Tim Allen talks third sitcom success as 'Shifting Gears' scores with fans

USA Today

05-02-2025

Tim Allen talks third sitcom success as 'Shifting Gears' scores with fans
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Tim Allen wants to 'finally make a statement' with his latest sitcom
Former 'Home Improvement' and 'Last Man Standing' star Tim Allen wants to "finally make a statement" with his latest sitcom 'Shifting Gears'.
Bang Showbiz
Tim Allen is in his happy place. He's leaving the Disney lot in Burbank, California, after another day of shooting his new hit ABC sitcom, "Shifting Gears" (Wednesdays, 8 EST/PST and streaming the next day on Hulu), and hopping into his 1,000-horse power Tesla Plaid. (Cue that signature Neanderthal grunt.)
Work and cars. Both make the veteran comedian and actor giddy. And the alternative makes him wince: "I just love being around the camera people and actors and the crew, so much so that I'm more uncomfortable at the thought of leaving the set and, God forbid, going to play golf," says Allen.
He's had little time for golf. At 71, the Midwesterner now has three successful sitcoms to his name when you factor in "Home Improvement" and "Last Man Standing," which ran for eight and nine seasons respectively, an eternity in sitcom years.
"Somebody I was talking to called me the Tom Brady of TV with those three sitcoms, and I hadn't thought of that but it got in my head," says Allen, clearly pleased at the GOAT implications. But even he knows the show won't go on forever.
"This probably will be the end of it," says Allen of his TV career, though he continues to be a popular draw in both movies ("The Santa Clause 2") and on the stand-up comedy circuit. "That sounds depressing, but I did ('Shifting Gears') because it seemed like a good idea that would be fun. That's really it."
Tim Allen says his latest character, Matt Parker, is closest to who he is as a person
In the new show, Allen plays Matt Parker, an auto restoration shop owner and widowed father of two adult children, one of whom ‒ daughter Riley (Kat Dennings) ‒ moves back home with her two teens after leaving her rocker husband. The show also stars Seann William Scott and Daryl "Chill" Mitchell as shop hands, and Maxwell Simkins and Barrett Margolis as Parker's grandkids.
The comedy comes from watching Matt's old school and clearly conservative outlook clash with Riley's more enlightened perspectives, while the pathos emanates from how father and daughter confront the pain of losing the family matriarch to a heart attack while jogging.
For Allen, Parker is part of a continuum that, in his mind, comes closest to representing who the comedian is at his core. But let him explain.
"This is getting closer and closer to the guy you see at my stand-up shows now," he says, gathering momentum. "'Home Improvement' was literally just my stand-up show, where 'Last Man Standing' reflected the fact that I had daughters and I wanted a lead guy who was smarter than Tim Taylor (his character in 'Home Improvement,' in which Pamela Anderson famously made her debut as the Tool Time girl).
"So this new guy now, Matt Parker, he's more of what I really am," Allen continues, barely pausing for a breath. "I was a design and philosophy student like he is. Now, he's curmudgeonly because he's been through grief, and I lost my father as a young kid, so I get that. I also have a car shop. So he's the most relatable to the stand-up I've been doing for years and truly an evolution of all these characters."
For Tim Allen, business people often are on the front lines of politics by virtue of trying to care for employees
Allen shares Parker's political mindset, evidenced in a recent episode where he questions his daughter's push to get her son accommodations in school due to learning issues. In Parker's mind, that means sticking his grandson with a label that will ultimately cause the boy to think less of himself.
For Allen, Parker is simply "liberal of heart and conservative of consciousness." More to the point, he says his characters have come across as more red on the political spectrum by virtue of them being businessmen.
"People like that feel that taxes hurt businesses, they keep them from thriving, and that hurts their employees, who they're just trying to take care of," he says. Allen pauses, then adds with a snicker, "I do like poking the bear, though."
Allen admits he did just that during a meeting with an administrator at the school attended by his teenage daughter Elizabeth, whom he shares with his wife Jane Hajduk. (Allen also has an adult daughter, Katherine, with ex-wife Laura Deibel).
"They were changing their brochure, and the word equality suddenly was becoming equity," says Allen, touching on a third-rail topic that's especially fraught now that President Donald Trump is dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the federal government.
"I said to him, 'So this is about the amount of value I have in my home now?' And he said, 'No, it's equity.' I said, 'But that's the definition of it. What's the value I have in my home after I finish my payments? Equity.' He says, 'That's a different equity.' I say, 'Well, no, now we're in a world where I don't know what you're talking about.' So the more I tried to clarify things, the angrier he got."
Allen is thrilled that's the same kind of argument his "Shifting Gears" he-man would make. "That's why I really like this new character," he says. "He's an artist and a designer and a thinker, but he's also out there just trying to get (stuff) done, trying to make sense of the world and make a living and make things run."
'Shifting Gears' ran flat with most critics, but quickly scored with TV viewers
Something about Parker's world has resonated with TV viewers. Despite middling reviews from critics (the show has a score of 49 out of a possible 100 on Metacritic), it's ABC's most-watched series premiere on streaming, with some 17 million multiplatform views. For Allen, working on a sitcom not only surrounds him with the blue-collar set laborers he admires, but it also gives him the performance jolt that comes from filming in front of a live audience.
"Back in the day, this is how it was, you rehearsed it and shot it in front of real people, and I love that," says Allen. "In the movies, OK maybe I make the crew bust up, but that's it. Doing 'Shifting Gears,' I get to aim for the whole audience plus the crew. There's nothing like it."
Well, nothing like it except maybe the thrill of tinkering in his garage on the various cars in his collection. Intriguingly, while you'd think Allen would be a diehard gasoline-fueled gearhead, he has other thoughts when it comes to how cars should be powered.
"The future of cars, like the future of politics, is compromise," he says. "So that means hybrid, a combination of factors that ultimately give you the best of both worlds."
He could very well be talking about his formula for Tim Allen sitcoms. Part heartfelt family bonding, part hilariously cranky rant. And all ratings gold.