There was a time when Home Improvement was the hottest sitcom on television. Tim Allen was a rising star in the industry, moving from being a stand-up comic into the realm of a leading man in both TV and eventually film.
His ‘everyman’ persona as Tim ‘ The Tool Man’ Taylor endeared himself to millions around the world. People could relate to him, and his quick, witty humor resonated exceptionally well with those who tuned into the show. While Allen has been a steadily working actor for the past three decades, some had hoped the show would be revived.
As we’ve seen in recent times, some shows and films from the 1990s have been revived with audiences thirsty for general nostalgia. Allen reportedly has been bullish on the idea of some sort of reboot. However, based on the recent comments of his on-air wife Patricia Richardson (portraying Jill Taylor), it doesn’t appear as if she’ll be joining him. She was a guest on the Back to the Best podcast this past week.
Per People, Richardson poured some cold water on a revival from her end:
“It’s not the same — it’s not gonna be the show. At all. And people think we can just magically go right back to who we were 30 years ago and do a show that was 30 years ago, and we’ve all changed quite a bit, I think, since then. And the show would just be… It would be very weird. It makes me sad to think about it. I think — we did it. We did it well. We quit at the right time before it got really bad. And it should just stay as it is. [Allen] kept coming out publicly, I mean it was so weird. I would hear on Twitter or whatever, I’d hear that he was coming out publicly and saying this stuff about how everyone was on board to do a Home Improvement reunion.
But he never asked me, and he never asked Jonathan [Taylor Thomas] who I talk to. So I called Jonathan one day and I said, ‘Has he asked you about this?’ And he went, ‘No. Why is he going around telling everyone that we’re all on board when he hasn’t talked to you or me?’ I think that’s weird.”
In addition to Richardson and presumably Thomas not having an interest in the show, it would be difficult to envision Home Improvement without the beloved character Wilson (Earl Hindman). Hindman passed away in 2003 reportedly due to lung cancer.