Hacker Cinema
Two and a Half Men
2003 · TV series · 12 seasons
Created by Lee Aronsohn, Chuck Lorre
A hedonistic jingle writer's free-wheeling life comes to an abrupt halt when his brother and 10-year-old nephew move into his beach-front house.
8 negative1 mixed21 neutralfrom 30 commenters
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31 comments on Hacker News
> I find American humour so hard to relate to but I guess it's just a culture thing
These kind of comments always puzzle me. Hollywood makes stuff for the entire world, not just for a domestic audience.
Shows like Friends, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, pretty much any big sitcom you can name is in syndication in most countries around the world, because of how relatable it is.
It's often not sophisticated, and can be quite shallow (See Two and a half men or Big Bang theory), but it being hard to relate to is unlikely to be an issue.
Likewise, “IT Crowd” is great.
But the point about BBT is that it isn’t really a show about nerds or physics; it’s about emotional intelligence. This was a fairly groundbreaking angle for a Hollywood sitcom at the time when comparable mainstream shows were built on rather mean-spirited writing and stunted character development, like “How I Met Your Mother” and “Two and a Half Men.”
They have "Grace and Frankie", which is their longest running show at 7 seasons.
Netflix IMO tries to make shows that are very zeitgeist-y, instead of evergreen, like Friends and The Office. I think that will come back to bite them in the future because I don't see anybody wanting to license one-offs like Tiger King or Squid Game for syndication down the line.
Meanwhile, decades-old shows like Law and Order, Frasier and Two and a Half Men are still making bank because they have tons of episodes and are generalist enough to be popular across pretty much any cable network globally.
I mostly disagree on TV and movies. They have a lot less replay value than songs, so there isn't much sense buying. Sure, there are exceptions, but season 1 of Two and a Half Men is not worth $35.
We did, but it makes more sense when you have "channels." Once the channels are gone, aside from sports, it's not so clear because there aren't necessarily sane content bundles, and no one wants to pay $3 for an episode of 30 Rock (or $1 for Two and a Half Men). It's interesting to compare it to music streaming because music has more replay value, so selling tracks could work there, but it's a huge barrier for discovery. It'd be an even bigger barrier for 20-60 minutes of TV.
Two and a half men is a great example of when this really becomes tricky. To the point that in later seasons the characters become more and more self-aware that they are stuck in a situation that is ridiculous and increasingly express frustration that they can't understand why. This especially comes to the fore after Charlie exits, when it seems the writers realised the situation was now so crazy they had little choice but to just play into it.
Alan in particular is also a great example of being flanderized from a down on his luck but somewhat normal person to a mooch prepared to do anything to stay in the house at even the cost of good own happiness, while giving up any pretense of wanting to work his way out of it.
Jake as well - in fact in the final episode they flat out state it in dialogue: Alan points out that Jake wasn't really dumb at first, but he was funnier dumb. (The final episode breaks the fourth wall a lot to point out many of these things)
So true. I don't get why American TV shows always need to be ran to the ground.
Like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory are shows that should've gone past their 8th season. The Office should've never had those abysmal last two-three seasons. That '70s show should've never had those abysmal last three seasons.
I always like it when creators and producers recognize when a show has run its course. This is why we have good memories of Seinfeld. Jerry Seinfeld stood to make something crazy like 5 million per episode if they had done a 10th season but he knew the show had run its course and ended it on a high note (something, btw, that was a plot point on an earlier episode).
Same with Breaking Bad, they knew that they had a story to tell and that it didn't need to drag on and they delivered some of the finest 5 seasons of television drama that one could ever ask for.
Jerry Seinfeld is almost a billionaire due to his eponymous sitcom. The starring cast of Big Bang Theory fame were earning nearly a million dollars an episode by the end of the series. Similar story with Two and a Half Men, Gilmore Girls.
Jamie and Adam were stars of a wildly popular television show that ran for 14 seasons, spawn numerous spin offs and runs in syndication even today. I'd expect them to have hit at least $500k per episode.
The real joke is that "deepfake porn" has been common in Hollywood for generations. It was just consensual. Google around to see how many shots in sex and/or nude scenes were actually body doubles. Only lately has that evolved into digitally putting the star's face on the body double's body.
There are some serious first amendment issues here. Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, an iconic case that set the tone for modern supreme court arguments, turned on a verbal 'deepfake', the depiction of a celebrity in a supposed real sexual situation without their consent. That involved a fake interview with Falwell published in Hustler. I don't see how that is legally distinct from putting his face on a body double. Both are claiming an untruth, the creation of a fake sexual history, as a form of legitimate parody and comment on their public persona.
