Patricia Richardson, who played Tim Allen’s wife, Jill Taylor, on the ’90s sitcom “Home Improvement,” said she hasn’t been asked to appear on a potential reunion show — not that she would be interested should the opportunity arise.
Richardson was responding to Allen, who played Tim Taylor on the hit ABC series, saying that the entire “Home Improvement” cast was on board for a reboot, according to Entertainment Weekly.
“It was so weird, I would hear he was coming out publicly and saying this stuff about everyone was on board to do a ‘Home Improvement’ reunion, but he never asked me and he never asked [series co-star] Jonathan [Taylor Thomas],” Richardson said on an episode of the “Back to the Best” podcast.
“I called Jonathan one day and said, ‘Has he asked you about this?’ He went, ‘No,’” she said of Thomas, who played her son Randy on the sitcom, which ran for eight top-rated seasons from 1991 to 1999.
“So why is he saying everyone is on board when he hasn’t talked to you or me?” Richardson said about her conversation with Thomas — adding that she set the record straight about a “Home Improvement” reboot script circulating on the web in reference to her on-screen character, Jill.
“I wrote a big thing on Twitter and said I’m not involved in any series with Jill and I’ve also never been asked to do another ‘Home Improvement’ reunion thing — but I would not want to,” she said on the podcast.
Richardson did not mince words when referring to her former co-star Zachery Ty Bryan, who played her oldest son, Brad. Taran Noah Smith played the Taylors’ youngest son, Mark.
“I mean, Zach is now a felon,” she said, alluding to Bryan’s arrest on charges related to domestic violence and driving under the influence. “Taran hasn’t acted since he left the show; he’s not an actor anymore. And Jonathan’s not really interested in acting. He wants to direct and write.
“And we don’t have Wilson,” she said, referring to actor Earl Hindman, who played the Taylors’ hidden-behind-a-fence neighbor. Hindman died of lung cancer in 2003 at the age of 61.
The cast also included Richard Karn as Tim’s best friend Al Borland and Debbe Dunning (who succeeded Pamela Anderson) as the Tool Time Girl on Tim’s show within the show, “Tool Time.”
March 15, 2023: Patricia Richardson at a screening of “Chantilly Bridge” in Burbank, Calif.
Allen gave an interview last year to the now-defunct site the Messenger in which he talked about the possibility of a “Home Improvement” reunion and said he’d talked about it with his on-screen sons, according to EW.
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“One of the conversations we’ve had recently is how weird it would be if ‘Home Improvement’ would be about the kids’ kids,” he said. “Like if all of them had children, and I’m a grandparent.
“‘Home Re-Improvement’ or something like that,” he said. “It’s come up.”
