TVSquad

(S07E08) Last week, I wasn't thrilled with the CBS Monday night sitcom schedule. In fact, I thought all four shows were a bit off, and more than a few readers thought I was off the rails for speaking my mind. Fortunately -- for me -- this week's shows were back on track and I have only good things to say. That's especially true about Two and a Half Men. Seven years into the show, an episode like this one stands out as very original and really funny.

This was also the episode in which Battlestar Galactica's Tricia Helfer guested as Chelsea's old college roommate. That's not a spoiler; that's in the picture. More about the show -- including spoilers -- after the jump.

Do you think when Neil Simon created the character of Felix Unger in The Odd Couple he knew that he was spawning a generation or two (maybe more) of Felix Unger wannabes? Today, over 40 years since Felix became part of our movie/TV collective conscience, there are lots of people and characters that bring to mind Tony Randall's alter ego.

It's Tony's Felix that I think is etched in our minds. He made Felix all he could be, and week in and week out -- opposite Jack Klugman's Oscar Madison -- he typified the ultimate neat freak, persnickety, hypochondriacally, impossible-to-live-with, supercilious know-it-all that made us cackle with laughter.

So, as I was watching TV -- an occupational requirement -- recently, it occurred to me that there are quite a few Felix Ungers on screen right now. Most are fictional, like Two and a Half Men's Alan Harper and, most obviously, Adrian Monk. But there are a couple of Felixes in real life on TV, too, like MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and ESPN's Mike Greenberg.

By my count, there are seven "Felix Ungers" currently on TV.

That's his salary as a police forensics guy, not as a killer.

That's just one of the many revelations in this article about TV character salaries. CareerBuilder.com figured out what each person would make in real-life. For example, Samantha from Samantha Who? makes around $145,000 a year as the VP of a real estate company.

Not sure about the numbers for Mad Men's Don Draper though. It says he would make $41,000, but I'm guessing that means if he was doing it today, not in the early 1960s (because that would be a massive amount of money then). But he's the Creative Director at an ad agency and got a raise, so I'm pretty sure he'd make more than that. Olive on Pushing Daisies would make around $15,000 or so as a waitress (though she'd probably make more if she worked at an upscale restaurant). Other people on the list include Christine from The New Adventures of Old Christine and Olivia Benson from Law and Order: SVU.

Characters not on the list that I'm curious about: Liz Lemon, Michael Scott, and anyone from Heroes, because they never seem to be actually working.