Also, half of all porn films. Does using a Charlie Sheen lookalike in the XXX version of Two and a Half Men constitute deepfake? ("Two and a Half Men", "The Big Bang Theory" ... Chuck Lorre was just begging for porn parodies.)
Download/watch "The People v. Larry Flint". I used to use clips as intros to first amendment and copyright law. It is a great movie.
That explains why they never made the "Two and a Half Men" movie!
10 years ago I joined college and didn't know a thing about English. Somebody pranked the whole class in the first day, by coming, writing their credentials on the board in Japanese and speaking in English. I thought to myself, I'm so behind.
Pirated a web design book some time later and tried very hard to learn it. I still remember learning the word "rather" from context instead of translating it.
After that, I made my 'world' in English. Movies, books, everything. Discovered HN by that time, and watched Two and A Half Men repeatedly with friends, over and over and over. I'm sure that repetition helped a lot.
Forcing yourself to speak in English can also help (xbox party chat for example), specially when I kept asking myself, do I really know English or am I just a fraud? Will I be able keep a conversation when the time for it comes?
I know a bunch of people that learned English but never passed that point where you can 'get' things in English. So, it's worth doing it by yourself. Being one of the very few in the theater getting the meaning of a joke, that subtitles did not translate well, is great.
Yea, I don't think the average show from the 70's was good.
Though, if your going to compare the average show, then the competition is more like 'Pawn Stars', 'My Teen is Pregnant', 'Tiny House Hunters', etc. Or you could compare similar longer running shows like Three's company (8 seasons) vs. Two and a Half Men (12 seasons).
So, my guess is a random episode of 'Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour' was probably better than a random episode of a random cable TV show. Though, it's also very dated at this point. It's also likely worse than say the best south park episode or whatever show you actually like.
Anyway, I am not saying the 70's wins hands down, hell I was not even alive then. But, I do think people are confusing shows about things they like with actual quality. I might like 'How It's Made' but it's not exactly deep.
Plenty of shows taped in front of a live studio audience still sweeten it with a laugh track. But I have no idea if BBT does.
edit: wikipedia says yes. "Sweetening has been used in a number of television series, from older shows like Happy Days, Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, to newer sitcoms Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetening
"66. Germans seem to really enjoy watching (dubbed) How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory."
haha, that's true. These TV series run in an infinite loop. And of course everything in TV is dubbed ;)
>> It has been called "referential humor", but I don't think it should be classified as humor, although for some people it seems to be a completely satisfying humor surrogate.
You're just completely missing the point. The joke is not the nerdy references. The references are a backdrop, a framework in which to develop the show's humor.
Do people really think, even for a second, that CBS developed a primetime network show whose jokes were targeted specifically to Caltech physics PhD students? Or even to self-identified nerds?
Think of it another way. The show is produced by Chuck Lorrie, the same guy who produced Two and a Half Men, which featured Charlie Sheen as a Malibu playboy. Did you think Two And A Half Men was written to appeal primarily to Malibu playboys? Would you consider that referential humor? Do you think Malibu bachelors got their panties in a twist because some of the jokes poked fun at the show's main characters?
Some of the characters on the show are quirky and flawed, and sometimes they're the subject of ridicule. Flip the channel to another sitcom. It's the exact same thing, but about jocks, or suburban families, or blue-collared delivery truck drivers.
Only the nerd community has enough of an ingrained victim mentality to take it personally, to think the show should be about them, or that jokes about nerds should be off limits.
Not movies. But definitely something that does not need your full attention - something that you don't mind tuning in and out of. This would mostly be TV shows - Simpsons, Family Guy, Two and a half men, How I met your mother. Seinfeld was great for this.
I think I disagree.. The rise of the "brogrammer" is proof that nerd culture is not only on the rise, but actually revered as the new "cool".
Look at television for example.. Asthon Kutcher is the highest paid actor on TV, and he basically stars as himself on Two and a Half men. Ashton is a product evangelist + angel investor. He makes nerds look awesome
Another example from (popular culture/TV) is Big Bang Theory. "Toward the end of its run, Friends was topping out around 20 million viewers, meaning Big Bang is now standing shoulder-to-shoulder with one of network TV's biggest and longest comedy successes."[1]
Movies like The Social Network + jOBS will further push the perceived nerdiness for Google into a good thing, not a negative thing. Our culture is shifting.
[1]- http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/01/big-bang-theory-ratings/60625/
These are two different markets that we are talking about. I don't think the goal of the xbox, ps3 or steam box ever has been to distribute a bunch of low budget $1 casual games.
