He showed an affinity for more power and kept up some sporting conversation. Next, Tim Allen will once again star in an ABC sitcom, Shifting Gears, and this time, he’s putting the pedal to the metal in a big first for the network’s upcoming season.
70-year-old Tim Allen’s most famous gig on ABC was, for many fans, Home Improvement, which saw him play the cocky yet accident-prone Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor. Home Improvement was one of the most-watched sitcoms of the ‘90s. Actor and network are together again in ABC’s first multicamera program of the season.
Tim Allen is ‘Shifting Gears’ back into an ABC sitcom once again
In Shifting Gears, Allen stars as Matt, a stubborn widower who runs a car restoration business. But he has more than cars to tend to after his daughter moves into his home, accompanied by her teenage kids. If this is sparking some nostalgic deja vu, that might be because of Allen’s other famous foray with ABC, Last Man Standing, which stuck with the network for six seasons before relocating to Fox for the rest of the show’s run.
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Last Man Standing executive producer Marty Adelstein is also part of the Shifting Gears team. This executive production and script-writing team also includes Allen himself, as well as Rick Messina, Becky Clements, Mike Scully and Julie Thacker Scully. Thacker Scully served as a writer and co-executive producer on The Simpsons. The other Scully has similarly worked on The Simpsons Movie and was a writer-producer for Parks and Recreation.
Returning to his roots in another way
This may be lucky number three for Tim Allen and ABC, but he’s also indirectly returning to Disney after famously playing Father Christmas himself throughout The Santa Clause franchise. Allen debuted the role of Scott Calvin in the original 1994 film and reprised it through two sequels and, starting in 2022, in the Disney+ series The Santa Clauses. Elizabeth Mitchell, Eric Lloyd, and David Krumholtz also reprise their roles from the original films.
Shifting Gears is already living up to its name, as its order comes as ABC is focusing more on a year-round development model, shares The Hollywood Reporter. The outlet also notes that this is ABC’s first pilot order of 2024.
Will you be shifting into Shifting Gears mode?