When Home Improvement ended its eight-season run in 1998, it left behind an iconic show with a surprisingly deep history. Since then, Fox’s Last Man Standing has worked a Home Improvement reboot joke into its own plot and fans have been clamoring for the return of Tim Allen and his friends from K&B Construction. Now we know what piece of the set he’s kept in his garage all these years — and it might be the coolest thing that ever came out of the series.
The Home Improvement set was built based on executive producer Matt Williams’ actual house in California, with a few Taylor-centric additions. Designer David Sackeroff explains that the Taylor homeyness extends to a wall-mounted Dustbuster, emergency numbers taped next to the phone, and a cabinet filled with mismatched sets of dishes. And while you might expect the set to scream “Architectural Digest,” it’s more of a place for Jill and Tim to hang out with their tools than a showcase of their tasteful interior design skills.
While some of the guests on Home Improvement’s Tool Time were real construction workers, many of them were simply regular celebrity guests spotted in the audience, like Rodney Dangerfield, George Foreman, Michael Andretti, Rodney King, Jim Breuer, Dave Chappelle, and even a few of the crew members who worked on the space shuttle Columbia. Others, such as the Beach Boys, Al Unser Sr. and Jr, and race car drivers Mario Andretti and Robby Gordon were invited by the show’s producers.
Occasionally, the cast of the show would get into a little trouble on the set, whether by misusing a power tool or a bit of prop furniture. But most of the time, the crew’s mistakes were actually on purpose, intended to illustrate Tim’s mantra “More power!” The show also made sure to include a wide range of different kinds of masculinity on screen, from sexy carpentry to hard-working men in a tough trade.
The Home Improvement DVD box set is available now, including a collection of blooper clips and interviews with the cast. And if you’re still hungry for more Home Improvement, you can always check out the full season set on Amazon. You might even see a familiar face on the cover: Pamela Anderson.