TV show Titus–now on DVD
DVD Review: “Titus”
“My father never missed a drink, or a joint, or a party or a chance to get laid in his life. But he also never missed a day of work, or a house payment, or a car payment.”
This is Christopher Titus’s description of his father, Ken, played by Stacy Keach, at the start of Episode One on the new DVD release of the first two seasons of the Fox series that began in 2000 (the third and last season will be released in December). It perfectly sets the stage for an honest portrayal of a highly functional but verbally and psychologically abusive alcoholic, based on Christopher’s real-life upbringing. His biological mother, Juanita, identified as “insane,”is an even worse drunk, but takes second-stage.
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Almost every episode delivers a message about alcoholism or codependency in laugh-out-loud and zany entertaining fashion. One describes Kenneth’s serial sexual harassment which, according to Christopher’s narration, dad “invented.”Another shows how dad loved to humiliate Christopher and his brother, Dave, played by Zack Ward. The result, as Christopher puts it, is that “screwed up people never say what they mean.”
He’s used to his father, who was married and divorced five times, ruining relationships. He does all he can to mess up his with a very forgiving girlfriend Erin, played by Cynthia Watros, explaining that he took a “30-year seminar on destroying relationships.”
The best of “Titus” has to be episode eight of the first season, “Intervention.”Aside from explaining the reason Christopher stopped drinking at age 17 (he fell into a bonfire), a series of “growing up”photographs show dad always holding a beer — while water skiing, at a funeral, in intensive care. Suddenly, he decides he’s sick and tired of being sick and tired, and stops drinking. After being depressed and moping for a month while off the hooch, Christopher and his brother Dave orchestrate a reverse intervention to get him drinking again. “I was raised by a lusty, lustful man. When dad was drinking, he was so smooth he could pick up any woman, and did. I used to wake up with their names pinned to my pajamas, so I could greet the sluts with class. When dad stopped drinking, he started pissing off women before he slept with them.”No wonder we love alcoholics — they’re exciting, fun-loving and never boring, despite the sarcasm, hatred, nastiness and volatile moods. The trade-off is deemed fair by many codependents, who often don’t know any better.
The highly functional alcoholic can be missed at work — after all, they make great salesmen. While non-alcoholics can’t function when they’re drinking, “Dad not only functions; he was employee of the month.”His boss comes to the intervention, explaining that a sober Kenneth “is not the guy I hired.”
After the “intervention,”Ken quickly returns to his old tricks. He feigns a heart attack to avoid responsibility for an accident, taking it all the way to the hospital, where he becomes sexually involved with his nurse. After blaming Christopher for the heart attack that wasn’t, we learn the real cause — which cannot be shared in a family report — and the kids mastermind a brilliant plot to get back at him. With overtones of the insanity to which many children of alcoholics are subjected, “Titus” is a brilliant and often hysterically funny introduction to Alcoholism 101.