Overcoming a Dark Past (and Managing the Voices In Your Head) to Become Successful In Hollywood | with Christopher Titus

About Episode

“With my life story, I could ask for any antidepressant I want and they would prescribe it to me. Instead, I chose to be an antidepressant.”
– Christopher Titus

Christopher Titus is quite simply one of the best and funniest comics working today. In addition to having ten stand-up comedy specials to his name he’s also an actor, a writer, a director, and producer of TV series, feature films, and he also produces his own daily podcast featuring his infamous “Armageddon Updates.”

Though his list of credits and accomplishments may not show it, Christopher Titus has every reason to be a failure. He was raised in what he calls “total chaos” by “a mentally ill genius” who was his bi-polar and schizophrenic mom and an “alcoholic, hardworking badass” who was his dad. He was a D/F student, ran away from home at age 12, and was on a first name basis with the sheriff. Despite the numerous hardships in his earlier years, Titus has taken what most would use as excuses and flipped them around to become his superpowers.

In short, Titus has built an incredibly successful career…on his failures.

This conversation is a deep dive into what it took for Titus to get to where he is today and succeed in Hollywood. And after throwing him on the ‘hot seat’, he makes it public what the next step in his career will be (and when it will happen). If you’re familiar with Titus, it’s probably no surprise that he holds NOTHING back in this conversation. If you struggle to succeed due to the voices in your head or a dark past that overshadows your present, this episode will flip your mindset and give you a whole new perspective on how to approach your life.

Key Takeaways

Authenticity is the key to success.
Positive people in your life help you see what you can’t.
Find out what you’re good at and apply it to every aspect of your life.
Pick the impossible thing.

Transcript

Zack Arnold: My guest today is Christopher Titus, who's quite simply one of the best and funniest comics working today. In addition to having 10, count them, 10 stand up comedy specials to his name, he is also an actor, a writer, a director, and he's the producer of a TV series, feature films, and he right now produces his own daily podcast, which features his infamous Armageddon Updates. Now though his list of credits and accomplishments may not show it, Christopher Titus has every reason to be considered a failure. He was raised in what he calls total chaos by a mentally ill genius, who was his bipolar and schizophrenic mom and an alcoholic hard working badass who was his dad. He was a D/F student, he ran away from home at age 12, and he was on a first name basis with the sheriff. Now despite the numerous hardships in his earlier years, Titus has taken what most would use as excuses and flip them around to become his superpowers. In short, Titus has built an incredibly successful career on his failures. This conversation is a deep dive into what it took for Titus to get where he is today and succeed in Hollywood. And after throwing him on the hot seat, he also makes it public what the next step in his career will be and by the way, when it will happen. If you are familiar at all with Titus, it is probably no surprise that he holds nothing back in this conversation. So if you struggle to succeed due to the voices in your head, or a dark past that overshadows your present, this episode is going to help flip your mindset and give you a whole new perspective on how you can approach your career and your life. Alright, without further ado, my conversation with actor, director, writer, producer and stand up comedian Christopher Titus. To access the show notes for this episode with all the bonus links and resources discussed, as well as to subscribe, leave a review and more simply visit optimizerself.me/episode 181.

Christopher Titus: What it, Zack, what exactly does your podcast do?

Zack Arnold: Yes. So what my podcast does the Optimizer Yourself Podcast is specifically for creative professionals, most of whom are in the entertainment business like us. But because I'm an editor by default, probably 70% of my audience is people in post. But essentially, I believe my firm belief is that every single person out there has potential that they have not realized. And it's my job to help them realize that potential and design the path towards a more fulfilling career in life. However, the caveat is, they can't do it by sacrificing their health, their relationships or their sanity in the process. And as you know, all too well, Hollywood does its best to take all three from everybody along the way.

Christopher Titus: It's designed that way.

Zack Arnold: It's not a flaw. It's a feature, right? I talked about that. Why is it like this? Can't they figure it out? And like, it's not a flaw? That's the problem. Right? So if you're waiting for the answer,

Christopher Titus: here's why. Because they can't run the people that they need. If everybody has happiness and wholeness, they can't run it. They need you to be insecure, they need you to be messed up in some way. They need you to need them for something. Because the reality is, and this is every meeting I've ever been in the people that seem to be the gatekeepers, not all of them I've met, I've met three, three, that three or four that I really thought were creative. But most of the gatekeepers don't have any background in being creative, don't have any background in actually the talent it takes to actually be in front of the camera or to run a camera or to edit like you do, there's an artistic need, and those people don't have it. And what I've learned is, you know, I've been in show business 40 years, what I feel is, there's a certain group of them that almost are angry that they don't have it. It's the solitary Mozart thing where they're just kind of pissed that they can see it, they're near it, but they can't do it, and it pisses them off. And you know, that's just my excuse for my failing career. Well, so

Zack Arnold: Now that we warmed up the microphone, we're gonna go ahead and we're going to officially get started and I have a feeling we will go a lot deeper than that. But for the sake of anybody, and it's going to be a very small few, but for the sake of anybody that doesn't know, I'm here today with Christopher Titus. And if you're a fan of comedy specifically stand up you probably require no introduction, but I'm going to do one anyways. So you sir, are a stand up comedian, an actor, a writer, a podcaster, an executive producer, director, you run your own production company, you have a huge following on YouTube, but you are also an expert on bonfires and what to do if you have fallen into one. And most importantly, as we will discuss at length during today's conversation and using your own interpretations, you, sir, are a tremendous failure. So on that note, Mr. Titus, welcome to the show.

Christopher Titus: Thank you very much, man. It's good to be here. Thanks for having me on, Zack. We've been friends for a while. On our Sundays we have, we have seen each other at the ragged edge of our abilities constantly. And so it's good to be on with a friend.

Zack Arnold: Yes, and one of my favorite keepsakes of all time. And you may not even remember this, you remember the event, but you probably don't know this part a couple of years ago, it was before the pandemic, you've been fairly well known during the Sunday Tony Horton ninja group to have a rip or two on your hands. And you had one where I think you had like eight and you had this picture where you were like this, that picture was taken with my camera. So in my camera roll just randomly you're going through here, my kids and here's this thing, I have a picture of Titus, going like this with eight rip on his hands. One of my favorite photos

Christopher Titus: With my hamburger heads. I always said that at Tony's if there's ever there's ever a murder at Tony Horton's house, they're gonna find my DNA everywhere they go. Titus is either dead, or he killed these people.

Zack Arnold: Yes, exactly. But well, one of the things there are a lot of things that I love about Sundays, but I'm sure you can attest to this is that it doesn't take long for you to get a sense of somebody's character. Because man, those workouts are hard. And there's adversity and you really see, like you said, not only people at the ragged edge, but facing down fears. And you get to see pretty quickly what somebody's made of.

Christopher Titus: That's true man. And it's also in so many different ways, not just the exertion, exertion part of it, where you're trying to do stuff you've never done, I always just see it as a challenge. It's you see who people are when they fail, which is interesting to watch to me, like you. And I remember the first time cuz I'm always I'm kind of on the lower end compared to some of the bad asses that are there. And I And I'm fine with that. Because I don't you know, you guys are in. And I remember when we first started, everybody kind of moves up. And I got really quick over the fact that I was at the lower end of performance. And I've just started. And what happens is, after a couple of weekends at Tony's, you get to this place where you're like, alright, I don't need to worry about what those guys are doing. I need to worry about what I need to do. So I've been working on everything. And it's getting better every time. And I saw you do that early, where you didn't really give a about what anybody else say. And then there's people that fail. And all of a sudden, they're just screaming at themselves. Like they're all like it can't believe I did that and they're mad and you just want to go no one really cares that you're mad at you. The only person upset here is you. So, and it's in the people that are funny. And what I love about the group, and more than anything is how supportive it is. It's good to go on Sundays, to do something as hard as those workouts are. And to have a bunch of supportive people behind you. And it's interesting how fast the unsupportive get edited out, isn't it?

Zack Arnold: Oh, yeah. Not only that, but the other thing you learned very quickly, not just about people that are facing the fear or the adversity, having gone for a while now. We see a lot of people that come once. You don't see a lot of people that come twice. The first time you're like, I don't know what this is, but I can see I got to work out at Tony Horton's house and then they show up and they think what have I gotten myself into? They wake up the Monday morning after never again, people that show up a second time that says something?

Christopher Titus: Yeah, but there's some stuff that like, like so a few people that don't know I'm sure you've talked about it. But there's Tony has this list that we that we show up to and I've kind of avoided now when I show up to go look at the list I do and I force myself to, but it's a list of exercises, usually between 14 and 16 or 14 and 18. And at one point, you just look at the list and there's no good news on the list ever. There's never an exercise we're like, oh, we're going to be Wait, what are we doing these are sit down a finger flexes these are going to be easy. It's always some horror and he's just horror chuffed a horror show. And and and if people I keep showing up because I want to finally confront some of them I can't do I found myself one day recently, two times ago, Tony's got this 20 foot pole a bar and you have to climb a rope to it. And I'm at the 20 foot top doing pull ups after I've climbed the rope and it's all this extra that he makes you do you have to you have to do an internal kind of assessment like okay, if I do too many pull ups, I am going to drop 20 feet because I can't get down this rope so it's all the mental I love it and and I people are scared I mean that the rope beam post holy crap the stuff that we have to do when you find yourself hanging 1718 feet in the air and then you've got to transfer to another thing and I'll say is it's like martial arts, I trained martial arts a long time. It's like martial arts you get to this place where the fear goes away and it just becomes about technique and I think that's what that's that's what I love about it and the people that continue to show up inspire me you're one of the dudes that as far as me you west as the guys that show up then I'm like alright, I can maybe be with that those guys one day if I just stopped drinking red wine.

Zack Arnold: Well, I appreciate that. So speaking of the Sunday group, I wanted to start there, because obviously that's how we met. Now we got to know each other. And there's a part of the story that you don't know that I'm hoping you're going to enjoy. But when you first showed up to the workout, the first time that we had met, my response was, I think I know that guy. I, I think he's a comedian, I recognize them. So I wasn't a fan of you at that time. So I knew of you and I'm like, I think maybe he's got a show or so whatever. So I wasn't that familiar with you. But Wes was talking all about you like alright, so I'll go on YouTube. And I'll watch a couple of clips. And I don't know if this is by design, if this is the YouTube algorithm if you wanted it to work this way, but I did a quick search. And the very first thing I came across was a five minute clip of one of your stand up routines, where you were talking all about retarded people. And my first reaction was, oh, man, one of those guys, right, like what an asshole. And you may know some of this, you may not know some of this, but the world of disabilities and special needs and people with all kinds of various physical or mental disabilities, huge part of my world my entire life, made a documentary film for eight years about the first quadriplegic to become a scuba diver. I've got other friends of mine that have some mental disabilities. My father's special, I

Christopher Titus: How come I don't know this, we've been friends for a couple. How do, how come I don't know?

