History Creator / ChristopherTitus

* AnAesop:
** Invoked. Titus uses humor to prevent himself from getting a victim complex and to not look at his life as something outside of his control. He ends each routine with a moral based on what his dad taught him his entire life -- "quit being a wussy" and never quit fighting for your right to be happy.
--->'''Titus''': What do you say you get down off that cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get over it?
** In ''Norman Rockwell is Bleeding'', the doctor that treated him after he'd fallen into a bonfire, able to get through Titus' drunken haze by getting in his face and yelling that, if he had inhaled when he fell, he ''would'' be dead from his lungs collapsing due to excessive smoke inhalation. It was what convinced Titus that he really needed to start turning his life around, right then.

* DisneyAcidSequence: In ''Norman Rockwell is Bleeding'', Titus tells the story of how he survived falling in a bonfire and was taken to an emergency "shack" where the doctor put him on painkillers (while still drunk). He describes seeing a world where everyone was a lizard, a "Creator/StanleyKubrick/''Charlie Brown'' cartoon" where everyone was spinning and spoke in that muffled trumpet noise that the adults on the ''Charlie Brown'' cartoons used as voices, and then sees the doctor who yells at him as UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: When he talked about how his mother won her murder case and how her abusive husband kept guns around so he can teach her how to shoot. Not a good idea, especially if your wife is a violent, manic-depressive schizophrenic who is said to act like a Franchise/{{Batman}} villain when she hits her manic mode (or, in Titus' words: "What a dumb ass! Here's a tip for ya, guys--if you're gonna beat [your wife], don't teach her how to fire the weapon!").

[[caption-width-right:248:"If there was a fuck-up Pope, I would have a three-foot hat."]]

** ''The Voice in My Head'' is one humiliating anecdote of Titus' life after another...until he ends it with a story of how he got to meet Music/BruceSpringsteen and had "the greatest night of my life."
** ''Love is Evol''. After Titus tells his crushing story of how his wife abused him and ruined his life, Titus rants that there is no God and he'll never find love again...until he met his current girlfriend (a 5'11" Diesel Jeans model with two college degrees and breasts implants that she actually bought herself), who he eventually married, and despite some embarrassing moments, has actually found love with a mentally stable woman.
*** His response to this seemingly convoluted turn of events: "[[InMysteriousWays How may I serve thee, Lord]]?"
* EpicFail: ''The Voice in My Head'' covers the greatest "epic fails" (in those exact words) in his life - specifically, ruining a child's birthday party while dressed as [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]], accidentally calling out a blind woman at one of his shows for looking at him weird, getting to drive a fast car and promptly wrecking it on a race track, breaking his hand at a martial arts practice in three places, antagonizing a military attack dog, and antagonizing the Creator/{{FOX}} Network president to such a degree that Titus ended up getting [[Series/{{Titus}} his show]] cancelled when they didn't want to deal with him anymore.

* EpicFail: ''The Voice in My Head'' covers the greatest "epic fails" (in those exact words) in his life - specifically, ruining a child's birthday party while dressed as [[Franchise/StarWars Darth Vader]], accidentally calling out a blind woman at one of his shows for looking at him weird, getting to drive a fast car and promptly wrecking it on the race track, breaking his hand at a martial arts practice three times over, and, finally, antagonizing the FOX network president and getting his show cancelled.

* FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse: Titus injects this mindset into all of his work, especially his stand-up comedy. Despite having a terrible childhood and an adult life that wasn't much better, he has chosen to "be an anti-depressant" instead of dwelling on his past or whining about it. As such, he regularly tears into people who refuse to make their own lives better and deconstructs their mindsets as pointlessly self-destructive.
-->"Why don't you climb down off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and ''get over it!?''

* TakeAThirdOption: Describes on his daughter did in ''Born With a Defect''. At a church service on Mother's Day, Titus ended up sitting [[OhCrap right behind his ex-wife, with his new wife in tow]]. Titus' daughter went to get a rose from the priest to give to her mother, but the little girl said she HasTwoMommies and wanted two roses.[[note]]Titus lampshades that "in California" - a state with a large gay population - "you'd think they'd have thought of that."[[/note]]The priest told her to only take one rose, leading Titus to start worrying that she'd have to pick which mother to give it to. Undaunted, she tore the rose in half, handed both of her moms a few petals each, and hugged them both.

