Trivia / Titus

• Banned Episode: A couple episodes were produced for the middle of the season but aired at the very end of the season instead. This gave the sense that they were originally going to be taken out entirely but someone changed their mind last minute. They were held back because of how extreme the subject matter got, while there was only a light storyline it still created a couple Orphaned References.
  • "The Wedding" was moved five episodes down to the end of the second season because the episode involved domestic violence in a church (Juanita's new husband punches her in the face and Juanita shoots him). This was placed after the intended season finale where Christopher was involved in a racing accident and was in a coma, while the third season premiere shows him still physically recovering from it.
  • "The Protector" takes place in the middle of the third season but was moved to the end, after the "Insanity Genetic" two-parter, because it dealt with child molestation (Erin's niece Amy reveals that she was molested by a family friend who turns out to be the father of a boy who sexually harasses her at school). An episode set afterwards had Christopher try to bring that up to deflect attention away from himself during a family therapy session.
• Executive Meddling: FOX wanted Erin and Titus to break up (a la Dharma & Greg), but Titus refused (as he based his show on real-world events) in a way that offended the executive who suggested it, which resulted in all promotion suddenly being pulled, leading to a drop in ratings and cancellation. Now considered Hilarious in Hindsight (in a dark and twisted way) in light of Titus's divorce from Erin Carden. The story of how Titus lost his show is explained on The Voice in My Head (and the story of how he lost Erin is detailed in Love is Evol and mentioned in Neverlution, The Voice in My Head, The Angry Pursuit of Happiness, and Born with a Defect).
• In Memoriam: The real Ken Titus was honored in the episode "The Pendulum" (where Titus is in a coma and Ken, played by Stacy Keach, is narrating the story in the Neutral Space) with a clip from a visit he made to the set where he sat in the Neutral Space chair and said "There's about 10% of truth to any part this..." with Christopher laughing in the background going "Right..."
  • The season two episode "NASCAR", which first aired on February 20, 2001, was dedicated to NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt, who perished in an accident on the final lap of the Daytona 500 two days earlier.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Played straight with Titus's mom, who was played by three different actresses (Christine Estrabrook, Frances Fisher, and Connie Stevens), conveniently one each season. The psychiatrist dating her also changed actors between his two episodes. This was not done intentionally, but considering how Ken Titus' girlfriends usually have their face just out of frame it fit the tone of the show, but also demonstrated how dramatically Juanita's mental illness could alter her personality. Conversely, Erin's family was always played by the same actors whenever they show up.
  • Tiffany, the girl Titus slept with in a brief break-up with Erin, was played by a different actress every time she shows up.
• Playing Against Type: David Hyde Pierce, still best-known for playing the nebbish Niles Crane, made a guest appearance as a loud-mouthed and crude motivational speaker who gets along extremely well with Ken.
• Reality Subtext: Titus's real father, Ken Titus, died in mid-second season and Christopher got some time off to take care of things. The first episode upon returning involved Christopher and Ken (played here by Stacy Keach) being manipulated by Erin to take a road trip together, each thinking the other was dying. The real Christopher had to take a break a few times because he felt really uncomfortable doing an episode about the death of his father.
• Real-Life Relative: David Hyde Pierce guest starred in an episode, it was later revealed he had been together with show producer Brian Hargrove for years.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Most of what happens to Titus in the series actually happened to him in real life (the bonfire incident, his mom's suicide, Titus going insane on an airplane following his mom's suicide, Titus being abused by his first girlfriend, Titus living with a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, five-times divorced, womanizing father who always crushed his self-esteem and called him a "wussy"). Members of Titus's family had to sign waivers because of how close it came.
  • And another instance was with actor Zack Ward, who plays Titus's half-brother Dave. Ward is an incredibly white guy who's married to a hot Asian girl, and the producers found that so hilarious, they gave his character an Asian girlfriend named Nancy (first seen on "The Last Noelle").
  • Cynthia Watros cut her short in between season one and two, which lead to some remarks on the change. She also got pregnant and broke her leg later in the season. She had a good laugh over how much they had to scramble to handle those issues.
  • Jokes and stories that were featured in the show but weren't referenced in "Norman Rockwell" would pop up in later stand-up routines by Titus as events that apparently really happened. The story of Christopher's conception (a result of revenge sex involving Juanita's boyfriend yelling outside the room while Ken loudly made sure the guy knew exactly what was going on), the seminar where Christopher starts to understand his dad better, buying a back alley VHS player but got a box of bricks, and others.
  • Titus self-produced a Reunion Show to serve as a Grand Finale to the series, but both the length of time since the last episode, personal changes in his life and the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic during production lead to a massively different resolution to that plotline than originally anticipated. Foremost, Christopher ended up in the mental hospital for eight years instead of the expected three months due to such things as Dave trying to break him out, which made for a lot more catch-up on what had happened to the characters in that time frame.
• Role Reprise: For a Reunion Show Titus produced himself, all cast members from the show return playing the same characters. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Stacy Keach participated solely through videochat. The only one missing was Rachel Roth as Amy, who was more of a supporting character in the third season.
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Titus offended a network executive^note More specifically: he had a meeting with the new president of Fox and disagreed with her suggestion that Titus and Erin break up. But instead of trying to be diplomatic about the situation, Titus proceeded to mouth off in front of her and the roomful of network executives also present. When the inevitable blow back happened, Titus found that there was no one at Fox, or even the TV industry, willing to take his side., leading to events being manipulated until Fox had an excuse to cancel the series. It became one of the many short-lived replacement shows for Family Guy when Family Guy got Un-Cancelled and Peter named off all the shows that aired en lieu of their show between 2002 and 2005 on the episode "North By North Quahog."
  • Managed to be screwed again years later. Fox refused to give up the show's rights or revive it, even if Titus paid for it himself.
• Star-Derailing Role: After he mouthed off to the network president and a roomful of executives during a meeting, Titus saw his show get cancelled and himself become kryptonite for several years and he's largely stuck to stand-up comedy, with very occasional acting roles, since.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Tommy was almost played by Steve Carell.
  • Originally (and according to the DVD commentary), "Insanity Genetic, Part 2" (and, by proxy, the series) was going to end with the revelation that Titus's Neutral Space was actually his room in the mental hospital he was staying after his airplane meltdown and that his sitcom was really Titus acting out his entire life up until he was committed while two security guards watched it on closed-circuit TV, with one of them saying, "Doesn't this guy ever shut up?"
  • Tommy and Dave were going to have their own Neutral Space episodes.
  • Apparently none other than Faye Dunaway was cast to play Titus' mom initially, but she made too many demands and one-by-one the crew refused to work with her, forcing Titus to beg the studio to let her go so he didn't have a mutiny on his hands.
• Written-In Infirmity: Cynthia Waltros both broke her leg and was pregnant late in the second season. This is they wrote Erin as breaking her leg chasing a burglar, and being in a wheelchair with a large purse on her lap for the rest of the season.
• Write What You Know: The show was heavily based on Christopher Titus's actual life and and he had to get his family and friends to sign releases because of how close to reality much of the show actually was.

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