'Two and a Half Men' Season 12 Finale News: Charlie Sheen a No-Show at Big Finale Show

"Two and a Half Men" closed its record-setting 12-season run with a one-hour episode last Thursday night, which brought back many familiar faces from the sitcom's more than a decade show on TV.

The series finale also featured celebrity guests, a rather unexpected animation, and a shock cameo by the creator of the comedy itself, Chuck Lorre.

In its final episode, Alan discovered that his brother, the free-wheeling jingle composer Charlie Harper, was still alive these past four years after being held captive in the basement by his obsessed ex, Rose.

But in spite of the revelation that Charlie was still alive, actor Charlie Sheen was nowhere to be seen even though he was pretty much the focus of the comedy show's final episode.

Executive producer Chuck Lorre – who appeared at the end of the episode to utter the single line "winning" before being smashed by a falling piano – explained Sheen's absence to viewers in his final post-credits Men vanity card.

"I know a lot of you might be disappointed that you didn't get to see Charlie Sheen in tonight's finale. For the record, he was offered a role," Lorre said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Lorre revealed that the original idea was to have Sheen walk up to the front door in the last scene, ring the doorbell, then turn, look directly into the camera and go off on a maniacal rant about the dangers of drug abuse.

The showrunner admitted they wanted Sheen to explain the dangers of drug use, and that these dangers only apply to average people, with a confession that he was invincible and far from average and that he was a ninja warrior from Mars. "And then we would drop a piano on him. We thought it was funny. He didn't. Instead, he wanted us to write a heart-warming scene that would set up his return to primetime TV in a new sitcom called 'The Harper's' starring him and Jon Cryer. We thought that was funny, too," Lorre added.

That revelation, Entertainment Weekly reported, as well as the promise of his $2.5-million mysteriously claimed songwriting royalties triggered a slew of figures surfacing from the show's past.

Mostly made by Charlie's ex-girlfriends, the show's final episode featured special appearances by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Christian Slater, and John Stamos.

"It was one of the most fun days I've ever had in this business. He [Schwarzenegger] was such a game participant in this lunacy. He showed up and made every moment work. He had a great sense of humor and was very willing to have fun with his own persona," Lorre said, according to Entertainment Weekly.

"Two and a Half Men" is an American comedy that began broadcast on CBS in September 2003, originally starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones,

The show was about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper, who needs to live in his beach-front Malibu house with his uptight and divorced brother, Alan, and his growing son, Jake.

But in February 2011, CBS and Warner Bros. decided to end production for the rest of the eighth season after Sheen entered drug rehabilitation and made "disparaging comments" about Lorre.

He was replaced by Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt in the same year.