* OverprotectiveDad:
** He has fears about this regarding his new girlfriend's family, since her dad is a former ([[https://youtu.be/fsrtRGA-t_U?t=2m14s and Purple Heart decorated]]) Marine pilot and her brother is a Federal agent.
-->'''Titus''': So if I piss this family off, you're just gonna see it on CNN. "Hi, Wolf Blitzer for CNN. Comedian Christopher Titus, who disappeared three months ago, was found today, his body spread across four states. Federal agents [[ImplausibleDeniability are baffled]]."
** They ''do'' get his sense of humor though, as her father's reaction after hearing that joke: "They're not gonna find ya."

* TheAlcoholic: Both of his parents (their divorce settlement included payment of their bar tab), but his dad especially (according to ''Norman Rockwell is Bleeding'', there are no pictures of Ken without a beer in his hand, from family pictures to pictures of him at parent-teacher meetings).

* MushroomSamba: The best way to describe what Titus went through after being pumped full of painkillers while hungover after he fell into the bonfire.

* BrutalHonesty: In "Love is Evol" he has a bit on how you could get a companion the same way you get a customized coffee order from Starbucks. "I want a [[StatuesqueStunner tall]], [[MsFanservice hot]]... [[AmbiguouslyBrown shot of mocha]] (wink). Oh, and [[HollywoodPudgy non-fat]]." He brings up that audiences often don't appreciate the last one, but says that when he was having problems and wondering why the relationship isn't as hot and passionate as it used to be he had to look at himself and assess if he was close to his weight when they were dating. "So you can either get mad, or get yourself a treadmill, your choice."

* ManOnFire: Almost died when he got drunk and fell into a bonfire. Had Titus not screamed and his idiot friends not rescued him in time, he would have been dead from inhaling the heat of the fire, which would have collapsed his lungs.

** Invoked. His routines work on a different level than most comedians, where he uses humor to prevent himself from getting a Victim Complex and to not look at your life as something outside of your control. He ends each routine with a moral based on what his dad taught him his entire life, "Quit being a wussy" and never quit fighting for your right to be happy.
--->'''Titus''': What do you say you get down off that cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and ''get over it''?
** Along with this, the doctor that treated him after he'd fallen into a bonfire, able to get through Titus' drunken haze by getting in his face and yelling that, if he had inhaled when he fell, he ''would'' be dead.

** ...Honestly, someone should probably get the guy a pair of those Kevlar chainsaw gloves.

* AngstWhatAngst: {{Invoked}}. Was initially very apathetic about his mom's suicide (though he and his dad were relieved that Juanita's suicide was just a suicide and [[TakingYouWithMe no one else died along with her]]) and was annoyed when people urged him to feel sad that his mother was dead--until he had a mental breakdown on an airplane after smelling a turkey dinner. At the time this happened, a lot of people were on edge because of the Unabomber and what happened to the Oklahoma City building (and Titus added that, nowadays because of the 9/11 attacks, having a mental breakdown on a plane is the worst thing you can do, as [[Series/{{Titus}} his show]] later demonstrated).

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and BreadEggsMilkSquick: One of the staples of his routine.

* OneOfUs: "The Voice In My Head" concludes with Titus telling the story of how he got to meet Music/BruceSpringsteen, who revealed that both he and his son were fans of ''Series/{{Titus}}'' because of the way they made such bleak situations funny. Titus is a ''massive'' Springsteen fan, so to have him say that was one of the best moments of his life.

** "I knew when my father could no longer form a word, I was about to visit a gray area."[[note]]A "gray area" was when his father got angry at him, and the next thing Titus knows, he's in third grade, making a hand turkey in arts and crafts class. [[UpToEleven Even at 18 years old]].[[/note]]

* HandsOffParenting: Titus finds the very concept utterly bizarre, having grown up in a functionally abusive household. Titus once saw a parent who barely disciplined his child at all at the DMV, when the kid was clearly acting like a SpoiledBrat. According to Titus, the kid "made the DMV '''[[UpToEleven worse]]'''!"

