Ashton Kutcher on 'Two and a Half Men': 'It's Almost Like I Won the Lotto'

NEW YORK -- It took CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves seconds to make the afternoon's first Two and a Half Men crack, telling the Madison Avenue crowd gathered at Carnegie Hall for the net's upfront that he wouldn't be up on stage too long.

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"Tops, two and a half minutes," he said.

About 45 minutes into the presentation, CBS entertainment president Nina Tassler finally addressed the elephant in the room.

"Deep cleansing breathe," she said. "Well, it's been an educational few months for us. Thanks to a tweet ... we all learned the square root of 6.25." Tassler was referring to Kutcher's tweet that he sent out after THR confirmed he would be joining the CBS comedy.

"We could not be happier to [have] actor, producer and multimedia mogul Ashton Kutcher joining the cast of Two And a Half Men," she said.

With all the images of Charlie Sheen scrubbed from the preceding Men video clip, the brand new co-star took the stage with Jon Cryer and Angus T. Jones.

"It's awesome to be here," said Kutcher. "I could not be more excited. I never in my 13 years of show business received more e-mails and phone calls congratulating me for this job. It's almost like I won the lotto. And I kind of did."

Kutcher is making $700,000 per episode plus incentives for Men. And he promised to "work his ass off."

Standing next to the 6-foot-plus Kutcher, Cryer joked: "Did you have to get a tall guy?"

And then he suggested a new name for the show: "One and Two Half Men."