Crashing The Sheen-kansen: Two & A Half Men Canceled

If Charlie Sheen hasn't hit bottom, he's almost there. After making another round of obnoxious comments on Alex Jones' radio show, the suits at CBS have placed Two And A Half Men on hiatus, with little prospect for the top rated show to ever return.

By halting production on the eighth season of "Two and a Half Men," CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. are turning away from a proven hit with both viewers and advertisers

Outbursts from star Charlie Sheen led the media companies to cut off production of TV's most-watched comedy, potentially ending a program that helped lead a revival in TV sitcoms.

New episodes of "Men" on CBS average 14.7 million viewers. Reruns on CBS rake in nearly three quarters of the audience, and it is also popular in nightly syndication on local TV stations.

It's now unclear whether new episodes will ever be made, however, according to people familiar with the matter.

CBS' and Warner Bros.' decision Thursday came less than six hours after Mr. Sheen went on an erratic rant in a radio interview against topics as varied as Alcoholics Anonymous, Thomas Jefferson, and "Men" co-creator Chuck Lorre.

The matter of Charlie Sheen's fate was apparently decided at the highest levels of CBS management:

CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves learned of the radio rant while at a party the company was hosting for investors in midtown Manhattan, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mr. Moonves spoke by telephone with Bruce Rosenblum, president of Warner Bros. Television Group, the person said. Together, the two men decided to pull the plug.

"Based on the totality of Charlie Sheen's statements, conduct and condition, CBS and Warner Bros. Television have decided to discontinue production of 'Two and a Half Men' for the remainder of the season," the companies said.

Geez. Back in Ye Olden Days (the Seventies) when a sit-com lost its key player, the producers would find some doppelganger to play the departed character's "cousin" or some such, and soldier on. But, I seem to recall reading somewhere that Sheen's contract lacks a morals clause (D'Oh!) so they can't outright fire him. Still, Charlie Sheen must have achieved epic levels of management alienation to make them turn their backs on ready money.

And, no one's mentioned this, but Charlie Sheen is not the only guy who's out of a job. His co-stars and the dozens of people in the production company for Men have lost their jobs too. They didn't even get to have a hookers 'n' blow lost weekend before being shown the door.

Elsewhere, Eva St. Marie describes a night out with Cary Grant and shows how much Hollywood stars have lost their way:

When she was on location in Chicago shooting Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller, North by Northwest, her co-star, Cary Grant, took her to see a show. “A buzz went up in the audience the moment he was recognized. It was like a wave of adulation rolling round the theater. I found it overwhelming and a little scary. I was thrown by it. And I asked him, ‘How do you handle this, because I know I couldn’t?’ It was almost as if he were talking about someone else when he said, ‘They’ll tell their friends tomorrow that they saw Cary Grant. It makes them happy!’”

Hey, where's the sense of entitlement?