Zack Arnold: Because we're too busy destroying ourselves during this workout to have really in depth conversations. So my father has spent his entire life dedicated to teaching kids with learning disabilities and all these other things. My wife, the reason she became a teacher is because she wanted to help kids in special ed. So I was I just had like this immediate reaction like man, I wanted to like this guy. And here he is talking about retarded people. And in five minutes, I don't know how you did it. But I became one of your biggest fans because you are so smart, and how you can take something like the word retarded. And for anybody that's offended by this right now, I understand why you are, watch the five minute clip, we're gonna link to it, you're gonna see why I'm not. But the way that you turn the definition of that word around, was not only smart, psychologically, but it was hilarious. And watching it the fourth or fifth time at preparing for this interview, still in tears, it was so good. And you apply that psychology to everything where I take something that should be offensive, like you should have been canceled 10 times by now. But you take something like you can make Trump voters laugh at Trump jokes. You can make Biden voters laugh at Biden jokes. You can make people that care a lot about others with special needs laugh their asses off at the word retarded. That's not by accident.

Christopher Titus: Yeah, the bit you're talking about. It's called the word retarded. I have a lot of friends. You know, my world is a lot of people with disabilities, one of my niece's has a really rare rare disorder on the autism spectrum, really rare. She's and then and Julie and we grew up with her and, and then I have Michael Ronan, who's a friend of mine, he's a comic who has got CP and he's so funny. And so we and the weird thing is, the further you know, the more you know about a hanging out with and be around people with disabilities, you realize how bad the world really messes with them. And it's constant. It's constant. It's and I think a lot of the world does it unconsciously. But a lot of it doesn't some of its real brutal. And so I would hear stories from Mike and I would see it happen we'd be out somewhere and something would happen. And so and the word retard kept coming up kept coming up, and I I was and then I watched these idiots these these grunt capable people, like had no disability whatsoever, and yet they're living, you know that they're addicted to drugs, or they're beating their wives or they can't seem to hold a job. And I'm like, and then I'm watching these guys with disabilities supposedly can't handle it. Becoming lawyers running their own businesses. Mike's Mike's an actor, comedian, he speaks he travels all over the world speaking. And I'm like, what? These these uh, these abled bodied people seem to be more retarded. So I break down the definition I change the definition. I've had so many parents of kids with disabilities. Just you know, write me and they start out exactly like you do. When I saw this bit. I was so furious. The title is The title is called the word retard. It's on my YouTube channel. And then they would say, but I watched it. And my we were laughing and then I brought my son into watch it and he was clapping. You've changed the definition of what this word means for me you gave the word power as opposed to it make it something that kills people. So yeah, man. I mean the best comics in the world. I Carlin and Lenny blade Bruce would flip stuff in. That's your job. And Robin Williams. There's the the guys that I love would take something and Carlin was a wordsmith and he would take it and go, let's analyze the word and next thing you know, you're like, Oh, I never thought of it like that. So thank you. It's a high compliment that you said that because that's what I tried to do with the bit. That's exactly what I tried to do.

Zack Arnold: And the interesting thing too, is that like I said again, when I first started watching it very offended, like, oh God, where's this going? But it wasn't just a matter of you turn the word. It was the way that you performed it. I could tell it wasn't just well written, I can tell you genuinely felt it. And it actually choked me up because it wasn't just a matter of here's a comic using this word to get laughs as here's a comic and a person, a human being that genuinely wants to protect, and champion people with disabilities. And like you said, you know, it's the white trash beating his wife, there's the retard, right, like the way that but it actually choked me up. I'm like, Okay, I'm instantly a fan of this guy. And from there, I went down the rabbit hole and watched hours and hours. And then we finally scheduled this, this interview, I want rewatched all the same stuff in a different order, which we're going to get to how that was actually really interesting this time. But I just I wanted to start there, because I want to make sure that people go to that link and see that because I think that of all the things you've done. It's one of the best encapsulations of who you are.

Christopher Titus: Oh, that's nice. Well, we did a movie. I always want to do Michael. Michael wrote an actor comic always wanted to get his shot. He wanted his shot and deserved it. And I and I had this idea. One day, I just called him I said, I said handicap police officers. And he goes, what and I go, I just had this idea popped in my head. So I wrote a pilot for Comedy Central that we filmed that Bryan Cranston directed that didn't get picked up called Special Unit. And then it was just something that was burning in my head. So then I wrote a full length movie script a couple years later, and it took a lot of years to get it done. But if you go to Amazon Prime, there is a movie I wrote and directed, called Special Unit where we use 16, to disabled, disabled I hate that word. I don't even know what what's the new word, but some of the actors with disabilities in the movie, and it's basically They're the heroes of the movie, and I'm the worst human, I tried to play every dickhead who makes fun of disabled people, and let them and they and they run it, they take on the bad guy, they stop. By the way, I wrote a comedy where there's a school shooting in it, that's

Zack Arnold: well, that's another thing people should put on their list because I watch that as well. And it's got at least three or four moments like literally on the floor laughing kind of comedy. But again, but again, it was it was done with all the heart in the world, which makes it work, because we know you're doing it for the benefit, right as opposed to at the expense of there's a big difference between those two.

Christopher Titus: dumb people, it's the thing I did with this new bit that's that's in the new special about white supremacy. There's, there's a way to lead the sometimes you can lead people that don't agree with you into a room where they think they agree with you. I did it with arm the children to where all of a sudden they realize, oh, he just flipped the entire thing on me. And I've been wrong. And half of those people get pissed off too. So but you know, I'm still here, everything's working out?

Zack Arnold: Well, the reason I wanted to start with the word disability, so to speak, is that this is one of the things that I talked about in my documentary film, and was really the subject of it. And the takeaway was that everybody has a disability, right. And if we focus on our disabilities, we're just going to wallow in whatever is keeping us down, we're going to make excuses as opposed to let's focus on what we are capable of and focus on our abilities. Right. And one of the things that I think many could say about you, yourself included, is that you didn't have the ideal childhood. Anybody that watches any of your specials knows a lot about your upbringing, especially if they've watched your your sitcom as well. And many will see that as a disability. Right. So the word disabilities we think of it, it's a guy in a wheelchair, right? Because it goes far beyond that. But we all had disabilities in certain contexts, right? If somebody's five feet tall, in the context of becoming a player in the NBA, their height is a disability, if they want to be an acrobat, or American Ninja Warrior, now it's their superpower. So it's for me, disability is all about context. And in the context of being successful, and educated and well rounded. I would call your upbringing a bit of a disability. Yeah, let's Yes, but for anybody that hasn't watched Norman Rockwell is bleeding or the many, many, many hours of the retelling of your childhood. And that's the five minute version just so people get a sense of where it is that you originally came from.

Christopher Titus: My mom, was my my parents were a mentally ill genius, and my mom and then another alcoholic, hardworking badass that was my dad. And then when I say badass, I mean in good and bad ways. I was raised in a kind of just total chaos. That's why the world doesn't bother me that much. I I get mad at certain things, but I don't. I don't respond to it at it with panic or curling up in a fetal position. I stand up and I'm ready to fight back because that's how I was raised. So mom was mentally a mom. I had a 185 IQ spoke four languages, played concert piano, and was crazy as a shithouse rat. She actually shot in killed her third husband. She she showed up to my high school graduation in a long in an army jacket, white vinyl gogo boots. And that was it. So I've lived a weir that my dad drank started drinking beer o'clock noon as beer o'clock. I was driving him home from the place called the Pizza Shack when I was, you know, 910 years old because he'd been drinking too much, which is weird was such a such a weird integrity. And my father, he would drink so much he couldn't drive. But he taught me to drive so early. He's like, I'm gonna let you drive home. You're not licensed. But I'm pretty hammered. And you're nine, but you can handle it better than I can. So he had an odd an odd integrity. He had an AW, it was it was it's such a delusional integrity, but but my dad had this weird kind of integrity. So I was raised by those people. Divorce was bad. I ran away when I was 12. And live with my mom and everything my dad had been talking about my whole life about her. Because like, there was things like I was left with, I was left with relatives, my sister on my mom's side, my mom dropped off her friends one time and just disappeared for like three weeks, and they found her in a doorway in San Francisco. She covered it covered in Romans for blood. And that's, that's the phone call we got when I was like, and I'm a teenager at that point. And it just things got out of hand all the time. And I'm so used to that now, when when I lived with her, we got evicted three times. At one point, I got to share with you like Amen. So you gotta you gotta move out. I'm gonna go how's it going, Doug? You know, I'm seeing a 12 year old should know the sheriff is what I'm saying. Anyway, and then and then I would correct the form. This form isn't exactly right. Can you fill this out? So you shouldn't know that at 12. So my, my upbringing was chaotic. I was a DNF student. And, and then one day, I was I remember being five years old, I went to sleep listening to Bill Cosby. And I decided to be a comedian when I was five. And then kind of after that, nothing else really mattered. I live my life and telling people at five you're going to be a comedians, like, tell them you're gonna be an astronaut or a cowboy. They don't care.

Zack Arnold: I'm not sure that that's actually even as good as that. That's like, because if you do become an astronaut, well, then that's amazing. If you do become a comedian, is that still a good thing? Like, I don't know.

Christopher Titus: You have to make up at family gatherings, they have to make up another job that you do. So anyway, so my, my parental bringing was pretty. I mean, I listen, man. This is this is their, this is when I start to get to a gray area. People tell me Oh, I feel so bad. You were raised like that. But if you look what I did with it, there's I couldn't be where I am without being raised by that. So I when people have sympathy or they're like, oh my god, that was a horrible upbringing. It was just my upbringing. I think. I think there's so many things in life that I didn't I didn't get here in spite of I got here and because of it, because now I know, because like comedy 2% of people making a show business 2% And I've been in it for 40 years, and whether you know, I'm not I'm not Dave Chappelle famous, not Dave Chappelle rich, but I make a good living doing what I love. And without the chaotic insanity of my life. I don't think I can handle the chaotic insanity of showbusiness. So I'd never I it was just my life as somebody who will take their lives and they, they keep looking backwards at at it like, Oh, my God, look, I was raised. This is why I do that. Now. Well, if you know that, why are you still doing that? If you know that you're, if you if you continue to blame the past, for your present and your future, you're never going to get anywhere, you got to turn and just look at the future, pick a thing. And in spite of whatever you think happened to you, whatever you think is gone wrong. Look at the future and go, that's where I'm going. Yeah, but what about the past passes over doesn't matter can't fix it can't change it. That's where I'm going. That's how I kind of tried to live.

Zack Arnold: And that is the thing that I appreciate about you and other people is that there's a moment where there's a choice. And the vast majority of people, whether you were raised by an alcoholic, or there was abuse or whatever it might be, they repeat the cycle. The obvious option is there going to repeat the cycle, if somebody beats their kids, that person that was the kid is probably going to beat their kids, it's going to be there because it's going to be their kids. But then there's somebody that says, Nope, I'm going to consciously make the choice that I'm going to break the cycle. And I'm going to focus on what I can do going forward. And so few people do that. And as soon as I started, listen to your stand up specials, that's what stuck out. You had the choice to just say, I was a DNF student, like look at the hands that I was dealt, like, can you blame me for being a giant massive failure? And instead you decided, You know what, I am going to continue to be a massive failure but in a very, very high level and just first point of reference for anybody. It's like why do you keep calling him a failure? Watch a stand up you'll know what I'm talking about. You have an entire special dedicated to one failure after another after another after another and it's brilliant. I fail the church actually fail. Yeah. And it's just one thing after another just when you think you can't get any crazier up, no. But wait, there's more.

Christopher Titus: And then at the end, it flips to, like one of the one of our American superheroes, basically takes it all away in one sentence. It's i That's a good special all true, by the way that lets that Bruce, whose story happened, I still I still get chosen, I think about it.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. So the, that's one of the things that I really appreciate is when people make that choice and decide, You know what, despite what I've been handed, I'm going to find a way to make the best of it and focus on my abilities. Again, instead of my disabilities.

Christopher Titus: You have to be careful too, because I made a choice. My dad got divorced, five to six times, and, and he got divorced. So many times I say, hit a marriage license, gold card is one of the gentlemen. And he, so I made a decision as a kid that I'm not going to get divorced, I'm going to work on it makes you sweat. And because I've made that choice, I stayed with the wrong person for way too long. So you kind of have to, it's a balance, you have to figure out what the what the best thing for you is. Because I because no matter what she did, I was like, Nope, I'm not getting divorced. And my dad did that. So you have to be careful not to make choices, not to make pot what you think are positive choices also based on your past, because they may not be positive choices. You just got to turn towards the future and keep going. You know, try to try to make the right choice for you. But it's weird when people use that as an excuse. I was just thinking when you were saying it. The guy B got beaten as a kid beats his kids, beats his kids and I and on my son I actually was I acted like my dad. After the divorce. I kind of acted like my dad towards my son a little bit. And we had a long talk about that. Actually, we've had a couple but even yesterday, I talked about it. And I kind of tried to explain to him I said, you know, man, I thought that was the way you get here and it didn't make a difference. And so yeah, it's Dude, I don't know, man. We're an absurd bag of blood hair at bone just walking through the planet trying to figure it out. And as I said, my new special no one's gonna remember us anyway. So why aren't you just doing the best for you? While you're here and the best for the people around you? You know? I don't know.

Zack Arnold: And not only your bag of bones, your bag of somebody else's bones in your job. anybody watches your latest special?

Christopher Titus: Yeah, well, the latest. We actually get some people there's that white supremacy but some people are. Most everybody they the overwhelming response that 98% is like, Dude, this is great. It's amazing. How a bit about proving disproving white supremacy brings out the inner K K. K. It's so many. Dude, some of the stuff I'm getting on the comments because it's a blew up. It's got so many views, but it's amazing what people you care. Do like do your self hating. You're hating yourself. No, I hate you racist. So yeah, I you know, man, I listen, if you I was lucky enough, whatever you do, and you do the same with you with what you're doing right now, with this podcast, you know, you're trying to make a difference. We only get a little time here. So you can be crazy. You can do whatever, but but whatever you do, well, there's a bonus if he tried to do something good with it. I don't, you know, I try in my shows, to always give people what I loved about George Carlin was that he how brilliant he was. He's a wordsmith, the stuff the guy was literally, I still watch some of his bits. And I'm like, well, thanks for mining that subject. Because no one else was ever going to be able to write a joke about that, because you went to every corner and just mined it. But he never there's a lot of times he left us with a crunchiness no hope, but there's no there was no solution. It was just this is how it is. And so I always try my comedy try. I'll drag you through that part. But then I want to go, okay, hey, it could get better. If he try this. Maybe this was gonna work. I tried to get people to live, I try to bring a little light to the situation.

Zack Arnold: Which is another reason that I absolutely love all of it is that despite it being a lot, let's say a lot of doom and gloom. All it has to do is go on YouTube and read the Show special names. That's it. Right? And we've got American fifth annual End of the World Tour. Love is evil with a spelling error. By the way. I don't know if anybody's pointing Oh, it's backwards. It's love backwards. Oh, is the ol about that love is evil? Yeah. So what's what's interesting about all of your specials, at least for me is that the first time I watched it, I'm very much a completionist. I'm very OCD that way. If somebody introduces something to me, or I gotta start from the beginning, and I must watch them all in order, because that's the way the creator intended it right? This time, I was like, I've already seen everything, and I just gone to your latest special. I'm like, You know what, let me just go backwards. Let me just say that having gone backwards and watching Norman Rockwell is bleeding plays so differently because you're talking all about your first wife and your marriage and the chaos that hadn't happened yet. And then you watch that before you watch the Titus show. And I know it's just called Titus. But like the Titus show itself, the sitcom, it's really interesting to see it backwards and see the D evolution in a different order.

Christopher Titus: Yes. I slowly turn into a zygote and intellectuals like, I don't know anything. I'm flailing a lot more than

Zack Arnold: I Benjamin Buttons, you basically, what happened. The other interesting thing that I noticed, which is going to really be a nice segue or transition, as they call it, in the industry, to the next subject, is that if you were to watch pretty much anybody over the course of a 20 3040 year career, you're going to see a huge evolution, you're going to see their earlier stuffing. And really, yeah, they were kind of still trying to figure it out. They had found their voice or whatever you go to your first special, you watch that with your last special that I just saw two weeks ago. There's no difference. Like, I've not gotten better at always, no, you suck equally as much. Special one special 10 Because he's on Sunday. Yeah, like, when is this guy ever gonna get better at his craft, right? But obviously, it was the opposite. But one of the things that I admire about you is number one, your output and your consistency, but the fact that it's always consistently at a high quality. And again, that doesn't happen by accident. We've talked about process a little bit on Sundays before, but I want to know, how is it that you are so consistently working at a high level and have done so for essentially 40 years?

Christopher Titus: It's weird, because it wasn't always like that. When I started comedy. My entire thing was to be Bill Cosby, who was one of my heroes until he became super rapey. So I, I wrote stories, I have old video, we're going to put it up at your window and we're just going to kind of cut together a compilation of horrible I was when I started, but it was all energy and there was no substance. And I started to hate myself about I was 12 years and then I was headlining clubs and you know, locally and big clubs and stuff and and I was making more money than my dad made, which wasn't a whole lot of money. But But I was doing okay. And

I started to really hate myself. And here's why I started to hate myself. I started hating myself because I realized what I was doing on stage had no value to it. It was just now laughters value. People say, Oh, you're making me laugh. Yeah. But I was doing it with tricks and devices. And I wasn't there was no, there was no Carlin insight. There was no Robin Williams insight. There was no you know, there was nothing in it that people could take away. And I saw Lily Tomlin do signs of intelligent life years and years ago, when she was first working on it. It's this special. It's just one person show where she's played like 10 characters in it. But holy crap, man, my manager time made me go watch it. And I watched it. And I was like, I don't know, maybe 2021 at the time. And I was in San Francisco at the at the Great American Music Hall. And I watched it. And at one point, Lily Tomlin is doing four characters at one time having a conversation, a very funny conversation. And she was so good at it that I saw every character as she was switching characters. And then being a performer I realized, holy, she's doing four people at one time having a conversation and I didn't. And I saw the four people, I didn't see one person doing it. And that's when I realized I needed to quit comedy and never do comedy again. Because there's no way I was going to be that good. And I'm still not that good. So I walked out that day with a different mindset of comedy. And I started doing these bits. I did a bit about when Reagan later and Reagan at the end of Reagan's presidency about Russia, about Russian, this Russian guy comes to America and he tries to buy a Playboy magazine but the but the Mormons had just bought a seven elevens. So he couldn't get he couldn't get a playboy at seven elevens. So he thought what's happening to America, we're losing our and it was this bit where I played this Russian character the entire time. I went way deep into all this other because Robin and Lee Tomlin and then but I still was doing club comedy, which is talking, you know, you're just doing whatever it took to get by stories about this. But when you remember when you were a kid, or go to the store and buy stuff, it was just lame. And then I started to hate it about 12 years in, I started to hate myself where I'd be on stage and a bit would come you get a comic you have a list of show you do a show a certain way. And you have a bid list in your head or it's on a notepad and it's on a piece of paper on the stool that you're reading. And I see the next thing I had to say, and I'd hate ice I kind of don't want to go through this again. Geez, I hate this bit. Bah bah bah, and I would do it. So I was going to quit. I decided 12 years and that I was going to quit comedy I'm not doing this anymore. The phrase I used as I call it growing a tumor on my soul. I decided I just could no longer tolerate my lameness is what I call it lameness. And so I decided to do something different. I wrote this book called We need comedy to get rid of our desire to kill. I wanted to throw everything I did out and try something. But the bit starts out you know You know, comedians HIT THE STAGE Zack, they're like, Hey, how you doing? Well, it goes feeling good, everybody. Good, right? So and that went on everybody. That's how everybody starts every show ever. I walk on stage with this new bit, and I went, do you guys even know why you're here is because you like paying $4 for a beer? No, we're here tonight because comedy gets rid of our desire to kill. And the audience the first thing you remember, this is when Seinfeld was huge. So nobody was even no one was banging against this. Because maybe Hicks. But, and I remember doing it the first night I was so scared of doing it, it was so far out of the wheelhouse I've been working in. But I took the buddy from acting class. And I do this bit where it's the worst it's in one of my I put it in one of my later specials because when I wrote it, I wasn't good enough to pull it off. And it's this story about the worst day you can possibly have from driving to work and spilling coffee to it having HR department call you in because a woman at work so you molested her and to to you go to the boss and he starts his conversation with with you're not fired, but And while he's ordering a Mercedes on the phone. And at the end of the last piece of the bid. It's funny all the way through. I'm stabbing him in the chest with a letter opener screaming, I just need a good laugh. And then I would go the audience. And that's why you're here tonight. And the first night I did. It's about three and a half minutes long. It was a musical that you speed on town. And I knew I brought my friend Tyson told my buddy Eric, I said get me out of here. I said because because they're gonna hate me at the end of this bit. So you just need to get me out of there. They went nuts. They went nuts that they were like, well, I don't have anything else to do now. I have one dream in a bit. I got to do 15 minutes. And I have to feel 12 minutes. And I don't have anything in that genre. And here's where I learned I've told this story before I learned the most important thing you can ever learn about performing in front of a live audience. Authenticity. I draw I was it was the first time in my career I'd ever been authentic. I was successful at my job. But I was unmemorable. This three minutes was the first time I got on stage and was totally 100% entirely authentic. I dropped right back into my old act to get through the next 12 minutes. Cuz I was gonna get booed off. I dropped into the next 12 minutes and the audience went dead silent. They say and I walked out, I was driving home like, wow, I was killing and then I sucked. And I I finally got that the audience stopped liking me, because all of a sudden, I started lying to them. They saw who I was, they saw what I wanted to do. And all of a sudden, I started lying to them. I told him the truth for three minutes, that I lied to him for 12. And they were like, fuck this guy. And that's what happened. And then I that night, I went home. And I threw out 12 years of comedy threw it out. And I started from scratch. And that's where Norman Rockwell is bleeding came from

Zack Arnold: absolutely amazing story. I had no idea about any of that. I thought that I knew a lot about you that point I didn't know. So that, to me is absolutely fascinating, which is going to lead into so many other things I want to talk about one of which is the name of one of your specials, but we're gonna go a lot deeper. It's the idea of the voices in your head. Something that I talk about with creatives all the time on this podcast is failure and impostor syndrome. And you went in that one little bit with three massive case of imposter syndrome. Why am I doing this? I'm a total fake. And there's no question that in my mind, one of the reasons that I think you are so successful and the reason I gravitated to your stuff, is I don't feel like I'm watching a stand up comedian. I feel like I'm watching a human talk about their story very honestly. And it's just funny when you do it. Like watching most comedians, I don't feel like I know them. Right? I watched Sebastian man Scalo I don't know who he is, you know, he's convened he's got fun comedy and whatnot. But I there's no connection there Right? With you. There's this connection because you feel very real. I was like, Man, this guy's gone through some stuff. Right? And that's what you feel. And I didn't even know that there was a version of you that you know, those basically, isn't it crazy when you go to the dry cleaners? Like right like I can't even imagine you being that comedian.

