Ashton Kutcher Shades ‘Two and a Half Men’ While Discussing ‘The Ranch’ Cancellation

Ashton Kutcher poked fun at his old show, Two and a Half Men in a recent interview. The actor was discussing the ending of his Netflix original series The Ranch, and could not help comparing it to his other sitcom experiences. According to Kutcher, The Ranch was as far from Two and a Half Men as he ever got.

Kutcher joined the cast of Two and a Half Men in 2011 at the start of Season 9, jumping right into the lead role. He played a new character taking over for Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) after Sheen left the show.

Kutcher played Walden Schmidt, a clueless billionaire who made his money on the Internet. In a new interview on the WTF with Marc Maron, Kutcher said that this was not the character he originally signed up to play.

“I went and met with [series co-creator] Chuck Lorre and he seemed like a really smart guy, and he had an idea for this character that I thought was really interesting, which wasn’t the character that I wound up [playing],” Kutcher said. ‘I got the script and was, like, ‘Well, that’s not what we talked about.’ But he had an idea for this character that I thought was interesting.”

Kutcher poked fun at the show in general as well, especially when comparing it to The Ranch. He was grateful that the world of streaming does not have things like syndication deals, meaning that sitcoms could not be forced to go on past their time.

“Netflix owns the show, so it’s not like there was this big syndication boon that’s going to come if we shoot two more seasons,” Kutcher explained. “I’ve been on shows where you keep going, and you keep going, and then you’ve got a brother who’s a gorilla.”

This was a reference to an episode of Two and a Half Men called “One False Move, Zimbabwe!” where Walden learned that he had been raised alongside a gorilla as if they were brothers. To him, this was clearly a moment where the show jumped the shark, though it was in his first season. Kutcher went on to do four seasons in total on Two and a Half Men.

Despite all the jokes, Kutcher did have some sincere kind words for Two and a Half Men and all the folks he worked with there. He noted that the on-set camaraderie came at a very important time in his life.

“I actually went through a divorce [with Demi Moore] when I was on that show, which is a really hard thing to do,” he said. “Having a family while going through that, I needed that. And those people were all there for me and supported me… and it was phenomenal.”