Who Will Run Charlie Sheen’s New Sitcom?

Getty Images Charlie Sheen and David Simon

Noted publicity-phobe Charlie Sheen has been grudgingly pried from his life of solitude and monkish reflection by producer Joe Roth who intends to build a sitcom around Sheen based on the haltingly remembered 2003 comedy Anger Management. The only hiccup? Finding a showrunner willing to work with the infamous warlock — and preferably one without a Hebrew name.

Far be it from us to tell the producer of Daddy Day Care how to go about his business, but might we suggest David Simon? What’s that, you say? The man responsible for the greatest show in the history of television teaming up with the drug-addled goon who was recently fired from TV’s worst? Bear with us! First of all, who but a colossally hard-headed — yet undeniably brilliant! — bulldozer like Simon could survive working with the crack-smoking death spiral that is Charlie Sheen? (This guy? We think not!) But their connection goes deeper! Sheen’s first post-Men foray was an attempt to webcast himself on Ustream — a debacle that was written off as “pointless” and “sad” which are also words used to describe Tremé! But it’s the always-prickly Simon’s indisputed ability as an artisanal grudge-farmer that could really be put to incredible use when paired with Sheen’s ever-smoldering pit of resentment.

Remember how the final season of The Wire was marred by Simon’s lead-footed attempt to right every wrong ever committed against him by a bunch of mild-mannered Pulitzer Prize winners? Well, just imagine the thinly veiled vengeance he could get up to with Sheen’s ever-expanding enemies list! Multimillionaire showrunners, flip-flopping network heads, cold-hearted pornstars, actresses with poor reflexes, even the entire city of Detroit — all would fall in spectacularly violent fashion under the combined fury of Sheen and Simon, crushed under the impossible weight of the chips on each of their shoulders.

And should Sheen succumb to his demons during production, well, so be it. As Simon put it in a recent, par-for-the-course interview/therapy dump with Salon, “You’re gonna die, and everyone you love and care about is gonna die. Life is finite.” We’re telling you: comedy gold!

Filed Under: Charlie Sheen, David Simon, The Wire, Two and a Half Men

Andy Greenwald is a staff writer for Grantland.

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