Tim Allen is the Tom Brady of sitcoms. Allen has said so himself during appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and Good Morning America, metaphorically condensing an explanation of his prime-time trifecta of television series successes. Considering Disney+ has renewed The Santa Clauses for a third season and he’s set to voice Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 5, a sojourn to stand-up stages may provide a well-earned break from a hectic schedule.
Las Vegas is one of a handful of North American cities that Allen’s short spring comedy tour will hit during what is tantamount to his golden anniversary as a stand-up comedian. It was 50 years ago that Allen was first convinced to see if he was as funny in front of an audience as he was with friends. True success would come in the ’90s when Home Improvement became Allen’s first ABC hit, adapting his stand-up set for television audiences.
The show was a ratings winner for eight seasons. Allen’s tool-toting family man resonated with an underserved demographic, but his voiceover work alongside Tom Hanks in 1995’s Toy Story launched him into the upper echelon of celebrity. The movie was enough of a phenomenon to beget four sequels and an animated television series.
After a decade away from prime time, Allen returned to ABC with Last Man Standing, essentially reincarnating Home Improvement’s Tim Taylor as outdoorsman Mike Baxter. That show had a nine-season run, and 1999 sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest, starring Allen as co-lead, grew in stature as a cult hit.
It’s his latest sitcom, Shifting Gears, that makes him comparable to Brady. He’s a widower with a wayward daughter played by Kat Dennings who re-enters his life in the pilot episode by driving a classic car she stole from him years earlier into the garage of his auto-restoration business with her two sons as passengers.
The show reflects both Allen’s enthusiasm for automobiles and the generation gap that he stands firmly on one side of. Allen may be a gearhead who genuinely likes tools, but he loves finding cars at auctions to add to his collections. He’s conservative, but has never been an extremist ideologue with condescension for people with contrasting beliefs.
He’s also one of the few entertainers who’s had three network sitcoms, placing him on a pantheon occupied by Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore. Neither of those legends started in stand-up, though, so Allen is in a league of his own. His returns to film and television can’t really be called comebacks, but his scheduled return to the Laugh Factory in late April might give him a few butterflies in his stomach.
He’ll be all warmed up by the time he hits Vegas, with Shifting Gears renewed for a second season and the certainty of Buzz Lightyear’s re-entry established. All is well in Tim Allen’s world, which, like that of his Shifting Gears character Matt Parker, really exists in a North Hollywood shop where the right conditions are in place for lovingly restored hot rods to get better with age.
MGM Grand. 9 p.m. May 17, starting at $69 plus tax and fee. mgmgrand.mgmgrandresorts.com
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