Why“ Home Improvement” Alum Patricia Richardson Thinks Doing a Reboot 'Would Be Very Weird' Despite Tim Allen's Interest
The actress shot down the idea of rebooting the sitcom, which aired from 1991 to 1999, noting that it's "not the same" anymore
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Patricia Richardson attends the SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations Presents "Chantilly Bridge" at SAG-AFTRA Foundation Screening RoomSorry Home Improvement fans, the Taylor family won’t be returning to the screen anytime soon.
During an appearance on the Back to the Best podcast on Thursday, Patricia Richardson, who played family matriarch Jill Taylor alongside Tim Allen in the long-running sitcom, shot down the idea of rebooting the series.
“It’s not the same – it’s not gonna be the show. At all,” Richardson, 73, said of the series, which aired from 1991 to 1999. “And people think we can just magically go right back to who we were 30 years ago and do a show that was 30 years ago, and we’ve all changed quite a bit, I think, since then. And the show would just be… It would be very weird. It makes me sad to think about it. I think — We did it. We did it well. We quit at the right time before it got really bad. And it should just stay as it is.”
Richardson said that she’s “very happy” that Allen, 70, “went on to get a different series,” referring to Last Man Standing, which concluded in 2021 after nine seasons, but also touched on the comments he’s made about the possibility of a Home Improvement reboot – all of which she contradicted.
“He kept coming out publicly, I mean it was so weird. I would hear on Twitter or whatever, I’d hear that he was coming out publicly and saying this stuff about how everyone was on board to do a Home Improvement reunion," said Richardson, who earned four Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe Award nominations for the sitcom.
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Patricia Richardson and Tim Allen in the pilot episode of 'Home Improvement' (1991)She continued, "But he never asked me, and he never asked Jonathan [Taylor Thomas] who I talk to. So I called Jonathan one day and I said, ‘Has he asked you about this?’ And he went, ‘No. Why is he going around telling everyone that we’re all on board when he hasn’t talked to you or me?’ I think that’s weird.”
Richardson also addressed a “rumor” she’d heard about there being a script for a spinoff about her character as she said of Allen: “He was kind of lying to people and telling them that I was on board and I didn’t know anything about it.”
Related: Tim Allen and Richard Karn Talk Reuniting 22 Years After 'Home Improvement' for 'Assembly Required'
In general, she affirmed she “would not want” to reboot the show whatsoever, before referencing the statuses of some of the sitcom’s other characters, including Zachery Ty Bryan, who she called “a felon” after he was arrested in February and charged with felony DUI. The actor has two previous arrests on his record, as he was charged with fourth-degree felony assault in August and pled guilty to two domestic violence misdemeanor charges in 2021.
As for her two other former onscreen sons, Richardson said Taran Noah Smith “hasn’t acted since he left the show” and Taylor Thomas, 42, is no longer “interested in acting.”
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While Richardson may not be interested in revisiting her role as Jill Taylor, Allen has showed more interest in returning to the sitcom. In a 2021 episode of Last Man Standing's final season, Allen reprised his role as Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor in a crossover episode — an experience that he described as both "weird" and "creepy."
"It was very peculiar to do both parts, I'll tell you that. It was challenging for me to do both parts and kind of emotional," Allen told Entertainment Tonight, referring to the 2003 death of his former costar, Earl Hindman, who played Wilson, Allen's onscreen neighbor in Home Improvement.
"I adored the man and we kind of brought that up in the story. I started thinking about all the history I had with that TV show, how I compare it to my life on this show. It's all about loss, is all I kept saying in that episode," he added.
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