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player ready...Please don’t use the word “dysfunctional” around comic Christopher Titus.
“I hate that word,” he says. “That word wasn’t invented until 15 years ago. They made it up. You know what it was called? It was called life.”
Titus says use of the “D-word” has expanded into a mindset that helps to explain away troubling aspects of people’s lives.
“We’ve become this nation of victims,” he points out. ” `I have hot coffee disorder, I can’t hold a hot cup of coffee because I might spill it.’ What? That’s called `just don’t be a klutz.’ “
Titus’ one-man show “Normal Rockwell is Bleeding” might have stirred illicit thoughts of the “D-word” to those who saw it.
The show was about Titus’ family, which is headed by a hard-drinking father who has been married several times and a mother who had to be committed. The father, meanwhile, seems to treat his family with disdain. In reality, the man loves, cares and provides for them.
You know network television can’t pass up an opportunity for a show about a dysfun . . . well, a family with issues. So Monday marks the premiere of “Titus,” a new Fox comedy starring Titus basically playing himself, a man who deals with a family headed by a hard-drinking father who has been married several times and . . . well, you get the drift.
But Titus, a comedian since 1983, insists his comedy isn’t seeking to ride the dysfunction gravy train to success. His show is about life. His, to be specific.
Titus admits that Stacy Keach, playing his father, does some “heinous” things. One flashback has him allowing the young Titus to stick something in a wall socket so he can get a “charge” out of it. In another flashback, Dad lets Titus’ younger brother — who can’t swim — fall off a pier and then throws Titus in to save him.
“Dad is never mean to be mean, he’s always mean to teach,” he says. “There’s always some weird lesson behind it, no matter how jacked it is.”
Titus tells the story of how he was taken from his father by his mother, who subsequently sent the then-4-year-old to Detroit to live with his great-grandparents.
His mom told her grandparents that Titus’ father wasn’t sending her child support payments; in truth, his father was sending her $600 a month.
So Titus’ father kidnapped the boy. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t care?
That kind of story is an example of the tough comedy Titus does. Titus tried doing stand-up the soft and fuzzy way, but it was one that didn’t fit him so well.
“For a while I was just a stand-up comic, like `Hey, you ever noticed when you go to the store and there’s that weird guy standing behind the counter. . . .’ And it was just lame.
“I was successful at it, but I started to, what I called, grow a tumor on my soul. About 12 years in, I was like, `I hate this, I want to quit, I don’t want to do this anymore.’ “
Titus’ agent, who was also a good friend, realized why Titus wasn’t enjoying his career. He told Titus to ” `start acting like who you are. Because that happy guy you do, I don’t know who that is; I’ve never met that guy.’
“I’m pretty intense. I cut right to it. I’m not the nicest guy in the world,” Titus admits. But his brand of “hard funny” insists the audience be pushed to the limits, before bringing them back with the humor.
“Sometimes [on the sitcom] we’ll go to a place with the audience where it’s not funny, to a scary place. Because the next thing that is funny, is really funny. [Richard] Pryor would do that. Pryor would scare you. [The late Bill] Hicks would scare you, and I learned that doing `Norman Rockwell is Bleeding.’ “
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Fox’s “Titus” premieres at 7:30 p.m. Monday on WFLD-Ch. 32.