Talk about a last minute booking. “Two and a Half Men” actor Charlie Sheen arrived at CNN’s studios in Los Angeles less than 10 minutes before “Piers Morgan Tonight” was set to go live yesterday:

Sheen’s appearance gave the program its best demo ratings ever, and its second-highest total viewership behind only the Oprah Winfrey premiere episode. That is despite only announcing the booking a few minutes before airtime.

B&C’s Ben Grossman has more, including how Morgan’s crew booked the interview (by sending a staffer to Sheen’s house) and Morgan’s response to critics that say he was “enabling” the actor by asking softball questions.

Morgan also appeared on CNN this afternoon to discuss the interview, and what happened after the cameras stopped rolling:

Morgan: “The last thing he did was he pulled out a piece of paper and signed it, and I wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, and he handed it had to me as a thank you memento for the interview. It was actually his negative drug report from three days ago which showed that he was drug-free, and he’d signed it with the words ‘To Piers, let’s go and get hammered. Love Charlie.’”

Brooke Baldwin: “Now what are you to make of that?”

Morgan: “I quite fancy going and getting hammered with him, to be quite honest.”