's son and she went along with it. He eventually agreed to keep his distance but supplied the ex-girlfriend with a fat monthly check. As it turns out she was actually the kid's nanny and she conned Charlie. At the end of the episode she quits her job, telling the real mother that she just came into a new source of income.
  • Butt-Monkey: Alan, in the extreme. His poor luck is a running joke present in nearly every episode, brought along by either Alan's poor judgment and lack of worldliness, or one of his relatives (almost always Charlie). This is most likely because every single person Alan seems to meet is a Jerkass or gold digger, he gets women scorned constantly (although Charlie actually DIED from this), exaggerated in "Frodo's Headshots", where Alan finds out that Jake got his girlfriend pregnant, learned that Walden and Lyndsey had started dating while he was in the mental health clinic (and was told to move out as a result of this), received an IRS audit, failed at a suicide attempt when his car blew out, was molested by a male truck driver, abandoned by his mother out in the rain, had his stuff moved into a storage facility, and shot to death by Herb when it was found out that Alan was the father of Jake's baby sister, Milly. Although it was revealed after this last event that the entire setup was All Just a Dream.
  • The Cameo: John Stamos and Dharma & Greg showed up looking to buy Charlie's house.
  • Camp Straight: Alan gets increasingly campy and effeminate, although he likes women. This culminates in his being willing to marry Walden in order to keep living in the house, and acting feminine and flamboyant to boot.
  • Car Meets House: In "What a Lovely Landing Strip", Bridget deliberately crashes her car into Walden's house after he dumps her.
  • The Cassandra: Alan repeatedly warns Walden about Rose. Eventually he's proven right.
  • Casting Gag: In Season 11, Alan begins dating a woman played by Kimberly Williams-Paisley. Later her ex-husband appears who is played by...Brad Paisley
  • Catchphrase:
    • Charlie's "Are you out of your freakin' mind?" usually said to Alan. Alan sometimes borrows this to say to Charlie.
    • Alan's "nevertheless" and "be that as it may".
    • Bretta's "I'm not cleaning that up." and "Gadzooks."
    • Jake's "...Oh yeah!" Whenever he's been reminded.
    • Evelyn's "How could you do this to me?!" in some variation.
  • The Casanova: Charlie is a womanizer and spends most of the show romancing the Girl of the Week, with Mia and Chelsea being his only real Love Interest. In later seasons, his daughter Jenny is revealed to be the same.
  • Celebrity Casualty: The final scene of the entire show has creator Chuck Lorre crushed to death by a falling piano.
  • Celebrity Paradox:
    • Most of the entries in Actor Allusion above qualify; see there for more info.
    • In "Is There a Mrs. Waffles?" Charlie watches Dharma & Greg (an inside joke as that was another Chuck Lorre production). Then they turn up to buy Charlie's house after he's killed.
    • Shortly before Evelyn's wedding, Charlie mentions Apocalypse Now by name, and references it at another point. Charlie Sheen's father, Martin Sheen, stars in Apocalypse Now, and has at least two appearances on the show. Charlie Sheen even appeared as an extra in the movie.
    • Alan, in one episode, manages to get Charlie medical treatment by claiming to be Matthew Broderick. When the doctor finally gets around to treating Charlie, he asks Alan why there's no sequel to Ferris Bueller's Day Off, a film which featured Charlie Sheen in a cameo role as (fittingly) a drug addict.
    • In "West Side Story", Larry and Lyndsey, and Alan and Gretchen, are playing a Pictionary-type game where Larry thinks the object Lyndsey is drawing is a duck (it's actually a witch hat). He guesses various duck-related topics, including "Duckie, from Pretty in Pink!" Of course, Duckie was played by Jon Cryer (Alan), who gives Larry a strange look at this point.
    • In the Season 12 premiere, Alan dresses as Duckie for Halloween. He is mistaken for Ferris Bueller more than once.
    • Mila Kunis is mentioned in "How to Get Rid of Alan Harper", and guests stars in "Lan Mao Shi Zai Wuding Shang", not playing herself.
  • Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Jake's new baby sister, especially considering on how the show played up on whether Judith's new baby is Jake's half-sister or his sister. note  However shortly after the baby was born, the child was never mentioned again and only Jake was accounted for when it came to Judith's children note .
  • Clingy Sleepers: right after Walden bought the late Charlie Harper's Malibu house, and got drunk with Alan in an effort to forget his ex-wife, the two woke up the next day laying on the same deck chair naked and cuddling. Berta told them they'd gone skinny dipping the night before.
  • Comedic Sociopathy:
    • Charlie to disturbing levels.
    • Alan, via his ventriloquist's dummy, "Danny O'Day".
    Alan: Boy, [Charlie] can be such a pig sometimes.
    Danny: ...and you know what happens to pigs, don't you? They get slaught—
    Alan: Danny! Don't say that. Don't even think it!
    *Beat*
    Danny: —ered.
  • Common Knowledge: In-Universe. Rose once gives Charlie a copy of the novelization of Oedipus the King and states it's "about a man who sleeps with his mother and gouges out his eyes", leaving out, as usual, the fact he did this unknowingly, and the fact his mother hangs herself when she finds out he's her son.
  • Companion Cube: For Alan, Danny the dummy, for a short string of episodes.
  • Compensating for Something: In the episode where Walden and Alan switch lives so that Walden can date women who are not after him for his money, Alan drives Walden's car and wears his diamond-encrusted watch. Walden's date, Kate, thinks Alan is doing this to mask his small penis, which visibly offends Walden.
  • Cousin Oliver:
    • Season 11 had Charlie's long-lost daughter, Jenny, replace Jake.
    • In season 12, a foster kid named Louis moves in with Walden and Alan. He's adorable, and a closer example than the adult Jenny.
  • Covert Pervert: Alan's pregnancy fetish when Berta's daughter Naomi shows up.
  • Crapsack World: For Alan, it's pretty crappy. He lives with a brother who sits back and enjoys watching him screw himself over and over and gets more than he does. Not to mention having an ex-wife who spends alimony payments for inherently selfish purposes, as well as the fact that all of his love affairs he has have a Failure Is the Only Option promise, and virtually every single person he meets is a Jerkass or a Gold Digger. Alan has it pretty bad.
  • Crazy in the Head, Crazy in the Bed: In "Santa's Village of the Damned", Alan starts dating a woman with a strange obsession with Christmas, to the point she seems to still believe in Santa Claus. Charlie tells Alan that the sex will be great, though he warns him to choose positions where he can see her hands.
  • Credit Card Destruction: When Charlie goes broke, the supermarket shreds his credit card to pieces when Berta attempts to pay for groceries with it.
  • Crossover: With the CSI-verse franchise, on the episodes "Fish in a Drawer" and "Two and a Half Deaths," where each show's writing team wrote the other show's episode.
  • Cultural Translation: Parodied when Charlie has to write a theme tune for an Anime dub. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Pretty much everyone fits this role at one time or another, but Berta and Dr. Linda Freeman (Charlie's shrink) most frequently.
  • Demoted to Extra: Jake, starting Season 10. According to some critics, the best episodes of this season were Jake-centric. By season 11, Jones has officially left the show entirely. The roles of Rose, Evelyn and Judith have also been greatly reduced in the later seasons.
  • Department of Child Disservices: Louis calmly talks about being shuffled between various foster homes. It's heartbreaking.
  • Depraved Kids' Show Host: Charlie, when he becomes a Children's Song Star.
  • Distinguished Gentleman's Pipe: Alan, while staying at Lyndsey's home, finds her ex-husband's pipe and starts using it to look more distinguished. Unfortunately, he leaves it too close to the drapes and burns the house down.
