College Times

Media Credit: Courtesy Personal Publicity

Ever since Christopher Titus broke out in the comedy world with “Norman Rockwell is Bleeding,” a standup routine on his family’s dysfunction, the popular comedian has built a reputation on finding funny in unlikely places.

Titus recently spoke with College Times about pain, craziness and suicide, the linchpins of his success.

College Times: What’s it like being back on TV?

Christopher Titus: It’s fun. I don’t get to write on it so it’s weird. Because on “Titus” I had all this freedom…like I was doing everything. I don’t want to be on TV going “Hey, remember me, Christopher Titus from years ago. Well, I’ve done nothing since, now I’m on Poker.com!” I don’t want to be that guy.

What do you know now that you kind of wish you knew when you first started in comedy?

Come and watch the relationship show. I mean [I learned] that some women are literally psychotic, and I wish I had known that then. I’d have gone gay a long time ago.

You can’t really complain because that’s given you a lot of material.

Yeah, I seem to be the engineer on the pain train. Whatever pain comes up, I’m the guy that gets to write comedy about it.

What can you say about sharing that dysfunction with the audience; what does that do for you?

It’s better than therapy. It’s better to get paid for bitching about my life than it is to pay some guy 150 bucks an hour. [But] the more specific you become, the broader your audience. It’s weird. Like with divorce, the more specific I became with my personal painful stories, the more that everyone gets it. Tell your readers this: If you come to my show, this week, it will fix your relationship or fucking destroy it, man. It’ll just kill it.

Anything else you want to add?

I’m one of those comics that if you come see me, you don’t come and see the same show over and over. So I’m like writing a whole new bit about what I found out when I was gonna commit suicide. It’s really actually pretty funny. (laughs.)

Christopher Titus, Tempe Improv, 930 E. University Drive, Tempe, 480.921.9877, Thursday, April 17 through Sunday, April 20, Thursday and Sunday, 8 p.m., Friday through Saturday, 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., $22-$25

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