* UpToEleven: Invoked. He was so pathetic after falling into the bonfire that his dad was too shocked to beat him. "I had gone one step ''beyond'' getting my ass kicked."

** He then takes this UpToEleven by making it a RunningGag and apologizing to "every race here tonight Whitey has jacked up," including Blacks, Indians, and Mexicans. He would have apologized to the Japanese for the internment camps but says they started that shit, and the Middle-Eastern people, to whom he said he's not ready to apologize just yet.

* DeathByIrony: ''Norman Rockwell Is Bleeding'' has a doozy. The BastardBoyfriend who [[DomesticAbuse abused Titus' mom]] and got shot three times for it was ''also'' the boyfriend who owned two acres of land, and took Titus' mom out regularly to teach her how to shoot a gun.

* BabiesEverAfter: After an entire set of him describing how messed up his life had been, the end credits of ''Norman Rockwell is Bleeding'' show old photos of Chris and his family, the final one being of him with his pregnant (now ex) wife and the words "to be continued" underneath. Also counts as a FunnyAneurysmMoment when you find out (in ''Love is Evol'') how their relationship ended up. "To be continued" indeed.

* AmicablyDivorced: Averted. He is ''not'' on good terms with his ex-wife [[note]]Who lied in court saying that Christopher abused her and the kids just so she could sidestep the California "no-fault" divorce laws, which only allows for non-equal splitting of assets if someone claims domestic abuse. It was later found to be false.[[/note]], and he has doubts that such a thing is really possible. In ''Neverlution'', he reveals that his divorce took five years to finalize and his ex-wife walked away with $2 million dollars in alimony and shared custody of the kids. ''Born With a Defect'' also has Titus talk about how exchanging kids for the week is treated like a hostage exchange, and how is ex-wife once got the cops called on Titus when his daughter was upset about it.

In 2017, he wrote and directed his first independent film ''Film/SpecialUnit'', about an LA cop forced to supervise a new squad consistent of various individuals with special needs ranging from autism to cerebral palsy to dwarfism. The film was in DevelopmentHell for about a decade, a pilot for a tv series was made back in 2006 for Creator/ComedyCentral and was passed on.

Christopher said that, for him, all this was just normal. It wasn't until much later in life that it was wildly unusual and unhealthy and entered therapy -- and found, during group sessions, that combat veterans dealing with PTSD saw his life experiences as being ''worse'' than what they went through.

His father, Ken Titus -- who worked in sales and spent some time in the National Guard -- was a hard-drinking, chain-smoking [[TheCasanova womanizer]] with a string of failed marriages [[note]]married six times, divorced five times, and [[ReallyGetsAround slept around]] near-constantly[[/note]] that each ended with Ken getting cleaned out of everything he had and constantly fighting for custody of his children. He used ToughLove (that sometimes bordered on self-esteem-crushing sadism) to set Titus and his brother Dave[[note]]Who was actually the son of Ken's third wife and stuck around the Titus household after the divorce. Although Ken never formally adopted him, Dave was always a part of the family.[[/note]] straight. Somewhat exempt from Ken's unique parenting style was Titus' sister Shannon[[note]]Who lived with Titus' mom and was there when Titus' mom murdered her abusive second husband during Thanksgiving dinner in 1986. Titus also had a few other step-siblings thanks to Ken's multiple marriages[[/note]]. Titus has gone out of his way to try and show that Ken was never neglectful[[note]]Titus' mother abandoned him with her parents and used Ken's alimony and child support on booze. Dave's mother simply let him stay with Ken with little argument.[[/note]] and went to great lengths to provide for his children. It's just that the loving and playful side of Ken's personality disappeared the moment he cracked open his first beer of the day[[note]]Luckily, the two of them were able to work through their issues and enjoyed a healthy relationship toward the end of Ken's life.[[/note]]

