“And they’re different, so trying to make sure that we differentiate the characters was challenging. “Tim gave me one of the box sets of ‘Home Improvement’ so I watched a bunch of those to remind myself what the character was like and everything,” Abbott said. And that was only because I threatened, ‘I’m reading it anyway.’ So they finally agreed to it,” Abbott said, laughing.Ībbott and his writers know the ins and outs of Mike Baxter going into the ninth season of “Last Man Standing,” which aired its first six seasons on ABC before it was canceled and then revived at Fox, but they obviously weren’t familiar with writing Allen’s career-making role.Īlso Read: 119 Cable Channels Ranked by 2020 Viewership: A Good Year for Cable News (and TLC) It was the day before the table read that I got permission to actually go forward with the episode. There are bigger legal hurdles than you would think in all of that. It was a fun episode to do.”Īlso Read: Alex Trebek's Final Week of 'Jeopardy!' Episodes to Begin With 'Powerful' Message From Late HostĪfter getting the blessings of the “Home Improvement” creators and Allen, the “Last Man Standing” team still had to wait it out to see if Fox would be able to get permission from Disney (the company that holds the rights to “Home Improvement”) to use the Tim Taylor character for the episode, which is aptly titled “Dual Time.” And we’re in our final season, so a lot of this resonated with Tim. Tim was telling me it really kind of affected him because what that episode is about in terms of fear of moving on - and fear that you’re going to be less-than and you’re going to be losing - and when you’re in a spot where you love something, moving past it is difficult. “We kept going at it and talking about it and talking about it until we got to a place where we thought this was funny and interesting. “I love working with Tim, so I say that kiddingly because it’s a very collaborative process,” he said. Though Abbott says his “first instinct” was to go negative (Tim Taylor’s “gotten divorced and he’s down on his luck and he’s now just a handyman”), he “got disabused of that notion pretty quickly.” So we were going to bend over backward to not give them any reason to regret allowing us to do that.” “I really liked ‘Home Improvement’ and Matt Williams and David McFadzean and Carmen Finestra, who created ‘Home Improvement,’ were really kind and generous in allowing us to use the character and certain iconic symbols from the show and bits. I want to make sure that he wanted to play it - which he did, he fully embraced the idea, with the proviso that we would honor that character, not make fun of him or anything, which we would never do,” Abbott said. “So the first hurdle you have to jump is to get Tim to sign off on it.
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So we all got very excited about it,” he said, adding, that he “felt good that we’d be able to land the actor.”Īnd, of course, they did, but Allen was very particular about how he wanted his beloved “Home Improvement” character to appear on “Last Man Standing.”Īlso Read: TV Winners and Losers of 2020: From 'Schitt's Creek' to 'Live PD' (And We Didn't Forget Ellen) “It seems so obvious, so great and yet we didn’t think of it before. That is brilliant.'”Ībbott calls the idea one of those ones “where it’s like, how did we not think of this before?” And Jon Haller came back and said he’d been thinking about stunt casting and said, ‘You know, we’ve had almost all the names from “Home Improvement” on the show and the one we really haven’t had is Tim Taylor.’ And I went, ‘That is just brilliant. “Plus, it’s difficult to come up with some huge promotable event that happens in our little world.”Īlso Read: Here Are the Premiere Dates for Broadcast TV's New and Returning Winter Shows (Updating)Ībbott continued, “And so as I was bitching and moaning about it, my writers were actually thinking about it. And Fox came to us and said, ‘We’d love it if you could come up with some big promotable event.’ And I always hate that, especially on this show, where we tell smaller stories about family interaction,” “Last Man Standing” showrunner Kevin Abbott told TheWrap.
“We had already broken the first seven episodes and our intention was to have the ‘Time Flies’ be the first episode. 7 on Fox, came about because the broadcast network wanted to kick off the sitcom’s final season with something flashy. And the idea for this epic half-hour, which airs Jan.
The bit will come in the second episode of “Last Man Standing’s” upcoming ninth season, when Vanessa hires a home improvement repairman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mike, who is struggling with an idea for his Outdoor Man 10th Anniversary vlog.
Fox’s “Last Man Standing” is going big in its final season, with an episode featuring Tim Allen in his leading role of Mike Baxter and reprising Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, the iconic character he played on ABC’s “Home Improvement” for eight seasons from 1991-1999.
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