Here’s how Ashton Kutcher made his debut as Walden Schmidt in Two And A Half Men season 9. When CBS sitcom Two And A Half Men was in its eighth season, then-star Charlie Sheen’s behind-the-scenes behavior was putting the future of the show in jeopardy. According to the sitcom’s studio Warner Bros Television, Sheen’s off-set drug and alcohol abuse affected his conduct to the extent he was virtually impossible to work with.
After Charlie Sheen made offensive comments about Two And A Half Men creator Chuck Lorre on a radio show hosted by Alex Jones, he was fired and the remaining episodes in its eighth season were scrapped. Following Sheen’s acrimonious departure, many speculated Two And A Half Men would be cancelled. Until, that is, Lorre announced the sitcom would undergo a soft reboot with Sheen’s character Charlie Harper being replaced by new star Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt.
With the introduction of Ashton Kutcher to the Two And A Half Men cast, it meant Charlie Harper had to be written out to make way for Walden Schmidt. Befittingly of the way things ended between Sheen and the show, Charlie Harper was written out pretty permanently in an off-screen death revealed in Two And A Half Men’s season 9 premiere, which saw him killed in a subway accident in Paris.
Two And Half Men’s season 9 opener than finds Alan (Jon Cryer) discovering Charlie’s Malibu beach house had been re-mortgaged several times and he can’t afford the repayments, meaning he and Jake will have to sell and move in with his mother Evelyn. Just as Alan is preparing to spread Charlie’s ashes on the beach, he’s startled by a bedraggled looking man who appears on the deck and causes him to drop the ashes on the floor. The man turns out to be Walden Schmidt – a dot-com billionaire who had just attempted suicide by drowning after his wife divorces him.
Alan takes Walden to a bar and the pair bond over their woes, which leads to them picking up a couple of women and taking them back to the beach house. Unfortunately for Alan, Walden hooks up with the two women leaving Alan alone to “masturbate and cry himself to sleep” as he later confesses. The following morning a rejuvenated Walden tells Alan of his wild night and that he’s decided to buy Charlie’s house. Later in Two And A Half Men season 9, Walden asked Alan to move in with him – first temporarily and then permanently – and the pair formed the kind of leech-like relationship Alan previously had with Charlie. It was a clever way of introducing Kutcher to the show, allowing Two And A Half Men to retain most of its characters and its main set while replacing Charlie Harper. Even Sheen himself is said to have enjoyed Ashton Kutcher’s debut on Two And A Half Men and that’s saying something.
Next: What Ashton Kutcher Has Done Since That ‘70s Show