  • The Ditz: Jake, Kandi, and Eldridge.
  • "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Though in appearance only.
  • The Door Slams You. Happens to Alan courtesy of his dimwit son and his dopehead friend while investigating a noise in the middle of the night. Part of a long Humiliation Conga that leaves him a twitching, broken, possibly rabies-infected nervous wreck.
  • Double Standard: Egregiously done towards both sexes, including the Running Gag that is Rose. Think about it for a second: if she'd been a guy and Charlie a woman....
  • Dress Hits Floor: Bathrobe Hits Floor in this case, with both Chelsea and Gail disrobe in this manner in season 7, both times with a Toplessness from the Back shot.
  • Drowning My Sorrows: Walden tries it, but he can't stand the taste of whiskey.
  • Dumb Blonde: Eldridge, and several of the one-time woman characters on the show also fall into this stereotype.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness:
    • In the pilot, Charlie's wearing pants and sleeping on the left side of the bed.
    • A different "Men!" chorus is used during scene transitions.
    • A different backdrop is used for the beach, which looks less realistic than the later ones.
    • In the early seasons, he genuinely seems to care about Alan despite his hedonistic behavior, in stark contrast to the Jerkass he'd become for most of the remainder of the series.
    • Judith and Alan aren't nearly as horrible to each other as they'll ultimately become.
    • There are some quasi-sentimental scenes in Season 1 that would seem completely out-of-place later in the series, given the Seinfeldian level of cynical comedy reached in the later seasons.
  • Entendre Failure: In "Avoid the Chinese Mustard":
    Missi: So, Jake, do you wanna go to your bedroom and unpack?
    Jake Uh, that's okay, I don't really have much.
    Missi: Well then, maybe you could help me "unpack".
    Jake: Why?
  • Episode Tagline: The show had each episode's title become a spoken line for the episodes, with the challenge being figuring out how they made sense in dialogue. One example was the title "Who's Vod Kanockers."
  • Even the Girls Want Her: In season 3, Alan's then-girlfriend Kandi was so attractive in a bikini that even Berta the housekeeper found her attractive.
  • Even the Guys Want Him: Charlie, who has attracted numerous gay men towards him, much to his dismay.
  • Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Except Alan. Continued briefly with Walden's addition:
    Alan: [seeing Walden go upstairs with both girls after coming home] This seems depressingly familiar.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Charlie found there were lines he wouldn't cross; he won't sleep with underage girls or a girl that might be his half-sister.
    • Berta immediately ripped Charlie a new one when it looked like he was trying to sleep with Judith when she was briefly staying at the house due to her house being damaged.
      Charlie: I'm not, I would never, I couldn't. (takes a look at Judith who is stretching in a bikini) Okay, I could, but I'm not.
  • Everybody Must Get Stoned: Happens on a few notable occasions but more frequently in the later seasons. In one episode, Walden, Evelyn, Jenny, Berta, and Marty Pepper (played by Carl Reiner) all get high after the "buzz-kill" Alan leaves.
  • Exiled to the Couch: In "That's Why They Call It 'Ball Room'", Chelsea does this to Charlie after they have a fight, but instead of going to sleep on the couch Charlie just goes to Alan rooms and kicks him out, forcing Alan to go sleep on the couch. This of course backfires, when Chelsea goes to Charlie to apologize and amorously slips into the couch completely naked thinking Charlie is in there... which prompts her to have a Naked Freak-Out once Alan clarifies it's him she snuggles into.
  • Expy: Jenny basically is Charlie in the body of a 25-year-old female.
  • Failure Is the Only Option:
    • Alan moving out of Charlie's (Later Walden's) house permanently.
    • Jake not being a Literal-Minded slob.
    • Charlie having a meaningful relationship last.
    • Charlie quitting drinking.
    • Making Evelyn happy.
  • Fake Orgasm:
    • In "Captain Terry's Spray-On Hair", Charlie finds out that Chelsea hasn't been enjoying their sex and is distressed because sexually satisfying his girlfriends was one of the few things he was good at in relationships. He's even more perturbed when she reveals it wasn't the first time she didn't climax and asked her if she ever faked it. When she asks if it matters, Charlie comically says, "If you really loved me, you'd keep faking it." Later it's revealed she's experienced Anorgasmia due to her own petty issues with her ex and Charlie is relieved that the problem is with her and not him.
    • In "A Pudding-Filled Cactus", Alan has moved in with Lyndsey but is having a secret affair with Melissa. However, he can't keep up having sex with both of them on the same day, so he has to fake orgasms with Lyndsey. Charlie's perplexed when told, since he didn't think it was even possible for men to fake orgasms.
    • In "Some Kind of Lesbian Zombie", Lyndsey and Alan poke fun at their Masochism Tango while lampshading how often they fake their orgasms with each other.
      Lyndsey: [After deciding to sleep together again] I promise this time, I won't fake my orgasm.
      Alan: Oh, then neither will I!
  • Family Theme Naming: Kandi, Andi and Mandi.
    Charlie: Dandy!
  • Fanservice:
  • Fetish: Alan has a bit of a thing for pregnant women.
  • First Girl Wins:
    • (Sort of) In the pilot episode, the actress who plays Chelsea appears in the supermarket and hits on Charlie while he's shopping with Jake.
    • In Season 8, Charlie hooks up with Rose because she tricked him into thinking she got married, making her more attractive to him. She has been around since the very beginning as his stalker and has finally gotten her due (such as it is).
  • Flanderization:
    • Charlie was always a bit of a Jerkass, but in the early seasons, he had the occasional Jerk with a Heart of Gold moment, and it was shown that deep down, he cared about his younger brother and nephew. Later on he couldn't care less what Alan does. Also, his drinking habits came to where he was seen with a drink in his hand, whether it be morning or night, and often found himself in several What Did I Do Last Night? scenarios (which in turn became more outlandish as well). Possibly as a backlash to Charlie Sheen, Charlie was mentioned to have been a hard drug user after his death, despite having never been seen doing anything other than drinking and smoking cigars (and weed in one episode).
    • Alan has probably gotten it the worst. He went from being a down-on-his-luck man who felt bad about sponging off Charlie to doing literally anything for money, and caring less and less about his son as the series progressed (although that isn't entirely unwarranted). With the addition of Walden to the cast, Alan's nebbish traits have gotten upped to eleven, with him making no effort to find a place of his own or get a job and relying on Walden for money. It's gotten so bad that he was completely willing to go gay and marry Walden if it meant that he could stay at the house. There is now a joke about Alan refusing to leave in every episode. His moral compass has also dissolved completely, giving in to sex with a philandering Lyndsey without remorse and generally acting as selfish as Charlie in some episodes.
    • Jake went from being a slow and lazy Cheerful Child to being too stupid (and flatulent) to function in normal society. Literally, he started to lose IQ points long before Toxic Friend Influence Eldridge arrived. His attitude towards his parents, despite everything his father attempted to do for him (at least in the beginning), turn Jake into an Ungrateful Bastard.
    • Judith was always a Jerkass too, but goes from being rational with Alan about their divorce to tormenting him whenever she feels like it, neglecting Jake, and treating her second husband, Herb, like he's a third class citizen.
    • Evelyn always considered Alan the good son, but in later episodes, she seems repulsed by the very thought of him, and seems to prefer newcomers Walden and Jenny more.
    • In Season 9, Walden had a few casual encounters; by Season 11, he can't sleep with a woman without developing some kind of romantic attachment to her, and has relationship problems as a result.
    • Lyndsey into a bitchy alcoholic.
