Trivia / Martin (1992)

• Acting for Two: Besides the title role, Martin Lawrence plays a ridiculous amount of recurring characters.
• The Cast Showoff: Both Tisha Campbell and Tichina Arnold demonstrate their singing voices in a few episodes.
• Corpsing: Several times you can see the other actors attempting to keep straight faces when Lawrence gets into his more outrageous physical comedy, good examples being when he's playing Dragonfly Jones. Martin does it himself while interviewing another comedian.
• Creator Backlash: Garrett Morris was furious at one point about how he was written out of the show. He'd been shot in a mugging gone wrong and suffered life-threatening injuries that kept him in a hospital for a long time. Lawrence and the producers had his character suddenly leave without any notice, which infuriated Morris, who wanted to keep on working and somehow incorporate his condition into the show. What made Morris especially angry was that Lawrence was going on TV to talk about being scared and worried for his co-star but failed to call or visit him in the hospital. Nevertheless, Morris reprised his role once more in the third season. However, it’s likely that Morris still harbors animosity towards Lawrence as he did not participate in the show’s reunion special with the surviving cast for its 30th anniversary in 2022.
• The Danza:
  • Martin is played by Martin Lawrence.
  • Tommy was played by Thomas Mikal Ford.
  • Luis is played by Luis Antonio Ramos.
• Enforced Method Acting: In "Hollywood Swinging: Part 2", when Martin is overacting during his "duet" with Jodeci, no one informed the group that he would be doing this, so their reactions of annoyance were real.
• Friendship on the Set: Tisha Campbell and Tichina Arnold had previously worked together before (even appearing as the background singers in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors), but them playing Heterosexual Life-Partners Gina and Pam, respectively, only deepened their existing friendship. Arnold also became close friends with Martin Lawrence and they remain good friends to this day, which is ironic given their characters' antagonistic relationship.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Martin Lawrence clashed with Tisha Campbell and Garrett Morris. Campbell actually left the show in the second half of the fifth season after suing Lawrence for sexual harassment; Gina's absence was usually handwaved with some line about her being away on a business trip. She only agreed to come back for the two-part series finale after being assured that she wouldn't have to be interact with Lawrence in any way. All of their scenes in the finale were filmed separately, and they only talked to each other by yelling from different rooms, the offscreen spouse's lines being prerecorded. Around 2020 though, Lawrence and Campbell have reconciled with each other and are now friends.
  • Carl Anthony Payne II also stated that he and Lawrence didn't get along, which is surprising considering their onscreen chemistry. They have since reconciled.
  • Ironically, Lawrence did become close with Tichina Arnold, who played his arch enemy on the show, and they remain good friends to this day.
• Not Named in Opening Credits: In the third season, Kymberly S. Newberry had a recurring role as Bernice, a producer on Martin's talk show. She was credited for twelve episodes, but only appeared in four of them.
• Romance on the Set:
  • Averted. Lawrence wanted this with his co-star, but Campbell felt quite differently, leading to the aforementioned tension behind the scenes. It has also been said that there was tension due to her new husband at the time, Duane Martin, being jealous of Lawrence and Campbell on the set and not liking him.
  • Played straight with him and Lark Voorhees, who guest starred as his date in the Season 1 three-part episode "The Break Up". They became briefly engaged in real life.
• Those Two Actors: Gina (Tisha Campbell) and Pam (Tichina Arnold) were two of the background singers for Little Shop of Horrors. They later reunited in Season 4 of Everybody Hates Chris as neighbors.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The "Hollywood Swinging" two-parter was initially going to star Arsenio Hall as himself, but he declined, giving way to Tommy Davidson playing a memorable Expy named Varnell Hill.
  • Originally, the dog Martin used to "interrogate" his friends in "Suspicious Minds" was going to be real Rottweiler, but the network (thankfully) would not shell out the money for one, giving him a fake one instead, to hilarious results.
• Word of Saint Paul: According to Campbell, Tommy works as a counselor at the Boys & Girls Club. She also revealed that the Running Gag of Tommy’s mystery job was added because Thomas Mikal Ford wasn't happy that his character was underdeveloped.