Lots of shows have been getting reboots lately, but Home Improvement isn’t one of them. The beloved sitcom ran for eight seasons in the 90s, and although Tim Allen would love to see a reboot happen, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, at least not anytime soon.
He explained why a reboot would be especially complicated right now during a recent interview, and it has a lot to do with “issues” involving the actors who portrayed his sons on the show.
Tim, 72, described these issues as “personality problems.”
It’s not clear exactly what Tim meant by this. Interestingly, during an interview with Us Weekly, he seemed to suggest that all three of his TV sons were to blame for the lack of a reboot. Taran Noah Smith (who portrayed Mark) quit acting after the show, which seems like a reasonable decision for a child actor to make. Jonathan Taylor Thomas (who portrayed Randy) continues to work in the entertainment industry, but in a way that allows him to stay out of the spotlight (writing and directing). That also makes sense.
Meanwhile, Zachery Ty Bryan, who portrayed Brad Taylor on the show, has been arrested multiple times in the past five years. He’s been convicted of domestic violence and was sentenced to 16 months in jail earlier this year due to previous DUI charges. Dare I say one of these things is not like the others?
Previously, Taran revealed that he’s no longer in contact with Zachery because of this.
Although Taran quit acting and stays out of the spotlight now, he did appear on The Best Show with Tom Scharpling podcast last year. While on the podcast, he revealed that he has no desire to talk to Zachery anymore.
“He always seemed like he had a good heart under some of his strange behaviors,” Taran said. “But now, if you don’t know, he’s had a lot of trouble over the last few years with getting multiple DUIs and multiple domestic violence charges, so I’ve not seen him since any of that has come out, and I don’t want to.”
In 2023, Tim referred to Zachery as a “complex man.” He told The Hollywood Reporter, “All you can do is step aside and let somebody go through their process. At a certain point, he deviated from the guy I know to somebody who is reacting to situations that I had nothing to do with and can’t control. I don’t know what happens when people get corrupted. You just don’t know.”
But Tim didn’t single anyone out during the recent interview.
Instead, he said his TV sons all have “their own issues.” He told Us Weekly that there’s been talk of doing a reboot, but those conversations haven’t actually amounted to anything.
“They keep talking about how it could move forward, but they get stuck [because] there are some personality problems right now with the boys,” Tim said. “They’ve got their own issues. I always thought it would be cool if it was a story about them. That’s a little challenging right now, to put it mildly.”
