Two and a Half Men Star Ashton Kutcher Thinks He "Won the Lottery" With New Gig

Who's winning today?

Charlie Sheen thought he was irreplaceable, but CBS took great pains at the 2011 upfront presentation to prove otherwise. He was absent from any and all promotional materials for Two and a Half Men (including a clip reel) and never mentioned by name. Instead, the network welcomed Ashton Kutcher to the stage in the company of the original one-and-a-half men, Jon Cryer and TV son Angus T. Jones.

So what did Ashton Kutcher and Jon Cryer say to the assembled advertisers when CBS "let them talk," as Kutcher put it?

From the stage at Carnegie Hall, CBS boss lady Nina Tassler noted that the past few months of Sheenanigans have been "educational" for everyone involved. (Yes, we all learned more about hookers and blow than we ever needed or wanted to know.) Tassler then introduced the new Two and a Half Men, with Kutcher walking onstage flanked by Cryer and Jones.

Kutcher started off by referencing the piles of cash that surround everyone involved with Men, noting, "I've never, probably in my 13 years of show business, received more emails or calls congratulating me about getting a new job. I almost think I won the lottery. Which I kind of did." (Reports have Kutcher's Men salary coming in at mid-six-figures per episodes. Multiple that by 22 episodes a year, and pretty soon you're talking real money.)

The six-foot-two Kutcher towered over Cryer and Jones, leading Cryer to quip, "Did you have to get such a tall guy?" Jones kept mum during the entire presentation, but appeared pleased that production on further episodes of Two and a Half Men would go forward.

In addition to parading Two and a Half Men, CBS took pains to emphasize the strength of their comedy bench, making a point to spotlight castmembers from their other hit comedies How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory.