Charlie Harper (Two and A Half Men) - History

History

When Charlie's mother Evelyn was pregnant with him (for 7 and a half months), his parents thought that he was going to be a girl, since the ultrasound showed no signs of a penis. According to Evelyn, Charlie was always "a little drama queen" when he grew up. After his father died of food poisoning, Charlie and his brother Alan had three stepdads. The first, Harry Luther Gorsky, left Charlie's and Alan's mother for a young woman (Charlie refers to Harry as "a little tyrant"), the second was a twitchy gay man from Texas who called him and Alan "buckaroos", and the third was "the Carpet King", a fat guy whom Charlie liked the most because he had "a grateful daughter". Well into his 40s, Charlie believed "the Carpet King" owned a carpeting business until his mother explained that the pet name was actually sexual slang rather than his profession.

When Charlie was young, he was ashamed of his younger brother Alan, and when Alan had his first school day, Charlie told everyone at school that Alan was his shaved monkey (he later explained he did this because he always wanted a shaved monkey). He also gave his brother full-time wedgies and annoyed him whenever he could. Charlie drank a lot when he was a teenager, and constantly ran away, nevertheless his mother did not mind because he always came back. Charlie constantly bemoans Alan's and Jake's presence in his house but generally seems happy that they are around, because they are the only people who have known him for a long time and remain in his daily life. When Alan was surprised to find Charlie did not have their mom's cell phone number in his contacts list, Charlie told him "If I can't eat it, bang it or bet on it, it's not in my phone." On a later episode, it is shown Charlie does get his mother's number. In fact, he has it on the speed dial address that he finds appropriate for her, "666".

Charlie and Alan have a strained relationship with their mother and often try to avoid her at all costs. Not much is known about their father Francis, except that when Charlie looks back he says he was a horrible son.

Charlie is often selfish towards Alan. In one episode he made Alan go on a date in spite of being sick with the flu, merely in order to afford him (Charlie) the opportunity to have "revenge sex". In another episode when Alan got upset in a bookstore and wanted to miss a movie that they were going to see Charlie replied, "So I'm supposed to miss the movie just because you had a nervous breakdown. Don't you think that is a little selfish, Alan?" Furthermore after Alan's second divorce Alan tells Charlie that he needs him to speak to a crowd of people to which Charlie retorts, "Anyone know a Charlie?" He additionally derives enjoyment from rubbing his own success in Alan's face and further complicating Alan's situations just for the fun of it. He is particularly nasty about Alan's situation with Judith, especially since he bribed and told Alan not to marry her in the first place.

While Charlie loves his nephew Jake and, at the beginning of the show, used him to get dates, he often makes jokes revolving around Jake's apparent lack of smarts, and often states that he is destined to be a doorstop or a fry cook. Nevertheless it is often shown that ultimately Charlie loves Jake.

Despite his selfish attitude, Charlie can be caring at times. Though Charlie often chastises Alan for being a "sponge", Charlie has continued to provide two out of his three bedrooms to Alan, without rent, and seemingly provides all of his meals, even when the two dine out together. In many occasions, he has stood up to Jake for Alan when Jake started badmouthing him . He also cares a lot for Jake, even though he has trouble admitting it. In the episode "Ate the Hamburgers, Wearing the Hats" Jake gets an injury and Charlie goes out of his way to make sure that he's all right. In the episode "The Mooch at the Boo" Jake and his neighbor, a pretty girl named Celeste, disappear together and Celeste's ex-football player dad came looking. When they were found kissing Charlie later said to the father (Jerome, played by Michael Clarke Duncan) that he would take the beating intended for Jake instead. While Charlie knows that Jake's new sister Milly could be his niece, he tells Alan not to get involved because it will most likely cause further hate and disdain between Alan and Judith and ruin Milly's life.

Charlie watches a lot of sports on TV, mostly football, basketball, and baseball. He has little interest in athletics per se. Rather, Charlie is a frequent gambler. He watches sports to keep tabs on his investments. Two of his favorite sitcoms are Dharma and Greg and Becker, but he revealed in "Fart Jokes", "Pie", and "Celeste" that he does not like Sex and the City and in "Celeste" he told Alan that he was gay for watching it.

Despite his affluent and worldly-wise persona, Charlie can be remarkably naïve about everyday matters. In "Last Chance to See Those Tattoos," Alan observes that Charlie does not really understand how web pages and the Internet work. In "I Can't Afford Hyenas," Charlie is shown to have no understanding of how to care for his own living expenses because he entrusts an accountant with managing his cash flow and paying the bills. When his accountant is busted by the authorities, Charlie is not even aware of a problem until he receives notices from the bank that his accounts are delinquent, his credit cards are maxed out and his car is in danger of being repossessed. He is twice shown to have no (or to have subconsciously blocked all) awareness of Oedipus: first when Rose has to explain him to look under "Oed..." when he fetches a dictionary to understand her diagnosis of his Oedipus complex; and again a year later when Rose presents Charlie a copy of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex during his relationship with Evelyn's doppelgänger Lydia, and he displays utter ignorance of the plot. How to operate his own washing machine to clean his clothes is a mystery to him, and he believes the machine will telephone him when the cycle is complete.