Two and a Half Men ran for twelve years from 2003 to 2015. That sounds like an eternity, and it was if you count TV years. Considering TV shows are considered a success if they reach 88 episodes – the minimum requirement for syndication for other countries – Two and a Half Men reaching over 200 episodes is a significant achievement indeed. The show doesn’t get any plaudits, however, as it was marred by controversy late in its lifetime and had to be revamped after Charlie Sheen was fired. Two and a Half Men was also very racy for a sitcom and so it wasn’t seen as being of the highest quality material compared to other shows.
The show also had its fair share of continuity mistakes; a trait shared in all other laugh track sitcoms. Two and a Half Men didn’t care for a lot of things such as heart or warmth as the show began plunging into slapstick category eventually. This meant it forewent continuity in favor of laughs as you can find many mistakes over the course of the show. Two and a Half Men’s mistakes don’t just comprise of continuity ones as the show has mistakes in production galore as well. You can find all these if you are an eagle-eyed observer or have caught them by reading through list on the internet.
Since we have you here already, you can peruse through this list to find out the mistakes that skipped you by. These mistakes range from minor to big; depends how you see it. Here are 25 Mistakes On Two And A Half Men Most Fans Didn't Notice.
23 Jake's Inconsistent Math Skills
Since you won’t remember this, in the earlier seasons, Jake was much smarter than he eventually became. Actually, in the first season, Jake was a bright student who only had problems in studies because his parents were separated. He was never shown to have problems with math either.
In later seasons, though, Jake became so stupid that in a Season 11 episode, when Alan asks him how many zeros there are in a million, Jake’s response is one; he was counting the ‘O’ as a zero in the word million.
22 Jake's Child Therapist Became Charlie's Adult Therapist
Charlie had superb chemistry with his therapist and we’d look forward to the episodes when she would make an appearance and treat us to her dry sense of humor.
In her first episode, though, she was nothing like that as she had a weird personality where she acted like a goof. More oddly, the therapist was introduced as a strictly children’s therapist. Later on, she was always consulting Charlie, which can’t be possible. You can’t just change your specialization like that and the therapist’s personality went through a complete overhaul as well.
21 The Set Wall Moving
If you’ve seen a behind-the-scenes look at how Two and a Half Men was filmed, you’d see that all the pieces of the environment took place around the same area. This means that when you saw the characters outside, they were actually just standing next to what was supposed to be the interior of their house.
In ‘My Doctor has a Cow Puppet’, you can see the set exposed in the scene where Rose scares Charlie. A startled Charlie jumps and bangs into a wall, and it is then you can see that the entire wall moves.
20 Changing Books
The mistakes in the show began appearing from the very first episode itself. In the Pilot, Alan sits in the living room conversing with his mother; there's a pile of books to his left and you can see four books with the top one colored white.
Cut to the next shot, and you’ll see that the books have changed entirely next to Alan. There are now many more than just four books and the one placed on the top is now a thick, black colored text book.
19 Charlie Forgot Meeting Mia's Parents
Continuity was never Two and a Half Men’s strong suit and this was always ignored even when we had hard precedent to the contrary. This was seen in the beginning seasons as one instance had Charlie being with Mia only for her father to come in; Mia introduces them by reminding her father that she told him about Charlie.
This doesn’t make sense as it was previously alluded to – twice – that Charlie had met both of Mia’s parents. If he had met them personally, why would Mia be introducing them at this point?
18 Charlie's Inconsistent Love for His Mother
This mistake kept arising from the first episode all the way to the last; a span of twelve years overall. Charlie would say to his mother’s face how much he disliked her, although this could’ve been presented as something he was lying about.
What can’t be explained, though, is Charlie thinking about hating his mother, only to then think on later occasions that he loves her. Charlie’s thoughts seemed to serve the setting of the episode he was in rather than sticking to continuity about how he felt for his mother.
17 Alan's Alimony Is Legally Impossible
Alan was shown to be so strapped for cash that he would resort to the most outlandish means to procure money. He even got himself tested on what seemed like malpractice medication just so he could get some money.
It’s not possible for this to happen at all if you apply real world logic. Alan would only need to show the court how much he makes compared to how much he needs to pay for alimony and child support and he’d be off the hook.
16 Where Was The "Half Man" In The Last Episode?
In Season 12, the show attempted to bring the show back to its old format by having Walden and Alan adopt a child. While this carried out for most of the season, it was completely ignored in the finale.
The boy was never mentioned by name; he wasn’t even mentioned at all save for one brief line. Considering it was the finale about two men and a “half man”, it makes no sense why there was no “half man” present in the finale.
15 Alan's Infrequent Banana Eating
Dialogues in episodes are so fast paced that writers end up forgetting them in the next episode itself. This is why this joke went past everyone when it aired. In Season 3 episode 22, Alan says he hasn’t been able to eat bananas since his high school days.
We can’t hold him up to this claim as we all saw him clearly eat bananas onscreen in the previous season. Not only was he seen, he was shown to be eating bananas on more than one occasion in Season 2.