Christopher Titus: We wanted to do a we want to do like a me. I think we're gonna do a review video of it where I on YouTube where I watched me being me way back when I was 20. And I think I'm just gonna sit here and just review me like as the guy I am now review that guy. I think it's gonna be really funny. Anyway, so yeah, the voice in my head. So I did a thing called the landmark forum. A buddy of mine is a doctor, a holistic doctor Nuka doctor, it's a specific kind of chiropractic. That's very exact. They don't guess that's because chiropractors they guess they snap you around and pray you go back to an aid center. But as my buddy says, if that was the case, the accident would have fixed you. So which when I got that I was like, Oh, really thinking about that. So they do nuke is very specific. That's been on Triple blind studies. It's just the best thing to say my life. I used to have dark circles had horrible sciatica. That's all Got. That being said, so he kept telling me you got to do this thing called the landmark forum. I looked it up. It was based in este in the 70s. And it changed landmark forum. And then the guy that invented it for somehow was friends with the guy from Scientology. And I, and I'm a comedian, and I'm very cynical. And I'm like, You know what? I'm not gonna go sell flowers in the airport. I am not going to drink the Kool Aid. But my buddy who's really enlightened, I call him my crazy friend Marshall. He, he's so enlightened. And he would just have these solutions. Well, although I wouldn't take the course. Every time someone wrong in my life, I would call him. Like, I would go, what do I do here? And he would tell me, he go, here's what I think you should do. And he goes, you know, you got to look at your future by law. Why don't you just take the course I'm not doing it. I'll call you later. Then I get in a fight with my dad. And I call Marshall and be like, Dude, I got a fistful. My dad was screaming each other. He would talk me through it, and go, Why don't you take the course Shut up. So I wouldn't take this course. I wouldn't. wouldn't, wouldn't wouldn't. And you can look it up landmark forum. It was its life, life transforming for me. So finally, what happened was I I was doing well in LA man, well, well, it's such a relative term in LA, there's so many levels of Well, I had a good agent, I had made it to the final like leads on like, six different pilots. When pilot season like I got to the final audition me in the last guy, it was between him and I. And I got there. And in the middle of those auditions, I was fine up to the final audition when I realized it was all on the line. And all of a sudden, in my head, you're a D, a student, you're a failure. You've never done anything with your life. Why are you even here? You don't even know what you're doing? What are you doing? You fumbled you faked your way to here and now you're gonna fail again. And now what had happened six times, and I lost every audition. And I went home. After the 616 or seven, the one pilot my agent calls he goes, they called and said, You didn't get it. But don't worry, next pilot season, you know, we'll be here soon enough. And I went home. And I was like, I got to change something man I got there's I have to this is not working. So I called the forum, I signed up. And then I made the mistake of signing up my wife, who's now my ex wife, she was so mad at me. I don't want to do it by myself. And I signed up and took the course. Then I took the advanced course. And within two years after that course, I had a deal for my own television show where I was executive producer and writer and then ended up being Titus. And all it did all it did was it doesn't give you anything it doesn't. It's really a course about self examination where you clear your past anything that's holding you back from the past. And then the advanced course sets your future where you get to pick your future, whatever you want to happen in life can happen. I'm a DNF student with no nothing on paper says I should be successful. Within three years after I took the advanced course not only that I'm on television show, but I got a Writers Guild nomination for an episode that I wrote. And they we got beat by Everybody Loves Raymond. But it that's impossible. There's nothing on this one. Everybody says I can't do it. Because yeah, shut up. Shut up, because I did you know, I did. And now I've written and directed my own movie. It's like it's it teaches you to get rid of all your all your barriers went away all my barriers. I don't have barriers, you know, and that's why I think Tony's is easier for me because I know, I accept, okay, as I said years ago is it's a it's an Edison, quote, I never fail, I succeeded finding what doesn't work. It's just a modification to that. And that's what the forum taught me. And I started a charity out of that, and, and all it really, really gave me was the ability to be fearless. And that's what Tony's does to that. And then just Sunday, people were gonna die one day, it's all gonna go away. You as I say, in my new show, we're all gonna lose. What are you scared of? Failure? No, no one's gonna care anyway, no one else except you cares. Now, what are you worried about? Fearlessness, you know? And if you fail, you just found out what didn't work, you actually got better. Anyway, that's how I tried to live anyway.

Zack Arnold: Well, I absolutely love that one of the things that I wanted to get into even a little bit deeper. And this is something that I teach all of my students, especially the ones that come for the career side of things, looking for the next gig can take a look at my resume or you know, helped me with an outreach email. I think that it's all about the strategy and the strategy is important but they don't understand the mindset component. And what I always tell them it doesn't matter if they say I'm hoping to be a director someday or I'm hoping to go from assistant editor to editor be a composer and I say enough all that hope crap. Do you believe that you are that thing? Well, no, not yet. Like it tell you believe it, nobody else is gonna believe it. Right? So you can say I want to be a director, and then you expect somebody to hire you as a director, then you become one. It doesn't work that way. You have to believe you are the thing first until other people believe you are the thing and you're getting to second to the you know the top chair on a pilot, but in your head you're like, I'm not the lead of a pilot or You crazy what? They knew that too, because you knew it already?

Christopher Titus: Right? I told him. I didn't. I didn't say the words, but I came into the room with it. This guy's not a star. This guy's not the lead. Or maybe you were talking 100% Right. That's crazy.

Zack Arnold: You actually walk into the room and your final your final audition? All right. So I'm a DNF. Student. I have no been saying all this out loud. Oh.

Christopher Titus: Yeah. Interesting. You know, you just said you just you just you'd crystallize it. That's exactly what happens. So what happens at the end of the forum, I do the advanced course I turn to the forum leader, a guy named Jerry, I'll never forget him when I go here. Because you kind of you, they make you you sit down and they don't coach you and you design your future. They just coach you on they don't they don't pick it. They don't tell you you do this well, that you just sit down what what's your impossible. And I sat down and it was my own television show that I write and produce. So and I came up with Titus, the idea was, I want to create a show that causes a paradigm shift in the way people see their dysfunctional lives, not as a failure, but as a success. And so I so and I can't, and I do, I had this and I had this inside, like a bulk of my and I went to Jaron and Jerry, I go, I'm gonna create a TV show, that's gonna cause a paradigm shift. And I do the whole thing. And he goes, Great. And then he just walked away, because you know, he didn't get it. That's what's great about the course, they don't care. And then I did it, I did it. And I knew I was going to do it. I didn't have because I cleared my past all the both my dad and my mom and being a loser and a DNF student, because I really cleared that. I don't carry it around his baggage, I use it for jokes now. Because I cleared it, it was so easy to step into a new future and decide I was that guy. And I don't mean I chose I m a. And then three years that I had a Writers Guild nomination without going to college. So you're right, dude, you have to decide this is who you are. And it's not a trick. That's the part, people, you can say it and the more you say it, the more it will become real. But it's not a trick. You can't just you have to figure out what you do. Well, I'm really good at stories, I'm really good at insight into stuff. I'm good at taking, taking what everybody believes is one way and flipping it. I'm good at that. So that's what that's when that's where I wanted to go. You know, if you ask me. Math, give me a math job. I'm pretty much gonna get fired.

Zack Arnold: Well, you were a D/F. Student after all right? So yeah, of course, you're going to so one of the things that

Christopher Titus: I eventually had figured out math. Sure. If I was like, You know what, I want to be a mathematician, I would figure it out.

Zack Arnold: You figure it out. Because you're a smart guy. It's it's not one of your strengths. We are still obviously incredibly intelligent. It's just not an area that you have enough desire to get good at it. Right? There's a difference

Christopher Titus: That's part of it. That's my daughter's a musician. Now. Our name is Kenny Kaye. And we named after my dad, but she it's K and I, and she's a musician. And she writes song. And at 12 years old, she was writing songs. And I'm like, What are you doing? She's spitting out songs like all the time. And I told her, she came to me, and she wanted to have lunch, and we get divorced was bad. And I didn't see her that often. And she said, I want to. I see. I said, What are you doing with college, she's gonna hire and she goes, I want to play music. And I knew she was a trick she because I'm a comedian. And she she knew that asking me, I can't say you have to go to college. I was like, Yeah, I guess you can do what you want. And now she's making money doing that. But she believes she's a musician. She knows that's who she is. I know. But I didn't, you know, as so many people, I don't understand. You said as, as you're told as a child, you're a failure. You're not doing it right. You're a loser. That little voice in your head, we're back to that now becomes that voice in your head, people that you're hearing is not you. It's everybody. You were raised by everybody in your life who told you you're gonna fail, you're not gonna make it. This, you can't do this. You're not good enough for this. You screwed that up. You broke that you spilled that. That voice is not you, it sounds like you because it's in your head. But it's just an implant from all the people that weren't real positive in your life. And once you recognize that and separate that voice from you, you can tell that voice to shut up. I just gotta shut up. That voice pops up once in a while. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing that you're out. And it's gone. But just know when you hear that voice in your head tell you how bad you suck. It ain't you. It's it's a parent that is no longer around. It's a friend that screwed you over. It's in a relationship that made you feel like it ain't you. And just be clear about that.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, one of the biggest kind of eye opening moments that I had very similar to this in all the personal development work in psychology. I mean, I'm just I'm absolutely obsessed with all this stuff. As much as I am obsessed with Ninja and everything else. I'm not so good with hobbies. I have obsessions. And this is definitely one of mine. And several years ago going through this process, I was talking to somebody about all the things that I was experiencing and dealing dealing with and they asked me a question that totally threw me off. When I was talking about you know, what are the things that were in my head, they said, whose voices It, like, that's a dumb question. It's my voice. She's like, No, give the voice a name. Why is it the voices in me and all of a sudden, like this, I'm like, Oh my God, I know whose name this is. I knew exactly who the voice was. That's when it shifted for me. Because now I can say, shut up, like, stop talking. Right? Because it's not me. It's that other person's voice. And I sometimes have that person's voice in my head. What is in my head all the time now, and you can probably attest to this is Tony's Yeah, right. Yeah, Saturday afternoon, you get the email, and you're just like, I can't use 90% of the words that he would probably use to get us to show up. Because, you know, we want to keep this as clean as possible and not offend anybody. But at the end of the day, that's a voice that I now have in my head 90% of which is positive 10% of what you know, can you know kind of noodle Yeah, and you know, kind of, you know, give you the the poke in the ribs that you need. But what I learned is that, you're never going to be able to get rid of the voices, whether it's your own whether it's other people's, you just got to get really good at replacing those voices with other people's voices that give you the belief and the confidence that you can do certain things.

