He’s No Longer Just a Voice in the Ads

It’s the first interview actor David Shatraw has ever done, and he wants everything to be perfect. Problem is, he’s running late when he runs into Drip, the hip cafe on Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “How late am I? Twenty minutes?” he asks hopefully.

It’s more like 30. He winces.

At this point, Tommy, the anal-retentive character he plays on the new Fox sitcom “Titus,” would go into a panic, but Shatraw goes into a comic spin. “I’m pulling the star thing,” he jokes. “Show gets picked up. . . . I come in 30 minutes late.”

Shatraw is also a late-comer to prime-time TV: “Titus,” which stars Los Angeles stand-up comic Christopher Titus and veteran actor Stacy Keach, is Shatraw’s first big break and his first TV series. The show premiered earlier this year on Fox, and the network picked it up for next season.

Before “Titus,” the 37-year-old New Yorker had been heard but not seen on the small screen, doing voice-overs for TV spots. “I’m the Budweiser frog--I’m the one who says, ‘Slap the punk,’ ” he says. “And I’m JetDry, the talking dishwasher hole. I draw the line on being a talking hemorrhoid.”

Two seasons ago, after he decided he’d rather play a human than a hemorrhoid, Shatraw began auditioning for TV pilots. He finally got his chance, playing Tommy, a friend of the dysfunctional Titus family (Daddy is a five-times divorced alcoholic played by Keach, and Mommy is a manic-depressive schizophrenic).

“David has a vulnerability and sensibility that was so right for the normal guy,” says Brian Hargrove, an executive producer and co-creator of the series. “David so clearly wanted to fit into the show, and Tommy so clearly wanted to fit into the family.”

Shatraw quickly concedes he and Tommy have a lot in common. “I’m admitting that I’m an anal-retentive and slightly manic,” he says. “I’m probably the most uncoolest person I’ve ever met. I’m kind of a boring, regular guy.”

A regular, boring guy, he adds, who spends all of his free time with his family. That includes the times he’s glued to the tube watching “Titus” on Monday nights with wife Kristin and sons Casey, 4, and Mackenzie, 2 months.

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But what is David Shatraw really like? “I’m a work-in-progress, is what I am,” he says. “I’m not a stand-up comic. I’m just an actor who is funny. I’m a father. . . .”

He falters for a split-second, an actor without a script: “I’m not articulate.”

While the show’s been a quick success, Shatraw says: “I still don’t get recognized. I’ve never had anybody go, ‘Hey, aren’t you . . .,’ and that’s OK.”

Right now, he’s just concentrating on playing Tommy and on being David Shatraw and getting ready to move his family from Brooklyn to Pasadena before “Titus” starts filming again.

“There is no tenure, no guarantees with ‘Titus,’ ” he says. “I’m on a four-and-a-half-month contract. I just bought a house. Fox has picked up 13 episodes for the fall, and it is most likely we’ll get another 13. I signed on because it was one of the funniest sitcoms I had read for in the last two years. All I know is that my middle name is Thomas, and I’m changing my name to Tommy.”

* “Titus” can be seen Mondays at 8:30 p.m. on Fox.