Last year, Charlie Sheen was taking us on his magical mental tour.

And now. Well, his "Anger Management" (Thursdays on FX) is fairly funny and his life is semi-sane. Here's the story I sent to papers:

By MIKE HUGHES

LOS ANGELES-- Mistakes are good,
we're told, because we learn from them.

In that case, Charlie Sheen is one
lucky guy, with so many to learn from.

Cable keeps finding new ways to dominate the summer. HBO is doing it with quality ("The Newsroom"), TNT and USA with sleek quantity. And now FX has anew approach.

In one overcrowded Thursday, it debuts shows by two eccentric sorts -- Charlie Sheen and Russell Brand -- sandwiching them around the returns of a good show ("Wilfred") and a sometimes-great one ("Louie"). Here's the story I sent to papers:

By MIKE HUGHES

My view on the Monday without and with Charlie Sheen:

1) The second half of the "Two and a Half Men" episode was terrific. That's a good sign, because it's the half that mostly had just Jon Cryer and Ashton Kutcher. The first half, at Charlie's funeral, was up and down; in the show's fashion, it mixed clever and crude moments. But in the second half, we saw two gifted comedy actors bouncing good dialog off each other. I'm looking forward to next week.

Comedy Central has just announced it will tape a comedy roast of Charlie Sheen. That's OK, I guess; I'm just worried that they won't find anything to make fun of him about.