A wildly popular sitcom from the nineties starring actor Tim Allen has finally found its way to the Disney+ streaming library, and with the show’s resurgence comes new insight into one of the show’s most enjoyable “mysteries.”
And though Tim Allen was the star of the show–and the one who delivered the majority of the comedy and laughter-inducing quips, it was one of the show’s so-called lesser characters that delivered the heart and the message of the show, and he did so under the cloak of mystery and anonymity.
In each episode of the show, the Taylors face challenges of varying severity. Sometimes, it’s a misunderstanding between Tim and Jill. In other episodes, it’s the challenge of making a confession about who broke the tools.
In other episodes, there are challenges between someone in the Taylor family and a co-worker, friend, or classmate. But regardless of the challenge, each episode included a scene in which one of the Taylors–usually Tim–is in his backyard pondering when he hears Wilson, his next-door neighbor, piddling in his yard, and calls out to him.
Wilson’s response is always the same: “Hi-di-ho, neighbor,” followed by an exchange between the two about the family’s current challenge and Wilson’s sage response that usually involves a proverb that can be applied to the situation.
Wilson was a fan-favorite character because of his gentle wisdom that often served as a turning point in each episode, but it’s the anonymity of the character for which he’s best remembered. After all, fans never really knew what Wilson looked like.
During his exchanges with Tim Allen in the show, Wilson, played by the late Earl Hindman, was always positioned behind the fence that divided his backyard from the Taylors’ backyard, and throughout all eight seasons of the show, only Wilson’s hat and eyes are ever seen by the audience–never his whole face.
He almost always stood behind a fence when speaking with a member of the Taylor family, but even if he ventured out of his backyard on camera, Wilson’s face was hidden behind another prop on set. During a Thanksgiving episode of Home Improvement, Wilson joins the Taylors for Thanksgiving dinner, but even so, his face remains hidden in every scene.
Why Can’t We See Wilson’s Face?
Nearly as elusive as the look of Wilson’s face was the reason for his face being covered during scenes of the award-winning sitcom. But now, more than 25 years after Home Improvement ended on ABC, the mystery about why the show was written to keep Wilson’s face out of each frame has finally been solved.
While Tim Allen credits the writers and an “extremely competent” director for making “Home Improvement” the success it was, if you were to ask him, he would confirm the idea for the character of Wilson was all his, and it came from his general concept of what a neighbor was. He said the idea came while he was being pitched for other sitcoms by then-Disney head honcho Jeffrey Katzen
But Katzenberg was stuck on the idea of Allen starring in a Dead Poet’s Society-type sitcom for television–something Allen vehemently refused. Katzenberg didn’t listen, though, and Allen eventually walked away from the pitch session with Katzenberg and returned home to Michigan. So Katzenberg called him at home, and after a long conversation, as Allen was attempting to mow his lawn, Home Improvement and the “Wilson” character were born.
Allen recounted the exchange on Marc Maron’s podcast, saying:
“[Katzenberg] goes, ‘Let me rephrase this: you know what I was offering you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I appreciate the offer; I just don’t want to do that.’ He goes, ‘What would you want to do?’ I said, ‘What I would want to do is make a parody of This Old House with Norm and Bob Vila and have a neighbor that I can’t see. And I pitched it. I want three boys; I never really see my neighbor, I just wave at this figure, and I want to do that. And then have a show within a show where I break stuff all the time.”
In 1991, actor Earl Hindman was cast as Wilson, who disclosed later in the series that his name is Wilson W. Wilson, Jr. Hindman appeared in every season of Home Improvement until the show ended in 1999.
Just four years later, he died of lung cancer in Stamford, Connecticut, at the age of 61. But Wilson’s legacy wasn’t just something written into the show. It was something felt by his fellow cast members and fans alike.
Tim Allen paid tribute to Hindman and his characterization of Wilson from Home Improvement during the Last Man Standing episode, titled “Dual Time,” by hiding his face, just like Wilson used to do.