  • Flirty Stepsiblings: Charlie and Evelyn's fiancé's daughter Courtney, played by Jenny McCarthy. It was later revealed that she wasn't actually the guy's daughter too (they were both con artists) so there was a ton of Not Blood Siblings going on.
  • Foreshadowing: Teddy (Evelyn's lover and eventually short-lived husband) played Charlie and Alan into making up after an argument. He was later revealed to be a conman.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble:
    • The main male characters: Charlie (choleric), Alan (melancholic), Jake (phlegmatic), and Walden (sanguine).
    • The main female characters: Judith and Berta (choleric), Evelyn (choleric and melancholic), Mia(melancholic), Rose, Kandi and Chelsea (sanguine), and Jenny (leukine).
  • Freshman Fears: Alan and Charlie accidentally inflict this on Jake when he's just starting high school. Alan goes into vivid detail about some of the horrors he faced as a freshman, with Charlie providing context. This extends to the pair helping Jake pick out school clothes that won't get him beat up for either being too expensive or gang colors. Ultimately this unnerves the boy so much that he hops off the bus on its way to school and spends the day reading comics in Malibu.
  • Freudian Trio: Jake is the Id, Charlie is the Ego, and Alan is the Superego
  • From the Mouths of Babes: Jake in an episode where he parroted his uncle Charlie's misogynist speech about how to treat women. Judith and her women's support group were not pleased.
    Jake: No, I'm a bachelor like my Uncle Charlie.
    Mandy: So you're never gonna get married?
    Jake: No, I mean. As long as I got someone to do my cleaning business and I'm getting some action on a regular basis, I don't need a wife.
    Kathleen: Excuse me?
    Jake: I don't wanna give anybody half my stuff. (All the women in the group look at Alan, shocked and furious)
  • The "Fun" in "Funeral":
    • In "A Sympathetic Crotch To Cry On", the family attends the funeral of one of Evelyn's exes; a lot of jokes are on the dead guy in the coffin.
    • Charlie's funeral in "Nice to Meet You Walden Schmidt" is similar.
  • Gainax Ending: "Of Course He's Dead", the series finale. For starters, Charlie is alive, trapped in a dungeon by Rose. He escapes, sends money and apology letters to all those he's wronged, and threatening texts to Alan and Walden, who spend much of the episode making amends. At the end, a man that appears to be Charlie arrives at the front door, rings the bell... and is killed by a falling piano. Camera pulls back to reveal a set, with Chuck Lorre in the director's chair. He turns to the camera and says "Winning"... and is then also hit by a piano.
  • Gasinass Syndrome:
    • Jake. Alan squeaks a few off now and again as well. He once admits red wine causes him to fart.
    • Berta's daughter had this problem while pregnant, much to Alan's dismay:
    "Wow, that one's got some hang time!"
    • Who could forget a less-than-affectionate Lyndsey telling Alan to back off in no uncertain terms? One appearance has her getting back together with Alan, one of the reasons being she can fart "like a buffalo" and he still won't leave her. She then proceeds to do so.
  • Genius Ditz: Walden is great with computers but has trouble picking matching shoes. This aspect of his character has faded later on.
    • Jake is a socially inept moron on so many levels, but he is a fantastic cook.
  • Girl of the Week: Charlie's specialty. One has to wonder how Charlie Harper is the less-exaggerated version of Charlie Sheen.
  • Gold Digger:
    • Applies to a lot of the women in this series. Almost everyone is willing to give up on people they are in a relationship with for someone who has more money. Courtney/Sylvia Fishman is a particular standout though.
    • A good example is when Walden talks to a random blonde woman in an episode. She has no interest in him whatsoever until she Googles his name and finds out that he is a billionaire, at which point she is interested. Walden could predict all of this, implying this always happens with every woman he has met.
  • A Good Name for a Rock Band: Invoked on season 7 premiere "818-jklpuzo" with "Psychosomatic Constipation."
  • Go to Your Room!: It's more "Go do your homework.", but Alan does this to Jake whenever he wants to avoid an awkward conversation at dinner.
    • In one episode, Alan actually says "Go to your room" to Jake upon returning home. This was for Jake imitating the growl of a wild animal, causing Charlie and Alan to flee and jump into a body of water. Earlier, the three of them got lost searching for a ranch and went from driving to walking.
  • Grande Dame: Evelyn has faint shades of this.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Alan is constantly this to Charlie, he's always jealous of Charlie's success and often complains a great deal about it.
  • Groin Attack:
    • "I just got kneed in the nuts!" - Charlie Harper
    • Jake mentions getting "a soccer ball to the nads" at least twice.
  • Handsome Lech: Rose is a rare female example. Despite being rather attractive, she is a stalker, would regularly climb over Charlie's balcony instead of visiting by using the front door and has engaged in elaborate schemes to make him fall for her, including keeping him sick so she can play Florence Nightingale and, more recently, put on a fake wedding just to make Charlie want her.
  • Henpecked Husband: Herb and Alan are both abused by Judith. Alan is equally henpecked by his second wife, Kandi.
  • Heroic BSoD: Charlie's response to Chelsea leaving him in Season 7. Luckily for him, Alan was there.
    • Also, Alan's response to Kandi leaving him in the Season 4 premiere. It took a "The Reason You Suck" Speech from his mother to snap him out of it.
  • Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Charlie and Alan's childhood was like this, but later on, the show gets upped to having nearly every character's childhood being somewhat screwed up.
  • Historical Longevity Joke: When Alan tells Charlie the husband of one of his hookups is at the door, Charlie mentions he should've told him "He was a Civil War veteran."
    • Another episode has Alan dating an older woman, who Charlie describes as "richer than God. Which she probably knew since he was this tall".
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Charlie is killed in the finale by the piano he was having delivered via helicopter dropped on him. This ends up saving Walden and Alan from his wrath.
  • Homoerotic Subtext: Between Alan and Herb.
  • Humiliation Conga: Alan, as ever.
    • Charlie goes through one in the episode "Release the Dogs" where after he breaks his promise to Jake not to date his friend's mom, gets splattered with slime, falls off the balcony and gets a face and mouth full of sand while chasing Jake, and gets chased by police dogs across the beach.
  • Hypocrite: Judith. For one thing, she chews out Alan and Charlie for the women they bring to Charlie's house while Jake is around, whom she deems as inappropriate, while she has been known to bring strange men to her house while Jake is around just the same.
    • She left Herb for having an affair when she's had several while they were married with people Herb considers his friends.
  • I Can Change My Beloved: When Charlie's mother meets his first serious Love Interest, they square off like a confrontation is about to take place. Instead, the mother simply asks desperately, "Can you fix him?" Exasperated, the girl confirmed, "I'm trying." She is, but it doesn't work.
    • Ms. Pasternak wants to do this to Charlie in both of her appearances.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Episodes are named for throwaway lines of dialogue in the episode, thus leading to a Title Drop as well.
  • Idiot Ball: Charlie automatically assumes that a child with dark hair and eyes (a common feature) who wears similar clothes to him and supposedly has the same name is his child. Most guys would order paternity tests, and given the kind of guy Charlie is, one would think it would be standard procedure for him.
  • If I Had a Nickel...: "An Old Flame with a New Wick" has, "If I had a nickel for every time a girl broke up with me and came back as a man, I'd have a nickel!"
  • The Immodest Orgasm. When trapped in the beach house by a storm, both Zoey and Lyndsey fake very loud sex noises, each to try to one-up the other. Zoey's are operatic, no less. Also, Lyndsey can be quite vocal when she's having a ball.
