Does Everybody Know What Time It Is?
The answer to the question proposed in today’s title may just be waiting in the welfare line if my argument is compelling enough.
I don't know why Al and Wilson are in the Taylor family portrait.
The show “Home Improvement” was beloved by Americans for 8 seasons, starting in 1991 and ending in 1999. However, I suggest to you the drastically different shape the show would have taken had it been set 10 years later from 2001 to 2009, or alternatively, if the characters in show were real people like most of the rest of us and would have continued living longer than 8 years. So today let’s take a look at what would have really happened had the cameras never gone off on Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor and why the show could never have been launched today.
First of all, I want to point out that I’m going to try to be realistic about possible reality faced by the characters in the show. I’m not just throwing out a scenario based on an unguessable random string of events that sitcoms arcs usually take. I’m basing this on economic and social issues we’re facing today.
Home Improvement was set in Detroit, Michigan where Tim Taylor hosted a local TV show called “Tool Time” where he had an affinity for always adding “more power!” to machines, providing impressive results for a few seconds before they backfire and usually end up injuring him. He lived with his wife, Jill, who had gone back to school to get her PhD in Psychology and their 3 children, Randy, Brad, and Mark, listed in order of importance.
I suggest the Taylors would have been left without income when Tim’s show was cancelled. Why would his show be cancelled, you ask? Well, after the economic downturn of 2008 and the ever-struggling American automotive industry of 2009, Detroit, the car capital of the United States, has been hit the hardest with unemployment rates hitting 17.7% at time of publication.
Additionally, there is no way Binford Tools could continue to keep Tim on the payroll. He visits the emergency room at least weekly. His insurance would be through the roof and a regional tool couldn’t afford to pay those kinds of premiums for an individual with such a health record. He would be left basically uninsurable and unemployable and the burden would be shifted completely to Jill.
I know some naysayers out there will suggest that there is an allusion to moving to Indiana in the final episode of Home Improvement where Jill was offered a teaching job (I do my research) and if that was the case, perhaps the family could have been fine. However, the dynamic established in the series could never have lasted through 2009.
My last point crosses over and confuses Tim Taylor with Tim Allen but it’s something I learned and just want to share. It would also be difficult for Tim to find another real job since he’s a convicted felon, serving over 2 years in prison after being caught with a pound and a half of cocaine in 1978.
It's Blow Time!
(So when Santa Claus offers you snow, don’t take it)
Who wants nose candy for Christmas?
On a totally unrelated note, I would like to present to you pictures of some other people who would be suitably featured on Tool Time.
Maybe the just really like carrots
Jon plus Jailbait minus Kate and 8
Just a little taste 