Primetime teen sitcoms aren't exactly the most common form of small screen programming you can find, which is surprising, considering That 70s Show was a big part of Fox's schedule for so long. And as funny as the show was (more so in the early years), awkwardness was never far away, and as Ashton Kutcher puts it, one extremely uncomfortable moment happened when he and current wife Mila Kunis' characters kissed for the first time. Why was it awkward? Mainly because their five-year age difference couldn't have been more obvious. In his words:
I think I was her first kiss. On the show -- we have our first kiss memorialized on the TV show. . . . It was really weird. I was like, 'Isn't this illegal? Like, am I allowed?' It was really awkward, cause I'm like a 19-year-old kid. She was 14! She was like my little sister. I wanted to make sure she was okay.
As the former host of Punk'd, Ashton Kutcher is definitely used to both inspiring awkwardness in others and being awkward himself, which obviously also bled into other aspects of his highly publicized life. But back in 1998, the actor was in the middle of starring in his very first TV show and had none of the Hollywood know-how that he would go on to pick up in later years. So at that point, he's basically just an excited and scrappy 19-year-old dude being told that he has to start kissing his 14-year-old friend and co-worker. It's hard to imagine how that job task would come up on the set and not be awkward in some way.
It should perhaps surprise few that Ashton Kutcher was telling this story to radio's most famous shock jock on The Howard Stern Show, and Stern was predictably amused by Kutcher's stories about Mila Kunis. He did press on, asking more a bout the pair's time on That 70s Show, and he brought up how Kunis has said in the past that she wasn't attracted to Kutcher back in those early years.
Here, Kutcher seemed to be a little less uncomfortable about having a mid-teen female gushing over him, bemusedly telling Howard Stern that Kunis' modest claims were B.S.
She had a journal, or like a diary, when she was a kid and she wrote, 'This guy's hot.' She thought I was cute.
Ashton Kutcher then went on to say he actually caused Mila Kunis to lose interest in him simply by playing the "big brother" role on the set. So while the whole "legal adult kissing a minor" thing was definitely a touchy point, at least that whole "stand-in sibling" thing didn't play a part in why they eventually fell in love and got married.
While That 70s Show's cast likely won't be reuniting in full for any upcoming TV reboots or specials, you can certainly find certain former stars working together, as Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson's Netflix comedy The Ranch welcomed back Wilmer Valderrama for Season 2, along with Debra Jo Rupp. And to find out when and where you can watch all of the small screen's other returning and debuting shows, head to our summer premiere schedule.
