Hulu has recently taken over the exclusive U. S. subscription rights to a trio of 90s sitcoms, including Home Improvement, Boy Meets World, and Tim Allen's Dinosaurs. Home Improvement is an American television sitcom starring Tim Allen that aired on ABC from September 17, 1991 to 1999, with a total of 204 half-hour episodes spanning eight seasons.
The show was created by Matt Williams, Carmen Finestra, and David McFadzean. In the 1990s, Home Improvement was one of the most-watched comedies in the United States, winning many awards. The series launched Tim Allen's acting career and was the beginning of Pamela Anderson's television career, who was part of the recurring cast for the first two seasons. Tim is a stereotypical American man who loves power tools, cars, and sports.
An avid fan of Detroit's professional sports teams, Tim wears Lions, Pistons, Red Wings, and Tigers clothing numerous times, and many plots revolve around teams. He's a former salesman for the fictitious company Binford Tool and is an arrogant know-it-all, overly ambitious, and accident-prone. Witty but frivolous, Tim jokes a lot even at inappropriate times much to the dismay of his wife. However, Tim can sometimes be serious when necessary. His wife Jill is affectionate and sophisticated but not without silly moves. In later seasons, he returns to college to study psychology.
Family life is bustling for the Taylors with the two oldest children Brad and Randy tormenting the much younger Mark all while continually testing and annoying each other. This game occurred especially throughout the first three seasons and was revisited only occasionally until Jonathan Taylor Thomas left at the start of the eighth season. During the final season of the show Brad and Mark became much closer due to Randy's absence. Tool Time was conceived as a parody of the PBS home improvement program This Old House. Tim and Al are cartoons of the two main cast members of This Old House, host Bob Vila and master carpenter Norm Abram.
Al Borland has a beard and always wears plaid shirts when shooting an episode reflecting Norm Abram's appearance in This Old House. Bob Vila guest-starred on several episodes of Home Improvement while Tim Allen and Pamela Anderson appeared on Bob Vila's show Home Again. Stephen Tobolowsky was chosen to play Tool Time co-host Glen but was still busy with a film that was in the middle of production when the first pilot was going to be shot. Therefore, the producers set out to choose an alternative character who would act as Tim's co-host for the pilot or by the number of episodes that were required until Tobolowsky became available. The casting department auditioned Richard Karn for what would be his first major appearance in a television comedy; the character of Al Borland was created from there. After the first few completed episodes with Patricia Richardson as Jill Tobolowsky was still tied down with his other engagements and Karn found himself in his role permanently when Tobolowsky decided he wouldn't have time to do a series.
Therefore, the character of Glen was never born. In 1991 ABC introduced us to the Taylor family in their popular series Home Improvement. For eight seasons, this classic show brought us stories about Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor his family and friends. The comedy about a family man who hosted his own home improvement program called Tool Time became one of the most-watched series of the 90s. He helped launch the careers of several actors including a couple of child stars. After going off air in 1999 most of the cast continued to act and guest star on shows while others left the spotlight forever.
In Germany home improvements were shown on ARD RTL VOX and replays are currently shown on private channels RTL II and Super RTL. Each episode includes Tim's home improvement program called Tool Time a meta-program or program within a program. In Germany and Austria Home Improvement has been shown in dubbing under the title Hör mal wer da hämmert (Listen who's hammering). The streamer's subscribers suddenly found that this series was absent from their library while there were many complaints from Home Improvement faithful there was also speculation that recent release of Disney+ might have had something to do with it (since ABC is owned by Disney which also has most ownership and control). Hulu operative.
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