How ‘Last Gentleman Standing’ Acquired Authorization to Use Tim Taylor Character

Fox’s “Last Guy Standing” is likely large in its ultimate year, with an episode showcasing Tim Allen in his leading job of Mike Baxter and reprising Tim “The Instrument Man” Taylor, the iconic character he played on ABC’s “Home Improvement” for eight seasons from 1991-1999.

The little bit will appear in the 2nd episode of “Last Man Standing’s” upcoming ninth period, when Vanessa hires a household improvement repairman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mike, who is battling with an idea for his Outside Man 10th Anniversary vlog. And the concept for this epic half-hour, which airs Jan. 7 on Fox, came about for the reason that the broadcast community wanted to kick off the sitcom’s remaining year with a thing flashy.

“We experienced by now damaged the to start with seven episodes and our intention was to have the ‘Time Flies’ [flash-forward] be the initial episode. And Fox came to us and mentioned, ‘We’d love it if you could occur up with some major promotable celebration.’ And I often dislike that, specially on this demonstrate, the place we inform smaller sized stories about family members conversation,” “Last Male Standing” showrunner Kevin Abbott informed TheWrap. “Plus, it is hard to occur up with some large promotable event that occurs in our minor globe.”

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Abbott ongoing, “And so as I was bitching and moaning about it, my writers had been truly wondering about it. And Jon Haller came again and explained he’d been considering about stunt casting and reported, ‘You know, we’ve experienced practically all the names from “Home Improvement” on the display and the one particular we truly have not experienced is Tim Taylor.’ And I went, ‘That is just fantastic. That is excellent.’”

Abbott calls the strategy 1 of individuals types “where it’s like, how did we not consider of this ahead of?”

“It appears so clear, so wonderful and however we didn’t consider of it prior to. So we all obtained pretty enthusiastic about it,” he mentioned, introducing, that he “felt fantastic that we’d be capable to land the actor.”

And, of class, they did, but Allen was really unique about how he needed his beloved “Home Improvement” character to show up on “Last Man Standing.”

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“So the 1st hurdle you have to jump is to get Tim to signal off on it. I want to make certain that he desired to participate in it — which he did, he entirely embraced the concept, with the proviso that we would honor that character, not make entertaining of him or anything, which we would by no means do,” Abbott said. “I actually appreciated ‘Home Improvement’ and Matt Williams and David McFadzean and Carmen Finestra, who developed ‘Home Improvement,’ were being seriously type and generous in allowing us to use the character and specified iconic symbols from the exhibit and bits. So we were likely to bend around backward to not give them any cause to regret making it possible for us to do that.”

However Abbott says his “first instinct” was to go detrimental (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 immediately.”

“I love operating with Tim, so I say that kiddingly since it’s a extremely collaborative method,” he mentioned. “We stored heading at it and conversing about it and conversing about it until we got to a spot where by we imagined this was amusing and exciting. Tim was telling me it seriously variety of influenced him simply because what that episode is about in terms of panic of relocating on — and dread that you’re heading to be fewer-than and you are heading to be dropping — and when you are in a location the place you love a thing, going earlier it is tricky. And we’re in our remaining period, so a good deal of this resonated with Tim. And it was truly good. It was a fun episode to do.”

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Right after getting the blessings of the “Home Improvement” creators and Allen, the “Last Gentleman Standing” team nonetheless had to wait it out to see if Fox would be in a position to get permission from Disney (the business that retains the rights to “Home Improvement”) to use the Tim Taylor character for the episode, which is aptly titled “Dual Time.”

“It took a while. There are bigger legal hurdles than you would believe in all of that. It was the working day prior to the table read that I obtained authorization to basically go forward with the episode. And that was only because I threatened, ‘I’m reading it anyway.’ So they eventually agreed to it,” Abbott reported, laughing.

Abbott and his writers know the ins and outs of Mike Baxter likely into the ninth season of “Last Male Standing,” which aired its very first 6 seasons on ABC before it was canceled and then revived at Fox, but they obviously weren’t familiar with writing Allen’s job-creating purpose.

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“Tim gave me one particular of the box sets of ‘Home Improvement’ so I watched a bunch of these to remind myself what the character was like and every little thing,” Abbott reported. “And they are distinctive, so hoping to make absolutely sure that we differentiate the people was demanding. And Tim required to make selected that we had been telling a tale about Tim Taylor as perfectly. That we weren’t just bringing in someone to have in the minute and then move on, that there experienced to be a back tale and a reality to that character as properly. And it took a ton of conversations to land where we landed on all the things, simply because he preferred to make specified that we did it proper. That it sounded genuine to him that that’s what transpired to Tim Taylor.”

So what did take place to Tim Taylor — who, past we noticed on the “Home Improvement” series finale, was living in Detroit, Michigan with his relatives — and how did he make his way more than to Colorado for this episode of “Last Gentleman Standing”?

“I can not recall how a lot stayed in just after the edits, but Tim Taylor now will work for Binford Resources,” Abbott reported. “He’s a substantial muckety-muck in that company and he travels all over undertaking quality manage at the many Binford Instruments. You may have noticed their shops on the corners [in ‘Last Man Standing’]. But Binford has franchised out a position now that has a number of places and he was in town viewing the Denver shop and examining them out. And he’d been explained to by a lot of people that there is a male that does this vlog called ‘Outdoor Man’ that he looks just like. So he had to go see this male, he experienced to go satisfy this male. And boy, they do seem alike.”

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“Last Man Standing” airs its ninth and remaining season premiere this Sunday prior to going to its frequent Thursday time-slot future week. With a excellent chunk of the time already damaged, Abbott appreciates how he wants to wrap items up — but is continue to in the procedure of crafting his ending.

“I do have an notion what the collection finale is and I can tell you it is Mike’s journey this yr. A large amount of instances over the series we have experienced Mike as a large power in other people’s journeys, that Mike is sort of this consistent. This 12 months, it’s about Mike Baxter and the pandemic has built him reassess points, reassessing where he would like his life to go shifting ahead and what does he do about ‘Outdoor Man.’ I’m previously fiddling all over with it, because issues do modify as we go forward, but I believe that it’s going to give the viewers a perception of closure and a perception of hope.”

Time 9 of “Last Person Standing” will premiere Sunday, Jan. 3 at 9:30/8:30c on Fox. The demonstrate will make its time-period of time premiere at 9:30/10:30c on Thursday, Jan. 7.