CHRISTOPHER TITUS Comedian seeks humor in serious things in life

Titus says that the comedy is in our shared humanity.
By JOHN BENSON
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
Comedian Christopher Titus isn't afraid of the truth. Or perhaps more succinctly, he isn't afraid to laugh at the truth.
Anyone who watched his critically acclaimed television show "Titus," which ran for three seasons on Fox-TV, knows that nothing is off limits -- custody battles, insanity, family suicides, heart attacks, fistfights with his father -- and everything is funny.
"Every comic that gets up there has the ability to get on stage and make people laugh," said Titus, calling from his home in Los Angeles. "[But] If you're just talking about airline food, I believe you're committing a sin. So when you watch the greatest comics of all time, they -- Richard Pryor even Bill Cosby -- get to the humanness. And if you talk about what's really human, you can't help but laugh because we're all the same people, and I like to go straight into it because it needs to be said."
He added, "We made a choice (with 'Titus'), we hated lame sitcoms. We set the bar at 'All in the Family.' We decided, let's go that far. The show is supposed to cause a paradigm shift in the way people think about their screwed up lives, and that was always our credo."
Mission accomplished
Mission accomplished for Titus, who says years later he still has fans thanking him for bringing their dysfunctional families to prime-time television.
Incidentally, the Northern California funnyman, who started in stand-up at the age of 19, said "Titus" wasn't canceled for ratings, but instead pulled after he, in a truly human and nondiplomatic fashion, questioned whether the Fox Television president at the time actually watched the show. She had just finished offering changes to the show and, well, Titus said they were the worst ideas he had ever heard.
Despite the bad taste left in his mouth, Titus is returning to the small screen with a new show he's written titled "Special Unit." Billed as "The Shield" for handicapped people, the premise involves an edict from the California governor for the Los Angeles Police Department to hire a certain percentage of handicapped police officers, which Titus' character -- an out-of-favor cop -- has to train.
"It's outrageous and out of control," Titus said. "It's wrong. I went into the office where I pitched it and thought I was going to get thrown out. After I sold it to Showtime, I wrote the script and got a call from the Showtime president who said, 'Titus, this is very funny. There is no way we can do this.' And then I took this to Comedy Central, and they were like 'We got to do this.' I guess with Showtime, the envelope I push is not in their mailbox."
First love
Production on the pilot for the half-hour sitcom begins next month. In the meantime, Titus remains committed to his first love, stand-up comedy, which is now in the form of "The Fifth Annual End of the World Tour." The one-man reality check show is scheduled to play Cleveland on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Cleveland Improv.
"I had a kid 16 days before 9/11, and the morning it happened, I was feeding her a bottle while watching CNN and the world was coming apart," Titus said.
"You're a new dad, have a new kid, there's war, there's terrorism and diseases we can't cure, hurricanes, tsunamis, typhoons. Now my daughter is learning her colors from the terrorist alert rainbow. She thinks Winnie the Pooh is a medium threat. So I take responsibility for every white man atrocity in history and pretty much solve the world's problems."