  • Indulgent Fantasy Segue: In one episode Charlie imagines tearing Alan's arm off and beating him with it.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: Played with for Judith and Alan's relationship. She claims she's gay but that doesn't stop her from kissing Alan once or twice. Later seasons would reveal Judith is not actually gay and was just using that as an excuse to squeeze money out of him from the divorce.
  • Informed Ability: For a Big Eater, Jake never seems to finish a meal on the show, often going off to do his homework with his plate still mostly full.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Walden in Season 9. He is particularly unkempt in appearance... long-haired, bearded, and often barefooted... and yet he is seen as the most attractive man on the face of the earth by every woman who meets him.
  • Informed Attribute: There is an episode plot involving Chelsea's breasts apparently being large enough to warrant a breast reduction. While Jennifer Taylor's breasts aren't what you'd call small, they're D-cups at best. Plus, she's a pretty tall woman, so her frame should be more than capable of supporting D-cup breasts.
  • Informed Flaw: In Rose's earliest appearances, the major characters reacted to her as if she was ugly; this was phased out and replaced by sheer creepiness relatively quickly, though. Rose's actress is, by most standards, very pretty.
  • Inherently Funny Words: SQUAB!
  • In Love with Love: Walden, who can’t have sex with any woman without starting to think she’s ‘the one’. It got to the point his therapist tells him to ‘bang anything that moves’ (in these words) to stop forming emotional attachments so quickly.
  • Innocent Awkward Question: "It Was Mame, Mom" opens up with Jake, Alan, and Charlie on the couch, then in only the opening seconds Jake randomly asks his dad if he suffers from erectile dysfunction. Jake, being ten at the time, admitted to both of them he didn't know much about what that meant but heard one out of three guys gets it, saying his is "fine" so it's "got to be one of you". Charlie has it.
  • In the Blood: Season 11 introduces Charlie's lesbian daughter, Jenny, who is just as much of a drinker and womanizer as he was.
  • In-Series Nickname: Berta calls Alan "Zippy", and Alan calls Jake "buddy".
  • Insomnia Episode: There is an episode where Alan has trouble sleeping and visits a psychologist to hilarious effect.
  • Intimate Lotion Application:
    • In "Camel Filters And Pheromones", Bertha's 16-year-old granddaughter Prudence is staying at the house, which greatly upsets Charlie and Alan due her being very flirty and attractive. One scene has her try to convince Alan to rub sunscreen on her back, which he's quick to refuse.
      Prudence: [holding a sunscreen bottle] Can you put some of this on my back?
      Alan: No.
      Prudence: If you don't, I'll burn.
      Alan:If I do, I will.
    • In "Humiliation Is a Visual Medium", one scene has Charlie rubbing sunscreen on Mia's back and he's shown to be so distracted by the task that he almost misses the fact she's trying to talk to him.
    • In "Kissing Abraham Lincoln", Charlie attempts to convince his bossy girlfriend Lydia to stop fighting with Berta while she's sunbathing on the deck, but Lydia easily manages to manipulate and seduce him by asking him to rub lotion on her, as he is unable to maintain the conversation while he has his hands on her.
    • In "You Know What The Lollipop Is For", Missi flirts with Walden by asking him to run sunscreen on her back, even though she has spray lotion, which confuses him.
  • Inventor of the Mundane: Walden Schmidt is a billionaire after developing BlunGoGo.com, a website that he sold to Microsoft for $1.3 billion. No one has ever heard of it because Microsoft decided to bundle it with the Zune.
  • I Take Offense to That Last One: In one episode, when Alan was getting ready to pick up Jake from his mother.
    Charlie: Oh good, just what we need to brighten up our weekend. A large, sullen teenager with gas and questionable hygiene.
    Alan: There's nothing "questionable" about it.
  • It's All About Me:
    • This applies to everyone, but especially Evelyn, Charlie and Alan's mother. She frequently reacts to news that affects anyone except her with "Do you have any idea what you put me through?!"
    • Judith is a master at this.
  • I Was Young And I Needed The Money: Lyndsey says this almost verbatim in "A Giant Cat Holding a Churro", when Alan finds out that she once appeared in a softcore porn film called "Cinnamon's Buns".
  • Jerkass: Everyone is a jerkass in this show; Alan initially was the exception, but has joined their ranks in later seasons.
  • Jerkass Has a Point:
    • In The Leather Gear is in the Guest Room (S05E07), Alan bought a bowl that Charlie didn't like and keeps arguing with Charlie about it. Charlie makes a good point in that he took Alan and Jake in and pays for nearly everything that they need, the only real thing he asks of Alan is to not try and fill his house with stuff he doesn't want there, which he has the right to say, since it's his house.
    • During "Pie Hole, Herb" (S06E02), Charlie points out to Alan that he's been living in Charlie's house for free for six years and then throws him out for being really cheap and siphoning his gas tank because Charlie owed him $38 (Alan didn't have change for a $100) when Charlie was going to pay him back.
    • In A Little Clammy and None Too Fresh (S05E12), Charlie gets sick and Rose takes care of him and gives him some medication she says is cold medicine. Charlie wakes up two weeks later and has turquoise fingernails and believes that Rose got him sick and has been drugging him as part of a plan so she can move in and be with him. Alan thinks he's crazy and Charlie points out that Rose could easily do this and it turns out that it was part of her plan in the end.
    • In S03E15, Mia's spent the entire episode forcing Charlie to change into someone he's not. Charlie points out that he's unhappy having to be someone he isn't, especially since Mia herself isn't attempting to change at all and that he shouldn't have to do that.
    • Judith makes a good point in S07E03, that just because Jake has a learner's permit doesn't mean he's ready to drive. It turns out to be unfounded though, since, surprisingly, he's a good driver.
  • Jerkass Realization: In "She'll Still Be Dead at Halftime" (S06E16) Alan and Jake call Charlie a sleazeball for being willing to cheat on his fiancée with a drunk and horny former acquaintance. He brushes them off at first, but their words do ultimately get to him; in the end he's unable to go through with it.
    Charlie: You're right. I'm a sleazeball.
    Alan: Don't tell me you actually had a moral epiphany.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
    • Charlie was this sort of character in the early seasons, before becoming a bigger Jerkass as the show progressed. When Alan and Jake appear to be moving out, Charlie very nearly tells Alan he can stay before Alan's bluff about finding a good place to live falls through. Charlie however, does not rub it in his face; it's almost a nice moment. The time he helps Jake prepare for his first boy-girl party also qualifies.
    • Berta. She may be snarky and rule the house through fear, but she often gave Charlie good advice and showed that she cared about him and Alan in her own way.
  • Karma Houdini:
    • Evelyn is a narcissist that abused Charlie and Alan growing up and still abuses them to this day and has caused the death of two of her ex-husbands (One by food poisoning, the other committed suicide) and caused the death of a cockatoo that she owned. She's never gotten any comeuppance for any of this.
    • Judith abuses everybody in her life and despite all of the hell she inflicts on people.... The nearest to any form of retribution is the occasional vicious one liner from Charlie and Alan flustering her ego.
    • Charlie a lot most all of the time too (Well, until he went to Paris, that is).
      • This was actually addressed in the episode "Release the Dogs" where Alan goes through a lot of stress and angst over how Charlie seemed to have everything easy and coast by in life, never receiving punishment for his terribleness. By the end of the episode, it's hilariously subverted when after Charlie promised Jake the he wouldn't date Jake's crush's mother yet did so anyway, Jake with some help from Rose pours a bucket of slime over Charlie's head, has him jump over the balcony and crash into the beach, and then get chased after by police hounds.
