Strip tags

Hey folks, how do I strip tags from the following title functions?

<h5><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>">
          <?php the_title(); ?>
          </a></h5>
        <p>
          <?php the_excerpt_rss(); ?>
        </p></li>

Some of my blog titles have <br> <em> etc. and I’d like to remove them here.

Thanks!