“Martin” remains one of the most beloved sitcoms of the 1990s, thanks to the unforgettable characters on the show portrayed by Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, Thomas Mikal Ford, Carl Anthony Payne II and Tichina Arnold.
All of them brought an important comedic element to the show, but Arnold’s character, Pamela James, had an extra component that made her arguably the third-most important person in the cast.
Not only did she portray the female lead Campbell’s best friend, she also was the counterbalance to Lawrence’s character, Martin.
Pam was the one who could really go toe to toe with Martin in their comedic insult wars and roasts.
Arnold can’t be left out of discussions about “Martin.” But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t left out in some way.
On Sept. 17, Arnold told the hosts of “The Maverick Approach” why she wasn’t included in every episode of the show and the “humiliating” way she would learn when this was about to happen.
“People don’t realize, I wasn’t in every episode. Anytime there was a guest, I wasn’t on it,” she said told hosts Maverick Bailey and Devon True around an hour into the podcast. “My salary went to guest stars.”
Both Bailey and True were shocked at this revelation.
“I was seven out of 13. That was my contract,” she said before explaining that they averaged 22 to 25 episodes per season.
Arnold recounted that she was on the episode where late rapper Notorious B.I.G. made a cameo on season 4, episode 3.
“But certain celebrities that come on or certain guest stars that come on, you would not see me,” she told the two shocked men.
The actress told Bailey and True that only in the last two of the five seasons of “Martin” was she in all the shows produced.
True asked, “So, starting like early out, you would say you were probably more like half episodes?” to which Arnold said, “Yeah.”
While IMDb has Arnold credited for all 132 episodes from 1992 to 1997, it’s true that she does not appear in them all.
She was not in episode 11 of season 1, “The Great Payne Robbery,” which featured celebrity guest stars like Clifton Powell and LaWanda Page.
Arnold also does not appear in the following episode that season, “Three Men and a Mouse,” which features Little Richard.
However, she was in the star-studded 18th episode of season 3, “All the Players Came,” with Outkast, Coolio, Pam Grier, Isaac Hayes, and more guest stars.
In season 4, episode 20, titled, “Where The Party At,” she is in the cast with celebrities like Halle Berry, Will Smith, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Rock, and more.
Arnold also shared the cruel way that she had to learn that she was not going to be in an episode.
“I didn’t know whether or not I was in the next episode until we’re all in the trailer and they start handing out the scripts and if I didn’t get a script …” she said as her voice trailed off.
The hosts gasped before Arnold said, “It was pretty humiliating.”
According to the Fandom page, Arnold was in 124 episodes out of 132. The first four seasons had 27 episodes each while the fifth season had 25, according to IMDb.
Fans on X underneath The Art of Dialogue post about Arnold’s interview slammed her recollection of not being on episodes with celebrities.
One person who claimed to remember some episodes said, “She was literally in episodes with Biggie, Method Man, Snoop Dogg, Coolio, Pam Grier, Antonio Fargas, Ja’Net DuBois, OutKast, Tommy Davidson, Gary Coleman, and Nicci Gilbert from the Group Brownstone. So, I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
A second wrote, “She just up there lying.”
A third typed, “She’s straight up just unquestionably lied right to our faces.”
Later in the interview, Bailey asked Arnold to choose her favorite show between “Martin” and “Everybody Hates Chris.” She chose the show in which she was the lead actress.
She explained, “‘Everybody Hates Chris.’ I was a new mother. First time I was playing a mother. The first time I was number one on the call sheet. It was the first time that I had a heavy load in a show that I really loved doing.”
She said it was a “huge marker” in her life.
Although many observes look back on “Martin” with nostalgia, not all do.
Last year, singer Ari Lennox once criticized “Martin” by claiming the jokes directed at James were rooted in colorism.
On the “Funny Knowing You” podcast, Arnold disagreed, saying that was just the humor of that era.
She also said she and Lawerence would naturally joke with each other and the writers used that for the show.
“So, they started incorporating anything he and I did off the set, they would—it would be in the script. And then, once the cameras start rolling with him, you don’t know what the hell’s going to come out of his mouth. So, I’ll just be waiting for it,” she said.
She added, “I’m like, ‘Oh, I’m gonna get him.’ So, we would go back and forth. So, it was out of love. It was out of just, that’s what we did. It had nothing to do with color.”
Arnold also was slammed for saying Campbell experienced “reverse colorism” because darker-skinned women didn’t want to see her with Lawrence’s character.
She later apologized after the backlash.
As far as her relationship with Lawrence, Arnold shared a post with him back in 2024 when he surprised her on the set of her show with Cedric The Entertainer called “The Neighborhood.”
Cedric asked Lawrence to surprise her on the final day of her directing their seventh season.
Lawrence interrupts the scene with Cedric and says “Hold on Tichina, I want my money.” She later comes around smiling and screaming “What the f-ck” before they embrace.