      • Charlie at the very least has the odd moment as The Chew Toy and is implied to have several psychological dents from his perverted lifestyle.
    • When Alan runs a Ponzi scheme on his family and friends, he manages to get enough money from Rose to pay everyone back before they find out what he did.
    • It's heavily implied that Rose murdered Charlie, and made it look like an accident. Alan and Berta both realize this, and Alan casually tells it to several people, but nobody does anything about it. In fact, fast forward a year and not only is Rose still walking free, but it turns out she's started stalking Walden too. She doesn't even have any reason to, she just does it for no reason. It's implied that she's even stalked Jake. (Of course, the Grand Finale reveals that she didn't actually murder Charlie; she just kept him in her basement for a very long time until he managed to free himself and escape. But still.)
      • Rose is actually a walking Karma Houdini, given that she stalks Charlie endlessly since their one night stand, despite Charlie having a restraining order against her. She's superglued his testicles, breaks into his house constantly and various other actions and this is all Played for Laughs.
    • Alan's lawyer in "No Sniffing, No Wowing". Despite outright commiting malpractice repeatedly when drawing up Alan and Judith's divorce settlement, we never even see her reported to the Bar Association (in Real Life, Alan could sue and report her to the Bar). It's possible that her wrongdoings were widely reported and she ended up losing her license, but we're never told any of this happens. See Artistic License – Law above.
    • Basically, Karma Houdini Warranty applies more as by the end of the series, most of the characters who have done bad things and haven't been punished for them seem to have not gotten off so easily as they now have very little to look forward to in the future. Zoey may be the exception as she's now being crowned queen of a country, though who's to say that she doesn't irritate the king to the point that he has her executed?
  • The Immodest Orgasm: Chelsea yells "Gaaaa" when the sex is particularly satisfying. (She's trying to say "God" but it comes out as "Gaaaa").
  • Karmic Death: Charlie went to Paris, and married Rose, then cheated on her. Let's just say he scorned the wrong woman and she pushed him into a train.
  • The Lad-ette: Season 11 introduces Charlie's daughter, Jenny, who is basically a female version of her father: she loves drinking, partying and women.
  • Lampshade Hanging:
    • In "Fish in a Drawer", Charlie gets to hang a lampshade on how the attire worn by the female characters in the CSI franchise isn't exactly crime scene appropriate.
    • Early in Season 9, after Walden has settled in as the replacement for Charlie, Alan points out how bizarre their living arrangements are when you stop and think about it, for no other reason than to let Walden (Read: the viewer) know that he (Read: the writing staff) is fully aware of how weird it is.
  • Last Disrespects: Charlie has a dream in which he attends his own funeral (as a ghost). At the funeral, women spit on his coffin, the eulogy is filled with derogatory jokes, and Alan ends the service by inviting the congregation back to his beach house for a wake/luau.
    • Charlie's actual funeral was only a step below this. Alan's eulogy was interrupted by Charlie's ex-girlfriends insulting the deceased, and Evelyn butted in bluntly...to remind everyone that Charlie's house is up for sale.
  • Later-Installment Weirdness: The show was almost intentional in its Later-Installment Weirdness. After Charlie Harper is killed off off-camera (due to Charlie Sheen's meltdown resulting in his termination with the show), Alan and Jake end up befriending and living with the weirdly named Walden Schmidt, and Jake also lampshades the changes in his character and attributes his "awkward years" to puberty as he becomes more and more of sociopathic horndog who suddenly joins the army at one point.
  • Lazy Bum: Jake, at least until he joined the Army.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • Berta leans on it so hard she tilts it in the second Christmas Episode, "Walnuts and Demerol", as she spends the episode gleefully likening the unfolding disaster that is Charlie's unplanned Christmas party to an actual play. Just before an ad break, for example, she quips "I can't wait for the second act!"
    • Walden and Lyndsey saying that people don't get their own TV shows because they're good looking. There is then a brief pause where they let the joke sink in...
    • The final episode "Of Course He's Dead" is full of this, from a police detective calling the events of the show ridiculous (and adding that they should have stopped a long time ago) to characters shamelessly throwing Aside Glances.
  • Long Runner: Ran for 12 seasons.
  • Lousy Lovers Are Losers:
  • Manly Gay: Chelsea's father and his partner, played by Stacy Keach (Mike Hammer) and John Amos, respectively.
  • Mars and Venus Gender Contrast: Driving force in plot, characterization and dialogue.
  • M.D. Envy: Alan is a chiropractor who gets made fun of constantly for his work.
  • Mistaken for Gay:
    • Charlie and Alan on several occasions. Neither of them ever seems to want to point out that they're brothers.
    • A Running Joke in Seasons 9 and 10 is the notion by many that Walden and Alan are gay since they are two grown men that live together. Mostly on Alan's part, since his looks pretty much confirm this to them.
  • Mom Looks Like a Sister: In Season 3, after Kandi moves out, her youthful and equally good-looking mother Mandi shows up at the Harper household looking for her. Charlie is surprised yet amazed that Mandi is Kandi's mother. Mandi points out that despite her age, she and her daughter look so much alike that in public they're often mistaken for sisters.
  • Motor Mouth: Missi (Miley Cyrus) in the episode "You Know What The Lollipop Is For".
  • Mr. Fanservice: Walden. Every female character who met him (except for Danny, a lesbian) expressed attraction towards him in some way.
  • Ms. Fanservice:
    Charlie: Here's a fun thought: she's probably slept with more women than you.
    *Beat*
    • Chelsea spent a lot of her screentime wearing skimpy robes and dresses.
    • A lot of the Girl of the Week characters could qualify, as most of them played by famously attractive celebrities.
  • Musical Episode: The song "You're a Douche" at the end of "Grab a Feather and Get In Line."
  • Naked First Impression: Shortly after first meeting Alan, Walden takes off his wet clothes. At the end of the episode, he's also naked when he first meets Judith and Berta.
  • Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Subverted during Charlie's funeral; Alan tries to say nice things about him in his eulogy, but Charlie's ex-girlfriends interrupt him with insults. Later subverted by Alan himself:
    Judith: And I thought your brother was a horrible influence. (on Jake)
    Alan: Don't speak ill of the dead! But you're right, he was a terrible human being.
  • Nice Guy:
    • Herb is probably the only genuinely easygoing character on the show.
    • Chelsea before Season 9. She treated Alan the nicest out of everyone in the show.
  • No Full Name Given: Nearly every character whose last name isn't "Harper", "Melnick" or "Schmidt" does not have a surname revealed. We still don't know the surnames of Rose, Berta, Kandi or Chelsea. We also don't know Judith's maiden name.
  • No Pregger Sex: Inverted; Alan says that the most sex he had with Judith was during the time she was pregnant with Jake. He has a pregnancy fetish, after all.
  • No Sense of Personal Space: Walden thinks nothing of hugging Alan while in the nude.
  • Noodle Incident: The "Den Mother Fiasco" continually mentioned when Charlie started going out with Jake's teacher.
    • Most of the situations that Charlie convinced Alan to do as a child, like the dog and the peanut butter. That or situations that Alan got himself into, like a Japanese Penis Enlarger.
    • Berta mentions the one time that the Department of Corrections wrote her name in her underwear.
    • Anytime Charlie reveals he brought home "a dude in a dress".
  • No Bisexuals: One of the running themes in series. Up until later in the series (seasons 7-12) where many characters indulge in relations with both men and women and openly consider themselves bisexual (notably Evelyn, Kandi, Lyndsey, Berta, etc.), nobody In-Universe ever considered the possibility of bisexuality being a "thing" nor ever believe it existing.