This is a potentially lucrative market, but it hasn't existed for 3 decades. I'm not even sure it has existed for 1. Changes in technology are only now making this possible, and tbh I hope all the console makers don't join this freemium casual game race to the bottom.
two and a half men and insert generic crime procedural are the most popular tv shows. Would you say CBS is disrupting tv right now by peddling a bunch of cheap garbage to the lowest common denominator audience.
That's why the show is so popular. It's not taboo to admit you play WoW or consider yourself a 'geek' these days. The moniker has been appropriated and means many different things now.
However nothing about being a geek is considered normal by popular opinion. If there was no geek shaming going on then inviting someone you just met out to a game of D&D on Friday night would be as normal and banal as going down to the pub for a drink or catching the new Seth Rogan flick. However it's not and as someone who enjoys the role-playing hobby, I am careful to get to know someone first before I ask them to join us on a quest to slay the terrible wizard, Mordrak.
Instead of using satire to say anything interesting about why that is, TBBT just exploits these social norms. It's about as hilarious as any other Chuck Lorre show these days. The same formula is used for Two and a Half Men and is equally as vapid in my mind.
So when I do watch an episode of TBBT, I don't really identify with any of the characters and feel like I am being laughed at for the most part. The jokes are predictable and not funny for me. These kinds of shows are typically the most fun for the people who are not being made fun of.
Shows like Community, Journey Quest, and movies like Dorkness Rising are funny. They pander to the sub-culture I most identify with and lack any condescending stereotypes. I can laugh at myself in these sorts of contexts because they're written from a perspective that is sympathetic and jovial. It makes fun of the stereotypes in our own sub-culture without laughing at them because they're weird and unconventional and not like us, the people doing the laughing.
It has sat unmolested because you wrote a good bio about a computer security professional. It's difficult for a random Wikipedia denzien to quickly reach the conclusion that Ms. Davidson isn't notable enough. She's works for a powerful, well-known company, and is notable enough that she was asked to testify before Congress on a topic.
Wikipedia gets fuzzy when you step outside the basics. Is comprehensive list of "Two and a Half Men" episodes from 2003 notable? Are the results and player profiles of the 1959 NBA draft worthy? A stub article about a village in rural Poland?
In those cases, the answer is "yes", because there is a constituency for NBA fans and TV fans. When you step outside these types of topics, you are stepping off of a cliff, and wikipedians will capriciously and relentlessly enforce whatever rules they deem important.
The problem with TBBT is that the writing of the last season(s) is so bad and lazy, that you are wondering why you liked it in the first place. Same thing happened with Two and a Half men. The decline in the writing of both shows coincidences with the introduction of their 3rd show, Mike and Molly.
It's a comedy show, you are supposed to laugh at the characters. None of them should be taken seriously, they consist mostly out of randomly selected quirks that change with each episode. The 'normal' people are just as silly as the nerds. If we were meant to relate to someone, it isn't Penny, but Leonard.
I'm sorry, but I think this is post is idiotic.
First off, the author sets up a bunch of straw men to bash down in favor of his point, the most frustrating of which is:
> I watch truly quality TV shows. There are definitely the odd few of those but, if you must, download them and watch them on your computer: without ads and over a short period. At least in this instance you know what you’re subjecting yourself to and you will be doing it for entertainment: not in the background.
This is identical to me making a blog post saying: "Sell all your books: you're better off without them. Sure, you might miss out on some quality literature, but you can always just download them in pdf format and read them on your laptop."
Television is a medium. Every medium has its Two and a Half Men, and the luxury of the modern TV industry is that we have more freedom than ever to pursue programming we prefer. Making a big deal from divorcing yourself from a medium is fine -- of course you're going to have more free time, if I quit listening to music I'd probably have more free time as well -- but doing so with the caveat of 'oh, download some specific shows that you like' is shallow and unfair to the reader.
European who loves watching USA TV shows: it can literally take YEARS before very successful US shows make it to (non-pay) TV over here and quite often they are not being shown at all.
I was honestly surprised "Dexter" was on regular German TV here rather soon - I was on season three when they started season one here. I cannot say "Breaking Bad" is being aired yet nor "The Shield", "The Wire" or any other of my favorite shows. Not even "Battlestar Galactica" or "South Park" made it to non-pay TV.
Well, at least "Two and a Half Men" is on if you are so inclined.
I'd like to see this statement sourced...
And studios, despite some hemming and hawing, would ultimately rather make a lucrative — reportedly up to $100,000 per mid-season episode — deal with Netflix than rely on middling ad revenue on Hulu.