Christopher Titus: And they quiet down those voices don't like to know that you know, that, that it's not you, those voices don't like to know. And they keep popping up me. It's my mind mind is based in mostly my dad, and I gotta be honest, and you know, so many people told me that because my mom was crazy. I was gonna be crazy. And whether that's true or not, I've at least channeled it into a decent way. But yeah, you're Yeah, those voices don't like to be recognized as not being used. They want them that they want those voices want. We're talking like we're schizophrenics right now. Those voices want you to not notice that it's not you, but it ain't you. And it's giving you names a great idea. That's a great idea, because then that time it jumps in as I'm doing that. That's helpful. Because it because by the way, you can't kill them, you know, you can't kill them, they get quieter, and they don't show up as much. But in a moment of stress and a moment where you need to really show up that and I will tell you this, we had one shot that special you came and saw, we had one shot at one because I picked the weekend to film at the same weekend and Netflix did their Netflix comedy can extravaganza where you know where Gabriel was doing. Dodger Stadium and Patton was playing the theater and Bill Burr was doing this everybody who's great in comedy was in LA that weekend. And my manager said you're not going to sell a ticket to this. And I said no, we're gonna I go, we'll fill it up. He goes, I'm telling you, people, you know, they're gonna go see those guys. And we actually had we had a packed show, we just didn't have to. So I had one shot. And I was backstage. And here's the difference between who I was back then fearful worried with the voice hearing the voice of my own, to who I am now. My my producers freaking out, my crews freaking out my sound guys freaking out. And my wife, who's the line producer, and the executive was just freaking out. And because nothing was working. And I said, Guys, guys, guys, Everybody calm down. Listen, if we horribly fail at this, and it sucks, we had a very expensive rehearsal. Everybody just looked at me and went Oh, so because I reframed it because I wasn't afraid of what was gonna happen. I just reframed it for everybody, all of a sudden. And that's sometimes is and I don't want to say leadership. But sometimes, if you can just eat whether it was a year, it's your goals, somebody's goals or a group goal. When the stress hits, try to reframe it in a way that because you're going to do the same thing anyway, you can actually operate at a full stress operate out of failure. If you're imagining failure, I guarantee you there's a more disciplined there's a bigger percentage, you're going to hit failure than if you're not thinking about failure. Or if you just accept that, hey, this is gonna fail. It's fun while we're failing. All of a sudden all the pressure goes off. One more story about this and I move on what I learned. My My wife is a comedian too. If she's she's she used to run comedy clubs. We got together, she started giving me jokes jive, she comes to one of my shows be like, what if you said this? And damn it. The jokes were funnier than some of the Daiken right? And I was getting mad. I was furious. I was like, don't you help me? I'm the pro you I don't need. And so she kept doing it. And now he's using her jokes. So you know, there's a couple of jokes I use that we're killing. And there's one in this new show that she gave me right before. And so I finally said, I said, You need to be a comedian. She'd book comedy for six years. And she goes, I don't want to be committed. No. I said, Yeah, you do. Because you keep giving me jokes. You keep coming up with funny. You may not see you because her she had her voice in her head. And I said you don't see it, but I see it. So she spent a year and she wrote a show. And she wouldn't get on stage. Because that voice in her head. We knew she was going to fail. And so I went and I signed her up for a comedy competition without telling her. I signed her up for comedy competition. And I came home and I said I signed you up for this comedy competition at the Ice House. And she has actually flipped out on me. She was like You don't tell me and I run my life and all when I'm good and ready. And then she said, when is it? And I was like Ah, she came in second.

Zack Arnold: Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, she's hilarious by the way. So anybody that you know wants to go down the tightest rabbit hole they should be going down the Reirei rabbit hole afterwards because she's she's phenomenal

Christopher Titus: Sometimes you know the people. It's weird how sometimes the people that are the most positive in your life, they're trying to help you be get everything you want. It's not because they're trying to pump you up. It's because they can actually see what you can't. So sometimes, I for a long time, I listened to the insults or I listened to the to, you know to the dismissiveness of people towards what I wanted to do, and didn't listen to the people that said, Yeah, you should definitely do that. Because I because all of a sudden, that voice tells you those people are crazy. But those people are the ones that see you for who you really are. And and they care enough about you. So it's a you got to you always have to listen to people in your life, man. Gotta listen to people in your life.

Zack Arnold: So given everything we've talked about so far, you certainly sound very successful to me. And I don't know why I keep bringing up failure. What I love to talk about now a little bit more, and you allude to it in your special but because we're all you know, talking about the industry and how the industry works. What in the world happened to your sitcom?

Christopher Titus: Oh, I would say a success and money is a is probably the worst drug in the world. Success does two things. Success aside from money those two things it especially to especially fame. It makes everybody around you kiss your ass. It makes everybody around you all of a sudden either afraid to tell you or they still want to be connected to it. So they just get really like you're great. You're awesome. When when you hear that long enough. You're your genius the comedies Gee oh my god, you got to writer's go nomination, you don't even go to college, your genius. You start to think you're right, all the time. So I was in a meeting. Wait, Titus, we had three. So if Titus was killing we are and we were we kind of broke the mold of the sitcom a bit. So Malcolm in the Middle. Because I hated sitcoms. And when I came with the idea for Titus, I just, I didn't want to do a sitcom. And George Burns years ago had just done this one where he would turn to the camera talk and I thought were stealing that. And I had to fight the network in the black and white. I had to fight the network on the flashbacks. But it was a constant fight. And in fact, it was such a fight. But the script was so funny that myself Jack, Jack Kenny and Brian Hargrove have written that the network couldn't deny the script was funny. It was such a weird thing. They're like, we think this is funny. And we know it won't work. That's pretty much what we're calling a one on one meeting. So what we're going to do is we're going to give you a pilot and a very little bit of money. And so what the so and here's what else I've learned in life, when you think everything's going wrong, that's the way it's supposed to go. And how do I know that because that's the way it went. When you think it's all wrong when you when all these goals that you set didn't happen and these other goals happen. Sometimes getting the getting a bad answer is exactly what you need it you just have to kind of it. It's faith in the universe, man so so they give us a little bit of money. We cast the show, we get it done a day before we're filming on the run through before we shot the pilot. The network comes to us and says, We don't like Cynthia Watrous we don't think she's funny, and we're gonna recast. And so Jack Bryan and I had a meeting and Brian very smart Brian Hargrove, very smart man says it's not it's not hurt us. And I looked at him, he goes, we wrote it wrong. So the three of us and the writers got into a room and we rewrote her entire character because we had made her this kind of ditzy, kind of funny, and she wasn't, she's wicked smart. And she could and for whatever reason, it just wasn't. Again, we're back to authenticity. And she what we didn't write her as who she was. So we switched it and wrote her as a snarky noble cut to the bone, a person and her opening monologue killed we went from and that was when she learned it, and one day came in and blew the roof off. So because they said we're going to recast, and we, we had to go rewrite, and we did and we fixed it. So the bad news was actually the best news we could possibly get. Then what happened was the other bad news we got we finished the pilot it did well, and they said, We're gonna put you on on the fall season and we were so excited. Two weeks before they announced the schedule, they called us and they said, We're not putting you on the fall season. We're moving into mid season now mid season, if people know that's when they put shows they don't think it's gonna do well and they hide them later on. That's changed but at the time, it was like that. So we realized they don't think we're gonna fit. They put Malcolm in the Middle on instead. And I was so pissed, man, I was so angry. Now what happened was was that was the year that of the 16 shows that Fox put up in the in the new season. Within three weeks, 13 of them were canceled. It was good. It was a bloodbath, man, they just 13 shows cancelled. So when the when the mid when the when the mid season came up in March, we were put on, I think March 16, or whatever we were the golden child, they were like, You're not gonna believe this show. So those two horrible disappointments, you know, made us get better. And we're actually the exact right thing. So then three years in shows doing well, I'm killing myself. I'm up. I'm writing till till midnight with the writers room and then I'm going down. I'm just giving you the excuses of why what happened happened. But the reality is, I just should have shut the excuse my language. Sorry, I think we're at Tony. Sometimes I'm hanging out.

I, we had a meeting at the network. We had three presidents and three years, three different presidents Doug Herzog, who was awesome. Doug goes on to great executive. He's one of the member I said early on, there was four or five people that I really think are super creative, and they get it. Doug Herzog isn't one of them. He's this guy. And then he ran Comedy Central after Fox, he was president of Fox nine. And he would be like, if it was working, he'd be like, keep doing what you're doing. It's great. That's all he would say. He understood creativity. He understood that the artists seemed to have a handle on what's going on. Every week. They're turning out quality. Every week, they're doing their job, let it go. Because so many executives want to pee on it. They just want to pee on it. They don't care. They don't care what you know, to work that I mean, to accommodate that time. 20 years almost. They don't care that you know, they want to be part of it. So they're gonna pee on it. Even if they don't know. Doug is one of those executives smart enough to have be creative and no one he doesn't know. Killer. Then we had another guy Sandy Bouchard came in Sandy Boucher had been running 20 television. Sandy was one of these guys that was more worried about power than doing a great job in my opinion. And he he just he just, he just he didn't get it. He didn't get it. So we got through that year. Then we had Gail Berman, Gail Berman came in she was head of Regency who had done Malcolm in the Middle and Gail Berman was a creative very, again, in my opinion, high school issues. A lot of stuff that came up with Gail, you want to talk about someone who had a voice in her head. I believe Gail did my opinion again, Gail, if you're watching, I love you. It's great. You won, you cancel the show. We're good. So we'll get to integrity too. There's one more story I want to tell and you can tell me to shut up when you want me to. So what happens is this. We have a meeting in third season Gail's a new President sits down at the meeting and she says all right. The show is going well. It's doing great we're gonna really gonna do a big pushes next year. Me Jack and Brian are there and they go? She goes I want you to I want you to split the Chris and Aaron up and have them cheat on each other. Well, two things came up for me instantly. Awesome. A comedian and you see me at Tony's I just say what I say I don't I just you know, I'm just it comes up, it comes out of my mouth because I don't have a filter. Because my job is to not have a filter. My job is to get on stage say what comes up. So instantly, I think Well, we already did that Episode Episode Four, we cheated on each other. And that was and she goes, No, I want to do an arc with like three or four different episodes where you guys have a love triangle. And what I and here's the problem with it. I know. And I think I'm Smart enough guy. There was another show they were doing Dharma and Greg and the whole thing of dharma. Greg was Dharma Greg gets cheated on each other. Kevin. So Kevin Sorbo had come into the picture. And then they had she was sleeping with cancer. Well, then she went back. Well, what you what you can't do in television, what you can't do in storytelling is you can't set up a premise and then build a premise out of the water the whole premise of Dharma and Greg was the hippie and the yuppie I mean the hippie and the epic can be together as you know, and nothing can break them apart. Well if you break them apart, you've killed the series. Well Titus was based on the fact that two dysfunctional people together create a strong enough bond with their dysfunction that you can't break them up they will be loyal to each other and if you split them up, then you you've we've I've just lied to the audience all these Titus was for all these screwed up people who don't think they fit in. And I proved to him that no, you not only do you fit in you fit in better because you can handle that no one else can handle because they haven't been through it. So I said, All right, here's so here's where everything goes sideways. i There's 2030 people at this table. It's the biggest it's a table. It's this giant conference room outside of Rupert Murdoch's office at the top of Fox, the Obermann sitting across from Jack and Brian and next to me, and there's literally me being 22 executives around this, this huge table and she finishes she doesn't want you split them up and we have a love triangle, and blah, blah, blah. And I said and I and I got I I've told this story, but I hate telling it because it makes it it's the one regret I think I have in my life. Real regret I look at I look at the network president and I say do you even watch the show?