    • First starting with Alan's ex-wife Judith. In the pilot of the series, after 12 years of marriage Judith announces to Alan that she thinks she might be gay. A few episodes later, Judith clarifies to Charlie after one too many wise cracks from him about her "dating chicks now", that she's not dating anyone and basically she used the whole "being gay now" thing as an excuse to divorce Alan because he was sucking the life out of her. Later, Alan says to Charlie he doesn't buy the whole "gay" thing because "a gay woman would not fake orgasms for 12 years just to protect his feelings". Later, when Alan and Charlie find Judith dating Jake's soccer coach, an enraged Alan asks her how could she be dating a male soccer coach and whatever happened to the whole gay thing and whether she gave that a chance. Later Alan continues debating how Judith is "gay, straight, gay again. Place your bets, where does she land? Nobody knows!"
    • Charlie, who is revealed to have had numerous Noodle Incidents with Wholesome Crossdressers and/or possibly Transgender suitors he had mistaken for women and then goes on a loud Gayngst debate that he accidentally slept with a dude "once because he was drunk and he had breasts!" and "a dude who wanted to be a woman, which meant he was looking for a straight man which is me!". Despite his Womanizer reputation and having possible relations with men, he still considers himself "straight" above all this and never considers the possibility of bisexuality.
    • Alan debates over the series whether or not he himself could be gay despite his numerous relationships with women. Never once uttering the word "Bisexual".
    • It gets especially weird when Alan and Walden need to convince a social worker that they’re gay despite the fact that both men had previously married women.
    • Discussed in season 12 between Walden and Jenny. Jenny, a hard-partying alcohol drinking lipstick lesbian gets drunk and accidentally wakes up in bed with Walden. After this shocking discovery, Jenny tells Walden "I think I could be bisexual". Only after it's revealed they didn't actually have sex (they just got drunk and fell asleep in the same bed with different women), Jenny goes back to pursuing women like nothing's happened.
  • Not Blood Siblings: Charlie becomes sexually involved with the daughter of his mother's fiancé, repeatedly pointing out that she will only be his stepsister.
  • Not Staying for Breakfast: Charlie, to many possibly drunk one-night stands.
  • Not What It Looks Like: Walden gives Alan a big hug after being helped by him...while in the nude. Jake and Judith walk in the front door and Hilarity Ensues.
  • Odd Couple: Charlie and Alan. Walden and Alan later on.
  • Odd Friendship: For all her quirks, Rose was always nice with Jake, and both enjoyed each other's companies.
  • Oh, Crap!: Walden telling Alan and Berta that he's met a woman at a bar elicits this reaction, after he mentions she was called Rose and that she knew Alan.
    • Actually, any episode where Rose is introduced by a third party, such as Chelsea or Zoey, to Charlie and Alan (or just Alan in "the Ashton era") qualifies. Such episodes took place when Melanie Lynskey was no longer a regular cast member and a certain period of absence had to suffice to enhance Charlie's and Alan's shock upon seeing Rose again. It's implied Rose had to get to Chelsea or Zoey before meeting Charlie or Alan as the women she introduced herself to were less familiar with her than the Harpers. Charlie in fact quipped that when he saw Rose, he made the neat description of likening his anus to trimming a cigar.
    • Charlie has a huge one after Rose exits the house by walking out the front door, instead of her usual leap off the deck.
  • Ominous Hair Loss: After realizing they're short on money, Alan signs up for an experimental drug trial for which he'll be handsomely compensated. Later that day, a chunk of his hair falls out, leading him to conclude that he "isn't in the control group".
  • Once a Season: Charlie kicks out Alan over a trivial argument. Alan (and sometimes Jake) wanders the city looking for a place to live while Charlie quickly adapts to living without Alan. Eventually Alan returns to live with Charlie, usually at the suggestion of someone else. Incidentally Alan continued the tradition when Walden replaced Charlie.
    • Charlie dates a woman who's forbidden fruit (e.g. Jake's teacher or Alan's receptionist), dumps her quickly, and gives Alan a BS reason why he does it. Alan has seen it so often he lampshades what happens when Charlie loves and leaves his aforementioned secretary all within the span of an episode.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: Alan's... experiments during his youth, which are mentioned from time to time, are treated like this. Charlie apparently talked him into most of them.
  • Once per Episode: An attractive woman shows up for one or two episodes. If Charlie isn't sleeping with her, Alan will be. This was dropped when Charlie was dropped. Instead, Walden has a different long-term love interest per season and Alan just has an on-and-off relationship with Lyndsey.
    • Starting Season 11, a joke about Alan's cheapness or inability to move out.
  • One of the Kids:
    • Walden, originally, though this was dropped completely in season 10.
    • Charlie was this plenty as well; the guy depends on other people for everything. As Alan put it: "You are a child. A high-maintenance child!"
  • On the Rebound: Charlie sleeps with Gail, Chelsea's Best Friend after they break up, and is what ultimately ends their relationship when Chelsea finds out as she's not willing to work it out with Charlie anymore.
  • Open Relationship Failure: Charlie meets the daughter of a woman he was seeing. She mentions that she had been in a three-way relationship with her girlfriend and her girlfriend's boyfriend. According to her, this relationship ended because the girlfriend started acting weird despite the threesome being her idea. Charlie finds this sexy and ends up breaking up with her mother to be with her daughter.
  • Padding the Paper: Jake has to read a report to the class. When he gets to the by-line, he lists his name, teacher's name, room number, the school's name and address, and so on, until the teacher tells him he isn't being graded by length. After she tells him that, Jake flips the paper over to the next page.
  • Parenting the Husband: Being fed up with this sort of situation is what causes the split between Bridget and Walden.
  • Parental Neglect: In later seasons, both Alan and Judith are guilty of doing this to Jake.
  • Played for Laughs: Anytime Alan is almost suicidally depressed, Charlie is always thinking of himself no matter what. To be fair, Alan's never going to actually do it, due to Status Quo Is God.
  • Ponzi: Alan accidentally sets up a pyramid scheme by asking his friends and family for money for advertisements and paying them back with each other's money.
  • Practically Different Generations: In the sixth season, Judith gives birth to a baby daughter named Milly, while Jake is in his mid-teens. There's confusion as to whether the baby is Jake's half-sister or sister due to Judith temporarily separating from Herb and sleeping with Alan, only to reconcile with Herb soon after that. Most signs point to Alan being the father, but it's never officially confirmed one way or another.
  • Prenup Blowup: Charlie suggests a prenup to his fiancée, then gets angry when she readily agrees because she owns a good deal of real estate she hadn't mentioned to him yet.
  • Pretty in Mink: Alan's literal dream woman is a Lady in Red who mentions she has several fur coats, that all feel the same in the dark.
  • Primal Scene: In the episode "Don't Worry, Speed Racer", Charlie recalls a previously repressed memory about seeing his mother having sex when he was 8. This ruined Yosemite Sam for him, because the guy had a big red mustache. When he tries to confront her, he ends up seeing her having sex again.
  • Prisoner's Last Meal: Discussed.
    Jake: You know what I've been thinking about?
    Alan: What?
    Jake: The death penalty.
    Alan: Really? That's a— That's a very complex issue. So...so, what are your thoughts?
    Jake: If you're going to the chair they give you what you want for your last meal.
    Alan: I guess.
    Jake: I'm gonna order cereal.
    Alan: Why?
    Jake: Because if you keep adding milk you can make it last forever. And they just gotta wait.
  • Product Placement: Subverted. Characters are seen drinking Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on several occasions. Subverted by the fact that the labels aren't all that visible, but anyone familiar with them would recognize them.