$100,000 isn't that much. Put it this way. The show Two and a Half Men pays its three stars a combined $3.2 million per episode. Another example is Big Bang Theory which just made a deal for 3 more seasons in which the network will pay $4 million per episode (and is probably making way more)
CABLE pays around $2 million per episode to syndicate the very shows Netflix is offering $100,000 for (http://tinyurl.com/48c5zo9)
So $100,000 an episode is more a joke than a real offer that Hollywood is seriously considering.
It's critically acclaimed because it's original. A critic (and I know this having worked as a reviewer) has likely seen every single show that came out every year. When you've seen generic sitcom A through F, you're going to love something that's original right through from premise to characters (the characters do fill out into the 2nd season, but Fuller has a problem that his main character is often a complete vacuum - like Dead Like Me the main character was simply a way too present observer; by the end I literally loved every character but the lead).
Better Off Ted suffered the same problem (different creator) with the main character being vacuous. His boss was great, his colleagues were great, his daughter was great, I even liked the narration because it was out-of-character from the main character.
I find with the major sitcoms people relate to the main character and solely the main character. I think the main reason Chuck Lorre has done so well with Two And A Half Men and The Big Bang Theory is that it's not just the main character that you can relate to, meaning you get the unbelievably avid fans from those "critically acclaimed" shows making huge noise and driving a near doubling in viewers of their shows (the big bang theory went almost 7-million viewers from the first till third season). You don't see this growth in your average series, it tends to start large and decline continuously (Hawaii Five-0 dropped 4-million viewers in the first 4 episodes).
The Rolodex counts for more because it's almost always hard to determine from the early script stage what's viable and what isn't. Unlike Silicon Valley, there is not Minimum Viable Product or prototyping in Hollywood - by the time you can see any sort of film, you've spent 80% of your total budget. There's also a lot more emphasis on individuals - if Charlie Sheen goes to Sing Sing, then "Two and a Half Men" is boned, but Facebook can still build products without Zuckerberg
And to add a dash of irony, as a bit of a gimmick two years ago the shows Two and a Half Men and CSI swapped writing staffs for an episode. If you watch the CSI episode with this rant by Chuck Lorre as a cheat-sheet it is kind of interesting how many of his little life-lessons made it into the final cut of the episode.
I think that "Quit the hit show you created and get right to work creating another hit sitcom for another wack-job diva because you are just plain stupid." was Cybill, which seems to match descriptions of it's star. Also, it matches "Get fired from your second hit show because the co-star wins a fucking Emmy... and you're stupid." (Christine Baranski)
I think "FINALLY learn from your mistakes and create a hit show with wonderful, loving people. Late in the second season during a rehearsal suddenly realize they are not going to hurt you." was Dharma and Greg, after which he started on "Two and a Half Men"
I'm kind of amazed at the ability of the human mind to store all that information about those shows over the years, and kind of ashamed that my mind seemed to have most of the information on hand.
Using inputs from IMDB, I think these are the shows he is alluding to.
>Roll your freelance success into your first sitcom staff job. ... After three years of miserable, seventy hour weeks someone ... cancelled
My Two Dads http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092410/
>Facing unemployment, fight to get on a hit show that everyone else is fighting to get off of because the star ... my agent a mack daddy?"
Roseanne http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094540/
>the star, while undeniably talented, has a few personal issues not to mention a coke-addicted boyfriend
Roseanne (BoyFriend was Bill Pentland)
>Roughly nine years after walking through that first door, finally get a chance to create your hit sitcom.
Not sure, nothing on IMDB got cancelled in 5 weeks in this time period.
>Your employers think it's a swell idea but instead want you to write a sitcom about a blue collar single mom on videotape.
Grace Under Fire http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106017/
>gal cast by your employers to play mom, hates kids, hates people, hates sitcoms and, most importantly, hates you.
Brett Butler
>Quit the hit show you created and get right to work creating another hit sitcom for another wack-job diva because you are just plain stupid.
Dharma and Greg http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118303/
>when you're about to quit the business in disgust, write a pilot script with an old friend.
Two and a Half Men http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0369179/
An excellent piece. For those who don't know Chuck Lorre:
Chuck Lorre (born October 18, 1952) is a writer, director, producer and composer who has created many American sitcoms, including Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory. Lorre also serves as executive producer of the sitcom Mike & Molly which premiered on CBS in September 2010.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Lorre
The common iFart example isn't a reflection of the store, it's a reflection of culture.
In 2007, "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" grossed nearly a billion dollars while "There Will Be Blood" never even got to 100 million. "Two and a Half Men" is a hit TV show and Arrested Development is off the air. The Arcade Fire were lucky to go gold with "Neon Bible" while Fall Out Boy went multi-platinum the same year.
Given your logic, nobody should bother creating anything of quality. Sometimes quality is successful, sometimes its not. But it's always regarded.