Tim Taylor and Wilson’s odd friendship lives on years later.
Home Improvement was a staple of the mid-nineties and its legacy lives on decades later, thanks to some memorable grunting from series lead Tim Allen and the inclusion of the popular character of Wilson, who mainly spent his tenure on the series hiding his face behind a fence. Of course, the relatable concept of a Fix-It guy eking it out with his family in suburban Michigan appealed to many people – even those living outside of the Great Lakes region. The popularity of Home Improvement can’t be understated, and fans still fondly remember the sitcom even as the TV schedule has changed over the decades.
In fact, many of these fans who are now streaming the show on Disney+ are still asking the age old question: Why did Wilson always hide his face behind the fence on Home Improvement ?
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Tim Allen Based His Idea For Wilson On His Idea Of A Neighbor While Living In Michigan
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 Katzenberg, including a pitch for a Dead Poets Society TV series Allen didn’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole.
He’d been thinking about what he could pull off in a sitcom world, so when Katzenberg said ‘Disney wants to be in business with you’ it wasn’t that Allen wanted to say ‘no’ to Disney, it was more that he wasn’t into ABC’s ideas. He said on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast:
They had no idea what kind of money I was making on the road. So they were offering me money that was half of what I made. I went back to Michigan. I’m on my outdoor mower. I loved mowing my own lawn with a big John Deere. I’m sitting on my lawnmower, my wife called and she said, ‘ Jeffrey Katzenberg’s on the phone.’ I get there, he goes, ‘I’m stunned that you went back to Michigan.’ I said, ‘We had this conversation, I don’t want to do [those projects like Dead Poets Society].’ He never had been said ‘no’ to like that.
Katzenberg wasn’t so easily deterred, however, giving Tim Allen the ability to pitch. And pitch he did, a concept that neatly provided the framework for what Home Improvement would become. It also included a neighbor who was always somewhat hazy in the distance.
He 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.
Some things changed a bit from this pitch, including Wilson being more than simply a figure in the distance, but a lot of what the ABC sitcom was was thought up by Allen himself. The actor was also very clear with Maron that it would never have come together as well if Katzenberg hadn’t hooked him up with the creative team he did.
Then he got me together with the people that did Cosby and Roseanne … they took my act that I’d done to Showtime and kind of merged it into a character. The rest was gold. Luckily I had an extremely competent director… and great writers… all great writers that taught me how to be an actor
And Wilson, along with Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor, was born.
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