14 Charlie Never Met Walden Yet Knew Everything About Him
The final episode of the series undid whatever we saw in all of Season 12 and focused solely on the impending return of Charlie. This was done to mock Charlie Sheen and his character’s motivations were basically aligned with him.
Otherwise, it makes no sense why Charlie wanted revenge on Walden at all. He never even knew who Walden was, yet wanted to get back at him for some reason. Not only that, but Charlie somehow knew everything about Walden as well despite only just escaping from his confinement.
13 The Very Obvious Stand-In
It’s pretty redundant talking about it when you can clearly see for yourself in the picture above, but the person who rang the doorbell at the end of the episode is quite obviously not Charlie Sheen.
It’s a person wearing a wig and he adopted some lame mannerisms of Charlie such as standing in a laidback manner. There’s another mistake here: Charlie was already supposed to have infiltrated the house earlier in the episode. If he had, why would he be ringing the doorbell now? The show also forgot about Charlie wanting his revenge on Alan and Walden.
12 Charlie Wanted Revenge Despite Alan Not Having Done Anything To Him
Speaking of revenge, why on Earth would Charlie want revenge on Alan in the first place? Alan was the only one who felt sad that Charlie was gone and made funeral arrangements for his brother.
While all of the characters mocked his passing, Alan was the one who defended him. Yet, after Charlie left his confinement, he wanted revenge on Alan for no reason at all. If anything, he should’ve been thankful to his brother for securing his house for four years after his supposed demise.
11 Charlie Claiming He Had No Children
Throughout the first eight seasons of Two and a Half Men, Charlie was terrified at the prospect of having a child of his own. On the occasions he did change his mind about his lifestyle, Charlie would think about how he had wasted his life as he had no wife or children.
This was all shown to be in his thoughts, so why was it shown in Season 11 that he had a daughter the whole time? It was shown Charlie always knew about Jenny, but then why would he have thought privately that he had no children?
10 Charlie Shutting The Door Twice
Two and a Half Men drew a lot of humor from awkward situations. Some of these moments came when something was in the process of happening only to have another character interrupt proceedings with a remark.
In the fourth episode of Season 2, this happened when Charlie and Jake walk in on Judith and Alan kissing, and Charlie leaves with Jake after quipping; here, spot Charlie as he closes the door. The very next shot, you’ll see a different angle and Charlie closing the same door once again.
9 The Unacknowledged Fourth Wall Breaks
Near the end of the show’s run, the writers just stopped trying to be funny and would throw cheap attempts like fart jokes or have the characters break the fourth wall on multiple occasions.
In-universe, this might have made sense had characters acknowledged the fourth wall breaks they witnessed, yet this only happened infrequently. For instance, the first time Alan does this, Walden has no clue; in the finale, Walden does the same thing himself and Alan has no reaction. Finally, they both do this later in the episode at the same time.
8 Alan Forgetting His Retirement
In one episode, Alan’s mother revealed to him she had kept a full college fund for Jake’s college in the future, which meant Alan had no need to earn anymore as he already had everything at his brother’s house and had been working just to provide for Jake. Alan retires and spends time wasting his life away.
In the next episode, however, all is reversed and Alan is now back again to working his rear off to pay for Jake. We’re not told how he’s become broke all of a sudden and what happened to his retirement.
7 Same Actresses Playing Different Characters In Multiple Seasons
Women weren’t treated with much respect on the show seeing as all of them would wear low cut shirts and dresses that showed them off quite a bit. These women were also used interchangeably to the point that the same actress would play different characters more than twice.
Chief among these actresses was the character of Chelsea, who had appeared two times in earlier seasons as one of Charlie’s dumb conquests. Chelsea would then become a main character for two seasons and no one would acknowledge how Charlie had been with two girls with the same face earlier.
6 Charlie Wanting, Then Not Wanting, To Throw Alan Out
Like the inconsistency with Charlie’s mother, the same inconsistencies present themselves with Charlie wanting to kick Alan out. Up until Season 3, Charlie didn’t have a good enough reason to go through with it, until Mia told him she wanted Alan out so she and Charlie could have a family at the house.
Charlie turned her down and kept Alan, only to again want Alan out of the house again starting with the next episode! It seems the writers forgot Charlie’s reasonings to leave Mia were due to his brother and wanting him out after that was a continuity mistake.
5 Alan's Weird Telepathy
In the third episode of Season 5, Jake is busy on the phone and says “we were on a train in a tunnel?” At this point, Alan is nowhere near Jake; he’s not even in the house when Jake is conversing on the phone.
However, when Alan arrives, Jake walks past him while continuing to talk on the phone. During the dialogue, Alan states “at least he isn’t the tunnel.” It’s impossible Alan knew about this conversation as he wasn’t around to have heard it! It makes no sense how he would know.
4 The Changing Cars
The scenes that take place in cars aren’t actually filmed while on the road. In reality, these sequences are filmed in a stationary vehicle while a green screen simulates the background.
In Season 3, episode 11, while Alan and Jake are in the car and talking about dinner, look behind them in the rear-view mirror and you’ll see the car over there change in the same shot from a black 4x4 to a red sports car. It looks like the editing process guys were too lazy to care about this continuity mistake or figured no one would notice.