  • Put on a Bus: Judith. Turns out Herb had an affair and she left him and took Mildred with her. A case of Real Life Writes the Plot, since Marin Hinkle, her actress, left the show.
  • Put on a Bus to Hell: More accurately, Charlie was put in front of a train and then sentenced to real Hell.
  • Queer People Are Funny: Especially with Chelsea's dad and his boyfriend.
  • Quip to Black:
    • Parodied when Charlie and Alan are watching a crime show that's an obvious expy of CSI: Miami, with a female in the Horatio Caine role. After she makes her Glasses Pull and snappy one-liner, they cut to "Squeeze Box" instead of "YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAH!"
    • And let's not forget the show's title: "Stiffs."
  • Real Life Writes the Plot:
    • The reason for Season 8's sudden halt in production, and ultimately why Charlie is revealed to have died between Season 8 and Season 9, is because of Charlie Sheen's erratic behavior.
    • Judith's actress left the show, so she was written out in Season 10.
    • Jake's absence midway through Season 10 is (partially) down to Angus T. Jones trashing the show in an online video.
    • Judith coming out as a lesbian, but then revealing she was just using as an excuse to divorce Alan, was in part due to the writers realising that Friends did the exact same thing with Ross and Carol.
  • Rearrange the Song: After writing Charlie Sheen out of the show, it necessitated new opening titles (which also meant abandoning the shot of Angus T. Jones circa season one morphing into his present-day form); someone involved in the production pointed out that they also needed to replace the child singer in the theme song.
  • Roommate Drama: When an earthquake destroys the plumbing in Judith's house (Alan's ex-wife), Alan offers to let her stay with him and Charlie. Charlie is none too pleased, as he finds Judith shrewish and she disapproves of his lifestyle, but tries to put on a friendly face while she's around. Much to everyone's surprise, Alan and Judith seem to get along, that is until she starts dating other men.
  • Sadist Show: Almost every character is a Jerkass or becomes one and never receives any comeuppance for their actions (which sometimes cross over into criminality). The few characters that are decent or half-decent are constantly abused for it. Alan is a obvious example, he's abused by everyone around him and only ever catches a break after he Took a Level in Jerkass.
  • Satellite Love Interest: Kandi. She really showed no signs of wanting to know what Alan was like on the inside, just interested in the sex. And it really doesn't help that she dumped Alan soon after he got a gambling jackpot. But in her defense it was said that she dumped him because he didn't want to have children with her.
  • Screw the Electric Bill: An episode restored some comedy after a dramatic scene: Charlie, exhausted from the drama, turns out the light and climbs up to bed. Then, the camera pans to reveal the rest of the family, still at the dinner table, wondering what just happened.
  • Secret Pet Plot: Alan grows attached to his ex-girlfriend's dog and steals it from her after the two break up. He spends the majority of the episode hiding the animal in his brother's house to not arouse suspicions, though his secret is outed when the police shows up at the place to investigate.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Alan and Charlie.
  • Servile Snarker: Berta.
    Charlie: I don't pay you to mock me.
    Berta: Charlie, you'd have to pay me not to.
  • Sexy Santa Dress: A lady with... issues about Christmas wears one.
  • Shameless Fanservice Guy: Walden is very nonchalant about being naked in public (which happens often), to the enjoyment of most of the female characters who eagerly enjoy the view.
  • She Cleans Up Nicely: Rare male example with Alan.
  • Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Chelsea's entire relationship with Charlie becomes this in-universe and for many fans as well.
  • Shout-Out: Happens occasionally, for example, when Charlie attempts to get Alan out of the house, and Berta suggests they Make It Look Like an Accident, Charlie shouts out to The Godfather (Even 'forgetting' to replace "Fredo" with "Alan"):
    Charlie: While my mother is alive, nothing must happen to Fredo.
    • Once, in Season 10, Jake says, "Bazinga!" and adds, "That's from a TV show." This, naturally, was the title of said episode.
  • "Shut Up" Kiss: In "You Know What The Lollipop Is For", Jake has to give Missi some of these, because she never stops talking.
    Missi: You're just so sweet. I swear, I could just eat you up, but, you know, then I'd probably get a sugar rush, because you're just so sweet, and if you think I talk a lot now, you should really hear me after I- (Jake kisses her) I'm definitely gonna shut up now, because you're a really good kisser, and the last thing I wanna do- (Jake kisses her again)
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: Charlie and Alan, on every possible front: Charlie is a suave, macho, self-confident, ladies' man while Alan is nerdy, effeminate, insecure and hopeless with women; Charlie is easygoing while Alan is uptight and anal-retentive; Charlie is a bachelor and a hedonist while Alan is a traditional family-values kind of guy...the list goes on.
  • Silver Fox: Teddy. At least Berta seems to think so.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Pretty far on the cynical end of the scale. The men in this show are usually sex driven idiots and the women are lustful gold diggers who are quickly willing to leave their spouse or significant other for someone with more money.
  • Soda-Candy 'Splosion: "Lookin' for Japanese Subs" has Jake and Eldridge film a variety of Jackass-style stunts to upload to the Internet. The first one, the "human volcano", has Jake consume warm (off-brand) Diet Coke and Mentos and lay on the floor. Alan shows up in the middle of it, getting vomit violently spewed in his face as a result.
  • Something We Forgot: In "People Who Love Peepholes", Alan moves out of the house and leaves Jake behind.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Rose. She is annoying and very creepy. She's also superglued Charlie's testicles to his thighs, poisoned Charlie to keep him sick so she can take care of him and get him to fall for her, and it's implied that she pushed him in front of a train after she caught him cheating on her.
  • Status Quo Is God: No matter what plot twists we're wrung through, Alan is still sponging off of Charlie, Jake is still a young doofus, Evelyn is still a self-absorbed drunk, Judith is still an absolute bitch, Charlie's still single, etc, etc. Well, except for the changes brought by Charlie's death between Seasons 8 and 9.
  • Stylistic Suck: Charlie's jingles.
  • Sudden Musical Ending: "You're a Douche" from "Grab a Feather and Get in Line."
  • Sudden Name Change: In Season 2 Episode 2, Ryan Stiles' Character is introduced as "Greg" or "Dr. Greg Melnick." In all subsequent appearances or mentions, he is referred to as "Herb" or "Herb Melnick"
  • Take That!:
    • An episode where Charlie is hired to write the American theme song to a dark and moody Japanese cartoon has him compose a cute, goofy song instead, which actually does get used for the show. This seems to be a stab at some of the business practices of 4kids entertainment at the time.
    • Numerous to Charlie since Charlie Sheen was fired. There were even some beforehand in Chuck Lorre's vanity cards which may have sparked their whole feud.
    • When Jake made his first appearance after Angus T. Jones publicly slammed the show in Season 10, the opening minutes of the episode featured Jake saying he was beginning to think he was no longer part of the family and numerous cracks about him joining a cult.
    • The series finale ends on this note, with Charlie walking up to the front door (only seen from the back due to not having Sheen come back) rings the doorbell and is crushed by a piano. The camera pans back to director Chuck Lorre in his director's chair as he turns to the camera and just says "Winning." before getting crushed by a second piano before the credits roll.
  • Taking the Kids: Judith used this as a threat from time to time, to drum up zany sitcom conflict so she can take advantage of Alan. She actually did this when she left Herb.
  • The Thing That Would Not Leave: Alan. You could practically name this trope after him. Exaggerated in Season 9 and onwards.
  • Those Two Guys: Jake and Eldridge.
  • Title Drop:
    • As mentioned above, every episode is named after a throwaway line of dialogue from that episode.