I and, and, and I go cuz here's how this works. I go, you we've talked and I told her I go we have a couple that are that the entire premise of the show is based on dysfunctionality is powerful. And these two people together, you can't break them up. If I break them up and she leaves him, I've blown the entire thing. I go, we lose the whole audience. And basically, we've lied to them from the first episode, so we're not doing it. That's what I say to the network president in front of everybody that she's that she's new to and she works and all these people work for. I was waiting and I think I did it in the bid. I was waiting for a William Wallace moment where we you know, like, thinking that everyone's gonna go Yeah, good. Tell them tell them they were president. And it got quiet there. They got so quiet. And Jack and Brian, my co execs, they then as I said later, just stick me the neck with a pencil shut me up before I get the sentence out. I'm fine with that. I know you're doing now. I have wisdom now. The narrower President sits there after I finished this a little bit. It wasn't you're tired in swear it or I just kind of explained why it won't work. I guess I did it with some strident time.

Zack Arnold: I can see that coming.

Christopher Titus: So I so the number President Gilbert sits back and she's sitting in her chair and she just nods her head and that's what she's this is this is this cold. This moment showbusiness there she goes. Fine, do what you want. And doesn't break my gaze dude. And it felt like I sit in the bed I go. It was like a tumble we blew across and the thermostat lowered itself. And I heard Clint Eastwood voice. Well, you really didn't. Yeah. And that was the moment. The next day that literally next week, next Monday, all promo for Titus stopped, every piece of advertising stopped. Bernie Mac kind of took our idea for the show. They even said that they called it an homage to Titus. Bernie Mac was getting promoted. We were following him at half an hour later. And the only promo we got after I did that stupid, was a tiny little chyron at the bottom of the screen that said Titus at 930. All it said. Problem is they moved us again, ratings went down and they came back up because people found us the team announced they were moving us they just did it. And then the ratings came back up again. And I'm going to tell you my last regret my second regret, I have two regrets in show business. I get a call from the president of the of the studio of 20s television and and she goes you need to go to a meeting with Gail Berman. And you need to kiss her ass you tell her whatever she needs to hear. And if you know me at all, you know me a little bit, that's not the best thing to do. Because what it does is it gets rid of there's a way to be, there's a way to totally tell people exactly what you think without disrespecting them. And I hadn't done that yet. I did well, I have done that with everybody else in the crew and everybody else. But I thought I always I always saw the network as an enemy. And just so you guys know if the if the network has given you money, even if they're being a pain in the ass. Even if they're saying, Yeah, we need you to change this. We don't like this. They're trying. They're just covering their ass. They're trying to figure out how to keep your show on the air. They really are. So you should you shouldn't I but I never heard that way. Again, I didn't choose to hear we're trying to help you. I choose. We're trying to ruin you. And it's exactly the same sentence they were giving me. So I totally take responsibility. This was my fault. I go to lunch with the President at work. And she said I endued I've never done this before since I sat there. And I told her everything she wanted to hear. And I felt like I slimed myself. I was sitting there. And I was like, if you want us to have a baby, we'll have a baby and within. And I walked out of there feeling like Oh, I think I needed a shower. And what I should have said is this. I look back on this day this this is the key to me not having this kind of this weird, emotional tumor that I'll never get rid of. I should have said, Hey, I'm really sorry, what I said at that meeting, I should have take responsibility for it. I take responsibility for what I said it was out of line as I go. But the reality is this. We are giving you a laugh out loud, funny show every week. And I promise to keep doing that. And we will take your ideas we'll run them through and if we can make them work we will. But I want you to know I'm apologizing for what I did. And we're going to keep doing the show we're doing if you want to cancel it that's on you. It's not on me but I promise you I will do my job for you and what you're paying me for thank you for lunch and I should have walked out at least had a walk out with my soul I probably could have adjusted it make it a little nicer but that's about what I should have done. So you have to be careful man show business and that's what I mean about fame and money as I show business and success can make you give up you and you don't have to mean if you Look at that bird, the best artists of all time Springsteen, you know, prints, they never gave themselves up for it. And they became monsters. So, next time you're thinking, if I just did this, it'll be okay. You know, little things. Yeah, but don't I gave up pretty much everything I believed in at that lunch. And she still canceled the show. You know. So I got my soul destroyed, and I lost the show.

Zack Arnold: One of the things that I told myself having come from a very, very small rural farming community in northern Wisconsin, as far away as possible, from LA, the joke that I always tell people is that when I travel back home, I need a passport because it's like going to a foreign country. Totally different world. But I remember and I don't know exactly when I told myself when I had these, you know, this, you know, water, rose colored pictures in my mind of how all this went down, and probably didn't. But at least the image in my mind is, as I'm driving across the country, got two and a half days to go from Wisconsin, LA, I've got my first job on Monday, it's all starting. I remember telling myself at one point, I'm done. As soon as the business changes me. I can't let the business change me at least for the worst, I can't let the business tell me who I'm going to be. Now. I'm a very different person now than I was when I was 22 years old driving out here. But at the same time, if anything, I've learned things, and I feel that I become a better person, but I didn't become the person the industry wanted me to become. But oh, man, were there opportunities. There's always opportunities because like you said, Success is the worst drug ever. Right? And I would say that a regular paycheck is pretty close as well. Because a paycheck keeps you from your own dreams, so you can help somebody else achieve their dreams.

Christopher Titus: Yeah, interesting. You I see that with you. I see with with with it. Yeah, you get you get a job that you're kind of if we're you were in like you're on a killer show, you're doing an amazing job. I love the show you were editing. And it's interesting how that that can do to that. That's what happened with comedy a little bit. While you what you just said is really interesting, because not it's not just a successful money, there's a couple of comedians that I know, that have gotten very, very, very, very, hugely successful. And, and who I knew them to be, is not who they are on their current media platforms. And what I noticed over the years, what happened was, as they got bigger with a certain segment of the population, that instead of them pulling their audience to a better place, what they did was they let their audience pull them to a worse place. And it is kicked back on him a couple of times it nationally it's kicked back on him heart. And I just decided never do that. So someone told me once a long time ago, they were like, you know, I gotta be in LA. I gotta be like, I gotta go on my come commercial auditions. And when and it was a whole bunch of comics I was hanging out with we're talking like this. And I decided years ago, I am never going to stop doing stand up comedy, because I never am going to be an actor meet. I'm never going to be someone who's desperate for someone to say yes, I will create it myself. I'll do it on my own. And even if it doesn't success, and I just squeaked by, My soul is clean, My soul is healthy. And my creativity is alive. And so that's an interesting thing about that paycheck, because at one point, was there a point for you where you were like, Oh, I'm really done with this. I don't want to do this. And you I've done it. I've done it. Well, I'm gonna move to the next thing.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, I've had a couple of those points, I would say that I had one. And I've told my story about this ad nauseam to my audience over and over and over. So I'll keep it super short. But you probably haven't heard it. But it was when I was working on Season One of the empire. And if you remember Season One of the Empire global phenomenon, like huge breaking decades of ratings records, it was on the cover of every single magazine and TV shows everywhere. And I'm at the epicenter of all of it like I'm down the hall from Lee Daniels and Danny Strong and like, I'm like, right in it. And it's like, when did this happen? I went from doing like cable shows to being in the middle of this zeitgeist. And at the same time, I was putting my kids to bed via FaceTime every single night. Wow. Right. And what happened one night and again, a lot of my audience has heard this, but for anybody new, essentially what happened is I was putting my kids to bed via FaceTime. My wife was there. She thought she was hung up and she hadn't. And my son, who was about five at the time, said to my wife, why does daddy want to put us to bed at night? Why doesn't he love us? I was two weeks away from whatever I was editing in that room at that time being seen by 25 million people. And that was my reward. All right, I'm out. I'm done. I got to figure something else out. And from that point, I designed the way out. I had never done anything else in my life. And my identity was I am an editor. It's how I support myself. It's how I make a living. It's the path. It was the path I designed. And I had the next 30 years turn it out. And I thought, Oh, I don't want to be on this path anymore. And that was terrifying. I had a massive identity crisis. But I just started designing what does it look like what else can I bring to the world? What value can I bring? And it took a while to figure it out. But as I started to package it and noodle and do a lot of failure along the way, I figured out like you had said at the beginning, I love how you crystallize it where you didn't say, Well, I'm good at comedy, you said what I'm really good at, is taking an idea and pulling somebody along the way and then flipping it on them. And then it causes them to look at themselves and learn something or think a different way. It's almost like comedy in section is what you do. And what I realized, and it took me a long time to realize this is that what I'm exceptional at is taking gigantic amounts of random information and distilling it into a very simple to understand package, there's been more than once even during the show, you're like, yeah, that's, that's actually a really good simple way to put it. I don't know how I do it. But I can do that. And once I figured out that's not just about being a good editor, where I get 100 hours of footage, and I turn it into 40 minutes, I can do it with anything. So I thought what if I can help do do that with other people's lives. Let's take all the random stuff, all the things you want to do all of your goals, all the voices in your head, let's package it down, and I can help other people design what that path looks like. And I realized, I'm not starting with zero experience, I've actually got 20 years of experience. And as somebody that's in production, and in post production and everything else, you've done it all, you know that essentially, the editor is not just somebody that bangs away on a keyboard, they're the local therapist for the entire production crew, like how many times have you gone into an edit suite, and you collapse on the couch? And you're like, oh, this business, these producers, right, and the editor slowly walks you off the ledge, at least the good ones? Right. So I realized I can take 20 years of that experience and just take it into a slightly different version of the industry. But it took a long time to find that.

Christopher Titus: It's interesting. You're still an editor, you're still in it because because editors are your guy. Yeah. Because Because here's the here's the problem is that I don't even know I even know how your mind deals whether we shot when we shoot stuff. And like you said, you're gathering up all this positive information about life and how to organize the stuff and do it that's exactly what you're you're still being an editor, you're just doing it at a different in a different medium. But editors are like the guys like we've shot you we shoot six cameras or whatever. And then I'm like we're not we're not watching. Click, click, click, click, click. Oh my god, we cut that whole piece out. No one even knows we cut that out. Yes. So you get Yeah. And if if you can do that, and you can make the journey to success shorter. That's what I think you're doing. You're making the journey to success for people shorter by doing this.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. And the other component, which goes back to the voices, is that I help people believe they can do it. Right? Because I can give them all the strategies and I can tell them we'll do this tomorrow, do this on Wednesday, do this a month from now, nobody's gonna do it if they don't believe they can. Right? So it's got to be those two components together.

Christopher Titus: And the interesting thing people is this what he's saying is dead. Right? The interesting thing is, as your success successes, mount, and in this is gonna sound weird. Pick something that scares you. Having my own television show, don't pick something that you know you can accomplish, because it's not going to change. It's not going to rewire your brain. It's not going to rewire you you're just gonna be like yeah, of course. I knew I could do that. Pick something you know, you can't do pick something you want to do. I always I call it picking the impossible pick the impossible D F student getting his own television show. And getting a Writers Guild nomination with no college is impossible. touring the country, you know, having Bruce Springsteen come up and saying, and I watched your show because it was art. Again, that's the same guy. It's possible. The woman I married to so far out of my league, it's ridiculous. Impossible. So just so you know that you need to pick something that scares you. Zach and I do do a thing. Rope beam. What are they? What's What's the exact name?

