Saturday, November 13, 2010

A Plethora of Vertically Striped Shirts



Charlie Sheen; A bold and tasteful sit-com genius.

It takes a series of brilliant thoughts to derive the conclusion that it is a good idea to name your TV character after yourself. One who takes this risky step must know that they are on a path to be forever associated with the style and actions of his/her television character, no matter how disgusting (STD ridden) they may be. Perhaps Charlie Sheen was tired of being called the name of his character on the streets of Hollywood in the many TV sitcoms he has been involved with over the years. Most notably from these television masterpieces was Charlie's role as the reincarnated Michael J. Fox on Spin City after he died of Carpal Tunnel (which was a plot twist no one saw coming).

Charlie's character on Two and a Half Men, Charlie, has a closet full of vertically striped shirts and cargo shorts. The wardrobe of Two and a Half Men, or TAAHM (pronounced Taaaahem), must look like they held up the nearest IZOD outlet store.

While the choice for vertically striped attire is a mystery, the comedy on TAAHM is not. It has been scientifically proven that the cleverly written jokes of Charlie, Jake, Alan and Berta can be predicted a whole 2.3 minutes before they are recited. The humor is described as being from an era of sit-com comedy dating between 1996 and 2001, just after the Fresh Prince television empire and during the prime Friends days on NBC, when laugh tracks were still an acceptable way to coax low IQ'd audiences into a rumble of laughter as if they have Ross and Chandler on the couch next to them with their clever banter, sipping bottomless cappuccinos. Simpler times.

So why is it that Two and a Half Men continues to warm our hearts week after week? Monday after Monday? No one is quite sure. But until the wardrobe department runs out of IZOD and Tommy Bahama shirts, we will enjoy the mindless comedy that we all love and are familiar with.