    • In the final scene of the 11th season finale:
      Walden: Just call itnote  two men hanging out.
      WALD-Enote : Hey, what about me?
      Walden: OK, fine, two and a half men.
  • Toilet Humor: Greatly emphasized in the ninth season that it's arguably much more gross than funny; the episode "Not In My Mouth" stands out in particular as you can see in the Vomit Discretion Shot entry below.
  • Token Houseguest: After Charlie's death in season 9, Walden Schmidt buys Charlie's house and moves in with Alan and Jake Harper.
  • Too Dumb to Live: How Jake hasn't killed himself in some crazy stunt is a mystery, given how stupid he's become.
  • Took a Level in Dumbass: Jake went from a fairly witty but lazy kid into a braindead pothead in Season 9.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Many characters, but most notably Charlie, Alan, and Jake:
    • Charlie became more and more of an ornery prick.
    • Alan evolved from a down on his luck man who had to rely on Charlie for financial support and felt bad about it to a sleazy weasel who happily mooches off of Charlie and then Walden without remorse and makes no effort to find a place of his own.
    • Jake went from being a naive Bratty Half-Pint in the early seasons to a Dumbass Teenage Son and Ungrateful Bastard who loved mocking his father and uncle, despite everything they've done for him. However, despite his growing stubborn and strained relationship with his father he still loves him and is a well-meaning and easygoing kid.
    • Lyndsey, though it makes sense since Alan really pissed her off by burning down her house by accident. Though she forgives him and leaves him for her ex-husband. She only puts up with him because he puts up with whatever habits she wants to have.
    • Judith was always a Jerkass, but throughout the series she managed to become even worse, to the point that she abuses and neglects Jake, does everything in her power to make Alan's life even worse just for kicks (Like giving Kandi her divorce lawyer) and even treating Herb like he's a third-class citizen for no apparent reason.
    • Chelsea and Mia. By the time Charlie's dead, they outright loathe him, even though he was pretty good to both of them until they broke up.
  • Ungrateful Bastard:
    • What grown-up Jake has become. He's getting better in his attitude towards his father in Season 10, though, most likely as a result of enlisting in the Army.
    • Alan has shades of this throughout the whole series, but it's more obvious in the later seasons. Most notable is when Charlie throws away his marriage to Mia because she wanted Alan to move out. When this is revealed to Alan, he barely seems to care and never mentions it again (Though in Alan's defense, he correctly guessed the real reason is that Charlie got cold feet and used Alan as an excuse to call off the wedding). This is on top of living at Charlie's house rent-free (and exploiting and manipulating him when he finally does charge Alan rent).
  • Unishment: Happens with Charlie twice in regard to Chelsea. Once, when she was considering a breast reduction to alleviate her back pain, Charlie talked her out of it by suggesting that if her breasts were smaller then that would put more focus on how fat her ass was. This nearly brings her to tears and she decided to live with the back pain, giving into what Charlie wanted all along. On another occasion, Charlie lied to her about having a colonoscopy appointment to get out of going to her parents' house. The trope is initially inverted, as Chelsea did find out that he was lying and flew her parents out to California as revenge. When the trip prompts her father into coming out of the closet and leaving her mother, she decides she has too much else on her plate to deal with given the recent developments, and forgives Charlie.
  • Unnecessary Time Precision: Charlie is a jerkass womanizer who has serious commitment issues and treats his flings badly. He still displays this nasty behavior in the very rare instance where he is indeed interested in a woman. His (usually) nicer brother Alan advises him to check on her. Charlie first asks whether it's Sunday before admitting he's never called her for anything other than sex.
    Alan: How about this: When was the last time you called her just to see how she was doing?
    Charlie: Uh, whoo. What's today, Sunday? Then never.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Walden and Alan again. Yes, Alan is still a moocher. And yes, Walden still acts like a lovesick high schooler. But by season 10 it's clear that they don't have any other friends but each other.
    • Whenever they're not fighting, Charlie and Alan were this.
    • Whenever they're united about something, Charlie and Evelyn are also this.
  • Volleying Insults: In "Not in Front of the Child", Alan and Charlie play a "word game"; they trade insults using each letter of the alphabet.
    Alan: You are a lush!
    Charlie: You are a leech!
    Alan: You are a misogynist!
    Charlie: You are a mistake!
    Alan: You are a...What are we up to?
    Charlie: N.
    Alan: Thank you. You are a... necrophiliac!
    Charlie: She was drunk, not dead, I challenge!
    Alan: Fine. You...are a narcissist!
    Charlie: Better. You are a nancy-boy!
    Alan: You are old!
    Charlie: You are odd...ly shaped.
    Alan: (Phone rings) Hang on.
    Charlie: You are a parasite.
    Alan: Not your turn.
  • Vomit Discretion Shot:
    • Both played straight and averted in "Not In My Mouth". Lyndsey gets terribly drunk and vomits everywhere on Walden's private plane. Though we never see it coming out of her mouth, puke appears on Alan and Walden's shirts, and a great huge splat strikes the window. Also seen in the Charlie era, where following a night of binge-boozing he excuses himself to the kitchen to retch loudly in the sink.
    Charlie: Hey, guess who had a Cobb salad for dinner?
    • The umbrella stand by the door has been used as a hurl receptacle twice, once by Jake during a bout of the flu, and another time by Charlie after an angry Melissa kicked him in the pills.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: In one episode, Jake is doing an experiment called the "human volcano" which involves Coke, mentos, and a massive projectile vomit onto Alan.
  • Wannabe Line: In "Young People Have Phlegm Too", Charlie and Alan are having a middle-age crisis, and to prove they're not too old they go with Charlie's Girl of the Week to Coolest Club Ever. But while the Bouncer lets the pretty girls in, he blocks the two of them. Charlie even tries to bribe the bouncer, but to no avail, and is about to kick them out when the Girl of the Week comes back and tells the bouncer to let them in because "they're with me".
  • Weather Dissonance: Whenever Alan wants to take Jake on a camping trip or some similar outdoorsy bonding experience, it rains.
  • Wham Line: In the season 4 Christmas episode "Walnuts and Demerol", Evelyn sees that Charlie is on a date with a woman named Gloria and tries to forbid him from sleeping with her. When she doesn't give them a good reason why they shouldn't sleep together, Gloria's mother storms in and delivers this line just as Charlie and Gloria are about to have sex:
    Dorothy: (to her daughter Gloria) You can't sleep with him because he is your half-brother!
  • What's a Henway?: Occurs in "I Called Him Magoo," After Alan's girlfriend said her first time having sex was at a Police concert:
    Alan: Sting?
    Girlfriend: A little bit.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Alan gives this to both Evelyn and Charlie in "A Sympathetic Crotch to Cry On". Evelyn isn't a hero, though.
  • What Did I Do Last Night?: Charlie. A lot. But one example in particular had him wake up the next morning finding out he tried to mail his pants back to the manufacturer because he snagged himself zipping up.
  • Who Will Take The Kids?: Season one's "Ate the Hamburgers, Wearing the Hats" revolved around this, as Charlie is upset that Alan would rather have their college professor cousins take care of Jake instead of Charlie in the event that something happens to Alan and Judith. Then Jake suffers a head injury while playing basketball with Charlie, who immediately takes him to the hospital (well... immediately after he finds one, anyway) and earns Alan's trust.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Alan on numerous unfair occasions, most notably when he found happiness with Kandi and moving into a condo, only for Kandi to leave him a few months later, keep the condo, and have the alimony checks for Alan continue, this time for two ex-wives.

Mennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn . . .

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