Zack Arnold: It's called peg beam rope beam peg pull ups.

Christopher Titus: Yes. Okay. So it sucks. It's like everybody, there's guys that have quit coming to Sunday, specifically because of this one thing we do. And when I first saw it, I remember looking at it like, I'm gonna try it. I'm with these dudes. I'm gonna do it. And but I don't know, I'm gonna drop 18 feet to my death probably. And I still went for it. That's even though I knew I was going to fail at it. I did it anyway. And now I can do it. So you pick something that's impossible. And again, it should scare you. It should be because it's not fear. It's excitement. It because in let's say, let's say you only get 60% of where you want to be. Well, that's 60% closer than you were before you had the balls to try it again. And that's exactly what happened on like the first did the exercise. I get about 60% there and now I can get now I even did the I even did the pegs last time I'm getting better at it. So now I'm getting to 80 90% and and I'll do it and I'll do it. But when I first started it, it scared the anatomy and Now I'm excited about it every time. So pick something impossible because you can do the impossible. I

Zack Arnold: were totally on the same page there. And that's something that I tell my students all the time. And along those lines, I actually gave a speech about the same idea of all places at Tony Horton's house as the closing speech of his Paragon experience, which goes back to Hey, I know let's go back four or five years fat bald, out of shape film editor is going to be giving the keynote closing presentation at Tony Horton's Paragon experience like, come on. When is that possibly going to happen? But you know what, I see that I watched American Ninja Warrior over 200 pounds bowl of popcorn on my fat belly and mixed into the popcorn was Oreos. You're not I'll never forget this image, watching the show. I was just binge watching it in the middle of this horrible depression. And I thought I can do that. I can't do it yet. But I can do that. And that's when it all started. So it's about you have to see it, then you believe it, then you piece together all the things that you can't do. And eventually you can do them.

Christopher Titus: And you'll know you'll know. Two things, I find that it has to have two components. It has it can't be something that you don't care about. It has to be something you actually care about. You obviously, care like I would watch a Ninja Warrior. I'm like, holy crap, man. Because they make it look easy. That's a sucky part. Yeah. Tell me about it. Tell me about it. It ain't easy. And then Wesley, you were around Wesleyan, you're like, Oh, well, I can do if that guy No. So I but pick it, you have to have a passion for it. Pick your passion. And you're gonna say my passion. There's no way to make money, my passion. There's no way to be successful at my passion. I don't know what your passion is. But I guarantee you there's a way to make money and be happy with it. Also, money is another bad drug. It's another bad drug Elon Musk a perfect example of what a bad drug money is. Especially late recently, just recently, he seems to have gone off the deep end, it's just a bad drug. It changes your it changes your DNA in some weird way. A certain amount of money is fine to live in, it'd be fine a good success. But there's a there's a level of money that is just a bad drug. Pick out you have to have passion, number one. Number two, you have to again, you have to be scared of what you're trying. So you're imagine you're impossible, that have passion for it. And then pick something far beyond what you think you can accomplish. I trust trust me, you will get you will get so far beyond where you thought you could, that it will stun you, it will stun you. And then you'll just see then all of a sudden, you let's say you shot to here and you're like I there's no I'm getting there. And let's say you don't the first time. So you get to here. Well, then that's only that different the next time you try it. It's only that far that so the next time you do it, you're there. So passion, and then pick something crazy.

Zack Arnold: Yep, I totally agree with that. Reminds me of probably maybe not my favorite but one of my top three quotes of all time from James Cameron, you probably know it, which is that if you set ridiculously high goals and you fail, your failures are above everybody else's successes.

Christopher Titus: Yeah. Why I like that a lot. That's perfect. Yes.

Zack Arnold: It's basically the the quote, summation of all the stuff that you just said was once again, lots of information. Big Story. One sentence. Yeah. Right?

Christopher Titus: Thank you. Yes, of course. Have you started editing my conversations?

Zack Arnold: I've edited a conversation or two in my life. So I've got another question for you. And I'm I'm sure that people say this to you flippantly. And it's an actual very genuine question. And I'm going to preface it by saying this, I don't really blow smoke. And if I have somebody on my podcast, I'm of course going to be complimentary. You do great work. I'm a fan of your book or your movie or whatever, right? But I'm not going to be an authentic guy genuinely believe that you are in the same conversation is Carlin and Cosby, the non rapey version, I genuinely believe you have that level of talent. Well, there are so few people that can do what you do consistently

Christopher Titus: By the way, the voice just started going, the voice just started going to see and

Zack Arnold: I'm sure Yeah, and I love that you're bringing that up. But that's genuinely what it that's my view from the outside. And maybe I'm not a professional comedian, but I've been in media for a good portion of my life. And I've watched a lot of comedy. And there are a lot of great people. But I think that there's something very unique that you have, that it's not just comedy, it's not just well written. There's performance to it. There. There's so many components beyond just I'm a good writer, and I'm performing good comedy, right. So here's the question I was that was a preface to that. Why don't you have Netflix special?

Christopher Titus: Remember the story I told earlier about the network president. So here's the one thing about Hollywood then you probably all know this. When you because Titus was was was was I mean, and I Stacy Keach? It wasn't because of me it was because of the team we had. The idea was, but we pulled off something pretty groundbreaking at the time, in a sense of sitcoms and The story is, and I've told us where I probably added to the legend of it, but I kind of did up, I kind of did up. And in a sense that I didn't punch anybody, I didn't do anything crazy. I just, you know, I was very honest with somebody who wielded their power like a weapon. And that was a mistake of mine I might diplomacy with. So over the years, I think that story has gotten around and people know I'm very specific about what I want. All with a Netflix special. All it would take was, here's a Netflix special. But everybody does calculations man. It's all what's hip in the business, what's new, and I've kind of pulled myself out. Correct. A perfect example. You're saying, I'm not a there's a couple people in the industry that I know that are really asked kissers, they go everywhere, they talk to everybody, they're nice, they both everybody. And like you said, I can't be an authentic. I'm diplomatic. Now I don't have to say, you know, you suck. But I can be like me like, I don't enjoy it. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. No, you're great. It's great. I can, I can, but I don't like the light makes me icky. So I don't hang out and show business. I don't I don't have. I have a few show business friends. And they're also people that don't hang out and show business. I have some a good friend of mine who's currently on a TV show right now. National sitcom. He doesn't like show business. He doesn't hang out in show business. He just doesn't he goes to what he has to. Because I don't do that. I don't have that networking thing. And not only do I not have it, I always think my talent should be enough for it or won't you know, so I don't have a lot of comics have that. I just have never been that guy. Here's a quick story. When I did Star Search a first two, I think two I did I think I got three things in Star Search. And they got beat by a guy with a puppet or a guitar or something. And I was killing us killing the first two. And after the second one, the two producers invited me to go hang out with them. They're like, Come on, man. Going back there was in Orlando at Disney World. We're filming. Come on, man. Come back to the hotel, we're gonna hang out. I get the hotel. I think we're just gonna have dinner or whatever. And all of a sudden they go well, Yo, man, we'll get some girls coming over much alcohol. And I was like, and I went. Yeah. Oh, I said, Oh, I here's what I said. I'll never forget it. Because the looks on their faces. I'll never forget. I said, I said, Oh, so you guys aren't in show business to create good stuff. You're in show business for the girls and the party. And I thought they would laugh. They did laugh. And I said, I'm married guys. I can't I can't be here when a bunch of women are here. I'm going to come in and go to my hotel. Thanks. And those two guys, those two specific guys, one of them became very high on a network level. The other one is as a very, very huge manager right now. And they don't call a lot in all it does is you know, so do me a favor. The other thing I would give you is people you can be authentic but also have some diplomacy, which I don't have.

Zack Arnold: We're not supposed to have a filter. That's your job is to not have a filter.

Christopher Titus: I know it's my job to not and then I get in trouble for not but it's okay so Netflix special never seen it. My Netflix special is going to happen ASAP.

Zack Arnold: That was gonna be my next question. Yes. Do you want a Netflix special?

Christopher Titus: Who doesn't want a Netflix special you know, there's it's a great platform or an HBO special or even on Hulu. I my stuff's been on I've had six on Comedy Central. My buddy my buddy Billy says he says you got to stay in the box Titus you got to stay in the box. Somehow you got to get in the box. So there's some specific things you have to do in in show business to maintain like if you're if you don't edit for 10 years and you try to get any job you're not getting any job. But if you go I'm still did it. I edited these 10 things. You know, I'm always writing a new script. I'm always you know, submitting new stuff. I love the business. I love it. If you I'd love to be on a TV show for the next four years. But I'm never gonna give up Stand up Stand up is where I live so a Netflix special. More than anything. I would love to have a special were more more tears the prayers the great thing about television like this news for you saw the new special you saw you saw his film it

Zack Arnold: I was there live. By the way I was sitting next to your manager, which I didn't know. So number one, you must have got me an amazing see, because I'm literally next year manager and about halfway through him like it's good. Doesn't seem like he's that into it. You probably seen it 20 times. Like I'm laughing my ass off. And he's like, like, what's this guy's problem? This is hilarious. And then afterwards in the greenroom, I'm like, oh, but that was his manager.

Christopher Titus: You know, every moment he's thinking okay, all right. Data. Okay. That's always my that was that was that's it? Yeah. So you're sitting there, but thanks for the show. So that show, everybody I've performed that show for already. All the people all the shows I've done the year it took me to build that show Majan how many audiences how many packed houses, how many theaters? It's less than like 1% or 2%. Of what people would see it if you showed it on Netflix. And that I mean, you want to get your message out there you want it so I would love that and I've got invited to the I'm gonna go to the Fringe Festival in Scotland to do a my other show carrying monsters that I that I wrote during COVID. I didn't get a chance to figure it out. So I'm taking that to Scotland. And that's real person. Well, that's not as like this one. You saw it. It's very kind of socially relevant and what's going on on the planet right now as I call it a blunt assessment of what's happened in the last two and a half years.

Zack Arnold: All right, so now I'm gonna put you on the hot seat, right? What's it going to take to get the Netflix special?

