A New Emmy Category Charlie Sheen Could Win, Hands Down

Years and years ago, when I attended an institution of higher learning called Kenyon College, the students had an informal but very important honor they handed out to a deserving member of their number every spring: the coveted AHOY award.

Now the last two letters of that acronym stand for "Of the Year." The first two could stand for "Annoying Human," except that, while they mean the same thing, they refer to a terminal point of the alimentary canal.

The last I heard (2004), the award is still going strong at Kenyon. With a record that enduring, I am thinking, why not adopt the same recognition to television's prestigious Emmy Awards? If they did so, starting this coming event, all the television actors in Hollywood would be hard-pressed indeed to top Charlie Sheen's bid for the coveted trophy.

In his latest hissy fit over the indignity of having to play the lead role in Two and a Half Men, at nearly two million dollars an episode, Mr. Sheen threatened to sue CBS for momentarily putting the show on a brief hiatus, while he dried out from his latest drug-and-drink-induced escapade. His reasoning was that the network way overestimated the length of time it would take him to get sober again. Bad network! Bad, bad network!

He launched his very public bombast against the show's creator, Chuck Lorre (whom he referred to as Chaim Levine, emphasizing as strongly as possible Mr. Lorre's Jewish identity. Note that neither Lorre nor anyone else at CBS has publicly referred to Sheen as Carlos Estevez-his real name.). This has resulted in the network's planning to cancel the rest of this season and possibly the entire series for good.

Okay, fine, if the series consisted of Sheen coming out on camera and delivering a 30-minute monologue, that would be all well and good, even if it deprived the television audience of an entertaining show. Of course, that is not how the show goes. There are a number of very talented actors, whose off-camera conduct has not been especially egregious, who will also end up getting thrown out of work. Holland Taylor, Angus T. Jones, Conchata Ferrell and particularly Emmy-Award-winning actor, Jon Cryer will all get kicked to the same curb, to say nothing of the many other recurring actors (Including Jane Lynch, but don't worry too much about her; I think she has another gig.) who will have to join them.

Charlie Sheen has reportedly said he will overlook all these gross and blatant insults to his distinguished person for a mere three million per episode and a signing bonus of...oh, say, twenty million or so. In point of brutal fact, CBS would lose more by letting the series die than by caving in to its temperamental star. But, then, CBS has money out the kazoo, so maybe they can afford to take the hit, just to make a very valid point. I guess we shall see what we shall see.

Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen, you are an "annoying human."

Sources

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/charlie-sheen-attacks-half-men-creator/story?id=12980243

http://www.tmz.com/2011/02/28/charlie-sheen-lawsuit-cbs-warner-bros-two-and-a-half-men-mental-anguish/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/business/media/26cbs.html?_r=1&WT.mc_id=BU-PS-E-OB-PS-TXT-TH-ROS-1010-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

Wikipedia