His mother Juanita (Ken's second wife; maiden name Holmes) was a concert pianist, spoke four languages, was a SupremeChef (especially around Thanksgiving), had an IQ of 180 and competed in so many beauty pageants that she qualified for Miss California back in the 1960s. Despite her high intellect, stunning beauty, infectious charm and amazing talent, she was also a manipulative, mentally-ill [[note]]Juanita was diagnosed with manic-depressive schizophrenia, though the TV show depicts her mental illness as paranoid schizophrenia mixed with dissociative identity disorder, as she always feared that aliens were after her and she often thought she was other people[[/note]] alcoholic who never took her medication (choosing instead to drink alcohol to medicate it herself--which made her violent outbursts something akin to what you would find in a comic book supervillain) and could convince everyone--including mental hospital board members--into thinking she had her mental illness under control, only for her to fall into another psychotic episode [[note]]Juanita's second husband was shot to death in 1986 after he beat her up on Thanksgiving for not having dinner done when he got home from work. After her husband tossed her turkey against the wall, Juanita tried to scald him with some boiling mashed potatoes. The guy got so pissed, he decked her in the face and pounded her to a bloody pulp. Juanita then staggered upstairs, got a gun, came back downstairs and shot the bastard because "...she didn't want him to do that again." Not only was Juanita acquitted of all murder charges, she won the guy's life insurance policy ''and'' the acre behind his house that he wanted to use as a shooting range--''not'' a good idea when you're an abusive jerk who's married to a manic-depressive[[/note]]. Christopher said that, for him, all this was just normal and it wasn't until much later in life that he realized it was wildly unusual.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped:
** Invoked. His routines work on a different level than most comedians, where he uses humor to prevent himself from getting a Victim Complex and to not look at your life as something outside of your control. He ends each routine with a moral based on what his dad taught him his entire life, "Quit being a wussy" and never quit fighting for your right to be happy.
-->'''Titus''': What do you say you get down off that cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and ''get over it''?
** Along with this, the doctor that treated him after he'd fallen into a bonfire, able to get through Titus' drunken haze by getting in his face and yelling that, if he had inhaled when he fell, he ''would'' be dead.

His experiences growing up were on the ''extreme'' end of what most people would consider "dysfunctional." His father, Ken Titus, was a hard-drinking, chain-smoking [[TheCasanova womanizer]] with a string of failed marriages [[note]]married six times, divorced five times, and [[ReallyGetsAround slept around]] near-constantly[[/note]] that each ended with Ken getting cleaned out of everything he had and constantly fighting for custody of his children, professionally a salesman and a former National Guardsman. He used ToughLove (that sometimes bordered on self-esteem-crushing sadism) to set Titus and his brother Dave straight [[note]]Titus also had a blood-related sister named Shannon (who lived with Titus' mom and was there when Titus' mom murdered her abusive second husband during Thanksgiving dinner in 1986) and a few step-siblings thanks to Ken's multiple marriages[[/note]]. His mother Juanita (Ken's second wife; maiden name Holmes) was a concert pianist, spoke four languages, was a SupremeChef (especially around Thanksgiving), had an IQ of 180 and competed in so many beauty pageants that she qualified for Miss California back in the 1960s. Despite her high intellect, stunning beauty, infectious charm and amazing talent, she was also a manipulative, mentally-ill [[note]]Juanita was diagnosed with manic-depressive schizophrenia, though the TV show depicts her mental illness as paranoid schizophrenia mixed with dissociative identity disorder, as she always feared that aliens were after her and she often thought she was other people[[/note]] alcoholic who never took her medication (choosing instead to drink alcohol to medicate it herself--which made her violent outbursts something akin to what you would find in a comic book supervillain) and could convince everyone--including mental hospital board members--into thinking she had her mental illness under control, only for her to fall into another psychotic episode [[note]]Juanita's second husband was shot to death in 1986 after he beat her up on Thanksgiving for not having dinner done when he got home from work. After her husband tossed her turkey against the wall, Juanita tried to scald him with some boiling mashed potatoes. The guy got so pissed, he decked her in the face and pounded her to a bloody pulp. Juanita then staggered upstairs, got a gun, came back downstairs and shot the bastard because "...she didn't want him to do that again." Not only was Juanita acquitted of all murder charges, she won the guy's life insurance policy ''and'' the acre behind his house that he wanted to use as a shooting range--''not'' a good idea when you're an abusive jerk who's married to a manic-depressive[[/note]]. Christopher said that, for him, all this was just normal and it wasn't until much later in life that he realized it was wildly unusual.