Christopher Titus: Okay, well, I've put those Okay, so it again, people I know what you're going for it you have to get it doesn't work by yourself. You have to have a community around you. There's no six no one on the planet has gotten success by themselves. It just doesn't happen. It may seem like they did. You know, it may seem like certain people Oh, there's a guy so talented. Of course, he's successful. Now there's a group of managers or agents or whatever. Or there's someone that that that either convinced him promoted him connected him to somebody else, him or her to somebody else. And that's where they got it. And you can't forget those people. So I have a manager now that is busting his ass. I have agents, and I'm doing everything I can whether it's the podcast I do, or YouTube channel and there's a number there's a number that doesn't even matter how good it is. There's a number I would get to on YouTube, that they would go let's give him a special he's got enough audience. It all comes down to that but the you can't do it by yourself. It takes I always say Hollywood is a is people. How do you succeed in Hollywood? I go, you don't leave. That's number one. Everybody who's left failed. I didn't make it. Well, how do you how do you know you didn't make it? Well, I didn't nothing happened. I go How do you know you left? It doesn't count. So Hollywood to me is always an I've said people when young comics asked me how do you make it and I go, Well, Cali imagine Hollywood is 100, concentric walls, you're out here, you're banging your head against this wall. And when that Wall falls, the wall insides a little bit nicer. But you still gotta keep banging your head against it. And you got to keep banging your head against it, and then it falls. And then you go to the next one. And the metal is, you know, Brad Pitt, you know, and whoever who, you know, Ryan Reynolds, they're on the center, they're on the center wall. But even though they'll get sent over the wall one day, so you got to keep banging your head, and you got to appreciate really appreciate the people that helped, you know, Titus would not have gotten done without Brian Hargrove and Jack Kenny Mindy Schultz. I had an executive that in a meeting at Fox, they were getting paid before the pilot got approved. They were like, well, it's a little edgy. It's too far for us. This was Fox. By the way. We don't know if you want to do this. And Mindy Scholte. I stood up, slam the script on the table and went Are you out of your mind? Have you read this? This is the funniest thing we have. We don't have a script in last 10 years. It's funny. And the next thing I know that they approved the pilot so and I'll never, never, never thank her enough for that. So remember those people that help you. So with Netflix, I'm doing this. I got my manager on it right now he's going to everybody, I'm going to submit the finished special to them. Again, if that doesn't work, we're moving on to Hulu and HBO. But I am on it. I am on it. And it's happening this year. I've done too many too long. And it's too damn good.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, well, I could have said all the same things. But I'm glad to hear that you said it instead.

Christopher Titus: You're trying to get me to get it done. I get it.

Zack Arnold: That's what I do. Right. That's what I want to do. I want to make sure you believe that you can do it. But if you had said you know what? It's not for me, it's not a world I want to get into anymore be like, cool. That's a great reason. Right? But if it was a matter of well, you know, I made these mistakes and blah. It's like dude, part of your past, right? You design the path. But the fact that you want to do it gets me very excited because you need one. You deserve it.

Christopher Titus: Next one. And then and then carrying monsters is going to be next. And I Carlin did 15 specials. The great news is, by the way to people that are wanting to want to go pick your hero in what you want to pick figure it out who is the best of the best who you look up to with your passion. Who did it? Well, who did it the best. Don't don't say I'm going to do it better than him do whatever you do. But Carlin did 15 albums, 15 specials and 21 albums. I'm at 10 right now. And I am never going to be Carlin I'm going to be me. But that when you said earlier, why do you keep putting output? Well, my dad was very blue collar. And that's my job. So many comedians for so many years. Did the same act for a decade, eight years, 10 years, a decade. They just kept doing it. And because it worked and America is big enough, we can tour all these clubs. And you know, it takes you know year after year and it takes two years to get through the whole thing. So you can do it. You only doing the show four times really if you think about it. And I just said I'm never going to do that. I want people to be like oh damn, he's not doing the one he did last time. What's the new one? And that's what happened. I designed that. After Titus got canceled. I decided I would never I would never again get comfortable with with where I am, and and every time that happens, I don't have a I have old, which is probably not healthy either. But I always there's always more to do. And there's always a next thing to do. And and the world keeps getting absurd dude the world is dude can you imagine like you do remember that like we had to deal with what disco and then music going from like new wave to to Nirvana like that like that's what we had that was our big problem that was our big cultural shift. Can you imagine what we've gone through in the last eight years? It's insane. It's insane. The swing from black president to the insanity that we've gone through to a once in 100 year pandemic. That's what that bit about in the new show about Gen Z and the millennials came from, like, I can't imagine, imagine going through this as a kid. This is the world okay.

Zack Arnold: And that was one of the things that I loved about going through your stuff in reverse chronological order is I see your latest special, where you're apologizing about the participation trophies, and then I go back and rewatch the bit from give or take 10-12 years ago about participation trophies that Mike had chosen. Never Lucien. Yeah. And I'm like, he has no idea what's coming. So much fun to watch it with that perspective.

Christopher Titus: Yeah, in the past meet it's really stupid. And naive.

Zack Arnold: Isn't that kind of true of all of us, though? Yeah, right. Yeah. All right. So speaking of the past, I've got one final question. Why don't we

Christopher Titus: By the way thank you for focusing me on that? Thank you. I you know, I never I it's so funny, because it hasn't happened in the last four or five specials. And it's interesting, that you just focused me on? Yeah, I'm getting that.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, you're gonna make it happen? No question. So the last question that I want to ask because I want to be respectful of your time, which I haven't been because we've been talking flippin forever. But this has been like one of the funniest conversations I've ever had, how I hate to talk, you can tell, I can see that you want to make a living, not talking and sharing your ideas and your perspectives, right. But I have an exercise. I don't do this with every guest. But I do when I think it's relevant that I think it's really relevant in this conversation. So we're going to time travel back in time. And I want you to pick a time, where whether it was when you were 12 years old and ran away from home or you get the phone call your mother killed herself, whatever that moment is, where you just kind of feel like it's the lowest of the low, right? Probably not the bonfire, but that can be in the conversation, right? But just kind of pick that moment where you believe in yourself at least or you don't see the path or whatever it might be. Okay, what's that moment for you right now? It's not the question. I just want to I want to set it up for the question. What does that mean? What is the right? Yeah, which one? Are you picking? There's so many with most people, I know what the moment is. And I say travel back in time to this moment with you. You got to pick it.

Christopher Titus: It was it was it was the end of the summer, after the bonfire incident. It was it was the end of that summer. And my dad and I had just had a brutal brawl in the kitchen where chairs were flying and we were punching each other. And like a physical like a horrible and I thought I'm gonna kill him or me. And, and I started to believe that I may be crazy like my mom, I remember this. This is this is the end of that summer, my the ends end of the summer, my 17 T i was i was about to turn 18 I was still 17 I remember it. Yeah.

Zack Arnold: Alright, so we're gonna time travel back to that moment. Okay, what are you gonna tell yourself?

Christopher Titus: And I mean, now? why did they just get me? Why did they give me I really just got me. I would tell them it's gonna work out nothing's that important. It's gonna work out nothing's that important. You know, I've written some of this stuff. Give it one more day. And I wrote it in my in the, there's a bit in my my sister killed herself. And I and, and suicides become a big thing. And I would tell that kid, it's just give it one more day every day.

Zack Arnold: I would say that that's good advice for just about anybody in any context. But I think in that one, I think that's good. And if it makes you feel any better, you're not the only person that I've gotten with that question.

Christopher Titus: Yeah, prick.

Zack Arnold: It's not it's not a gotcha question. I never thought it would. It's evolved into this thing that's really it just without even really having to say too much. It's just it gets right to the heart of things

Christopher Titus: You drive people back to a place of their lowest and it's weird because now that it's so what I just got from it. What I got from it was I saw that kid and I felt really sorry for him. And what I did after that was my dad, and I came home and he goes, we just it was we were it was bad. It was the lowest point of our relationship ever in my life. And I told he came home and he went, he goes, we'll go and scan for the weekend and you're not When it's one of the things I love more than anything wakeboarding in skiing is because like, you're not going, you're staying home. And I was like, Good, I'm gonna go with you anyway. And he's like, what not, and we bout to go again and my stepmom got between, like, stop. So the left on that Friday took the boat up. And they left on that Friday, and I packed everything I had in my bedroom, everything. And I shampooed the carpets, and I tsp the walls, and I took everything out. And I loaded it. And I called my aunt and I said, my dad, I said, I'm going to kill him or he's going to kill me. And she said, why don't you come live with me then. And I moved. And when my dad came back that Sunday night, the house it looked like I had never lived there. And that's what I did. You know, I've always been good at it. Because again, I was raised in chaos. So I'm I'm you, you can't curl up. You can't get in the fetal position, because that's how you die. You get up and you go to the next thing. And again, one more day.

Zack Arnold: Oh, and I think that's the other interesting thing about what you chose to do for a living and you even have an entire bit about this. So it's not like I'm you know, pulling this out of thin air. But you allude to the fact and you're very honest about the fact that the reason I'm not a serial killer is because I'm a comedian. Right. Right. And I think that that's not true. Just for people that have gone through it. You have I think it's true for a lot of artists. For me one thing that I haven't been through a 100th of the kind of things that you've been through, like I'm the guy that you make fun of it's like, oh, yeah, you know, valedictorian in college graduate is afraid of success and is getting executive coaching like Right, very, very different experiences. But at the same time, I've been through a lot of things specifically with mental health and depression and like massive anxiety. And I realized that what I do here is my therapy, writing a newsletter to my readers or writing a blog post. That's what gets me through all the darkest. And I think it's really important for artists to understand that's an outlet. It's an it's a really important outlet, and you've made a very, very healthy living from essentially your own version of therapy.

Christopher Titus: Yeah. People say, Oh, someone said that to me, they go they go, you just do these stories, so you don't kill yourself. Right. And I started laughing. I said, Yeah, I said it when I said, you know, it was my life. I could have could have been and could still ask for any antidepressant I want and they would prescribe it to me. Instead, I chose to be an antidepressant and that's that when I wrote that, I remember thinking that it was one of the things that hit me like i That's exactly what I chose to do. Because I get to get up in front and whether it's writing the army getting up there with no audience or getting front on it's because I get to spew what I'm thinking it a sharpens my thinking and be lets this outlet go so I you know I die. Because I imagine me saying what I said on those specials just standing on a corner by myself in ripped clothes, pushing a shopping cart. It's the exact same sense is one guy is crazy and needs to be picked up. The other guy is talking about maybe getting a Netflix special. Not maybe not maybe

Zack Arnold: Say it's all about language. It is I tell my students that all the time. Don't say I hope this happens. Say I am making it happen. Yeah. All the difference in the world.

Christopher Titus: I will get I'm getting an extra special in the next year. And by the way, thank you for keeping me clear people the word is all we have even the Bible. In the beginning there was the word the most important thing there is, is what you say and how you say it language is the because nothing exists. Nothing in the world has ever existed. Until we said it tree was there. But no one knew what it was till someone said tree, it every word you say create something, and it can create some negative or create something positive, you got to pick the right words.

Zack Arnold: Probably couldn't tie it up any better than that myself. I tried. So on that note for all of those that don't already know how to find you or follow you what are the best ways to become a part of your world in your community,

Christopher Titus: Guys, if you want to see. So we put up my whole the whole Titus series. That's excellent, which is very funny. 54 episodes designed at Christopher Titus TV, because of COVID. I put up all eight of my while the first eight of my comedy specials also on Christopher Titus TV on YouTube, you can watch them. Plus we've done sketch shows there's a whole bunch of content there. We do our podcast, the Armageddon update, tightest podcast, where we pretty much if you want the news in a way that makes you not want to, you know, stab your eye out, go to that. Also, if you want to get anything on my website, DVDs, whatever, go to christophertitus.com, for updates on tickets and stuff. And just know I'm always going to be doing a new show I was going to be doing the next thing. Because if you guys show up, I want to make sure that you get the best I got.

Zack Arnold: Well, I will make sure that we link to all of that in the show notes. And I thank you very much for your time for your insights and for your friendship.

Christopher Titus: And I will see you on Sunday my brother.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, you will. Looking forward to it

Christopher Titus: that my hands have healed.

Zack Arnold: Yes, well, for now. We'll change that.

Christopher Titus: Yeah, no, I'll tell you. They're going on Sunday, but it's right now. Yes. Thanks, buddy boy.

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Overcoming a Dark Past (and Managing the Voices In Your Head) to Become Successful In Hollywood | with Christopher Titus

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