"Two and a Half Men" Spoofs "CSI" -- But Not for the First Time

Even by sweeps-month TV standards, it's a bizarre crossover stunt: writers on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men and the drama series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation taking a stab at writing an episode of each other's shows. The CSI version of Men aired last night, and the more comedic version of CSI airs Thursday.

So far, it's a fun stunt. But it's not the first time Two and a Half Men has tweaked this particular CBS drama franchise.

More on that in a minute. First, some observations about last night's Men...

It's too bad that Robert Wagner, as the brothers' brand-new father-in-law, was enlisted as the corpse. He was lots of fun on this show. But the casting of Jamie Rose, as the detective investigating his mysterious death, was perfect -- a dead-on (so to speak) tribute to Marg Helgenberger's sexy, red-headed detective on CSI.

Also perfect was the end-of-show Chuck Lorre vanity card, a weekly feature which, this week, was turned over to the writers from CSI, who described their transfer into the strange new world of the situation comedy -- "a world where the only rule is whether or not it makes you laugh, where actors say exactly what's on the page so it better be funny right down to the syllable, and where puns are the lowest form of humor." The CSI writers thanked everyone at Two and a Half Men "for making us all feel stupid," and closed by saying, "We look forward to returning the favor this Thursday night at 9."

Very funny. Even funnier, though, was an episode from a previous season of Two and a Half Men, in which Alan's sexy young bride at the time, Kandi (played by the delightful April Bowlby), auditioned for, and won, the part of a forensics investigator on a new TV crime series. That episode of Men ended with Alan and company watching her TV debut in disbelief, especially because of the blatant display of cleavage.

And what was the name of that new, sexed-up CSI spoof? Look below...