Why Jonathan Taylor Thomas Had A Problem With Tim Allen
On the sitcom "Home Improvement," Tim "The Toolman" Taylor would open up a toolbox, pull out some hardware, and hilarity would ensue as he failed spectacularly at showing off his handyman skills on his fictional "Tool Time" TV show. But, while the writers' tried-and-true comedic formula earned Tim Allen laughs from 1991 until 1999, the actor's ideas about what's funny can get him into trouble.
Pamela Anderson accused Allen of flashing her on the set of "Home Improvement" and joking about it in her memoir. "He said it was only fair, because he had seen me naked. Now we're even," reads an excerpt published by Variety. Allen denied her claim, but he has confessed that he finds it amusing to offend people. While talking to IndieWire about "Last Man Standing," he said of his conservative character, "I've been a standup fiery comic for 30 years. And I like pissing people off, and I said there's nothing, especially in this area, that pisses people off more than a very funny conservative."
Allen doesn't seem to find it as funny when things happen that tick him off. He complained about the 2017 cancellation of "Last Man Standing" during an appearance on "Norm Macdonald Live" (via TVLine), suggesting that it was due to politics. He also was not laughing when his "Home Improvement" co-star Jonathan Taylor Thomas made a move that reportedly upset him ahead of their show's last season.
Tim Allen questioned Jonathan Taylor Thomas' Home Improvement exit
Jonathan Taylor Thomas' "Home Improvement" role helped him achieve teenage heartthrob status, earning him regular appearances in the pages of Tiger Beat and prime wall space in the bedrooms of his many admirers. But before the sitcom's final season, Thomas walked away from his role as Tim Taylor's impish middle son, Randy Taylor, expressing his desire to enroll in college. Thomas didn't even return for the series finale, and another "Home Improvement" actor, Richard Karn, believes that Tim Allen was unhappy about this. "Tim felt very father-like to the kids and I think it hurt his feelings that Jonathan didn't show up," Karn told News.com.au.
But in a 1999 TV Guide interview (via the New York Post), Allen admitted that Thomas' reluctance to film just one last episode might have been his fault. "He was a little miffed at me," said Allen. "I was a little confused at why he didn't want to do this whole year." Allen explained that this was because Thomas appeared in a few movies after leaving the show. This caused him to question whether Thomas' true motive for quitting was to go to college — and Allen decided to do this publicly. "I don't think [Thomas] liked that," he mused.
However, Karn believed Thomas' finale absence was the actor's mother's fault, as she was purportedly giving him career counsel. "I don't think he was holding out because he was mad at anybody," Karn told News.com.au.
Tim Allen and Jonathan Taylor Thomas reunited on Last Man Standing
Fifteen years after Jonathan Taylor Thomas starred in his last episode of "Home Improvement," he appeared alongside Tim Allen on "Last Man Standing," proving that there was no ongoing TV family feud. By then, Thomas had gotten his fill of college, studying history and philosophy at Harvard and earning his degree from Columbia University in 2010, per Entertainment Tonight. He'd also moved behind the camera. In a 2013 interview with Yahoo! TV, Allen revealed that Thomas was actually shadowing "Last Man Standing" director John Pasquin when he was asked to make a cameo on the show. Allen admitted that he was surprised when Thomas accepted the offer, saying, "He's so shy. ... He worried whether he still had it."
That same year, Thomas spoke to People about being so glad to put the days of girls scribbling "JTT" all over their school folders far behind him. "I never took the fame too seriously," he said. "I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers."
But according to his "Wild America" co-star and fellow teen idol Devon Sawa, Thomas began harboring hopes of parlaying his child stardom into a second chapter on TV: a series co-starring Sawa and "Home Alone" actor Macaulay Culkin. "It was going to be like a mockumentary TV show of where we are now," Sawa told ET in 2020. How does this not already exist?!