Patricia Richardson has revealed how she negotiated her way out of another season of Home Improvement, effectively ending the hit show’s run after eight years.
Richardson played Jill Taylor, the wife of uber-macho but oft-bumbling home improvement show host, Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor (Tim Allen). The show ran from 1991 until 1999.
One of the most popular sitcoms of the 1990s (in some seasons eclipsing show giants like Seinfeld and Frasier in the ratings), it was clear that management and Allen both wanted to do a ninth season.
Richardson though, was thinking, “I don’t think so, Tim.”
“I told everybody, there’s not enough money in the world to get me to do a ninth year. This show is over. It needs to end,” she told the LA Times.
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Richardson Says She Used Pay Gap Between Her And Allen As An Out
Richardson says that due to dwindling ratings after the eighth season and the departure of Jonathan Taylor Thomas (show son Randy Taylor), both she and Allen were on the same page in regards to ending the show.
But then a money offer came in for one more season. $1 million per episode for Richardson, $2 million per episode for Allen.
Allen, she told the Times, couldn’t resist. As a result, Richardson says she used the disparity in pay as a means to get out of the show. She demanded the same pay as the star.
She knew they’d never go for it.
“I knew that Disney would in no way pay me that much. That was my way to say ‘no’ and was a little bit of a flip-off to Disney,” she said.
“I’d been there all this time, and they never even paid me a third of what Tim was making, and I was working my ass off,” she added. “I was a big reason why women were watching.”
The series concluded in May of 1999.
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No Reboot
Richardson shot down rumors of a Home Improvement reboot as recently as this past April.
She cited a myriad of reasons, including the fact that Earl Hindman, who played Wilson, had sadly passed away and Zachery Ty Bryan, who played their eldest son Brad, was “now a felon.”
“It’s not gonna be the show, at all,” she said. “And people think we can just magically go right back to who we were 30 years ago. And do a show that was 30 years ago and we’ve all changed quite a bit, I think, since then.”
“It would be very weird. I think we did it, we did it well, we quit at the right time before it got really bad,” she continued. “And it should just stay as it is.”
Allen though, has at times expressed interest in a reboot or a spinoff of the hit series.
Home Improvement was immensely popular during its run. It was one of the most-watched sitcoms in the United States during the 1990s, winning a variety of awards.
The show was a consistent nominee and winner at the People’s Choice Awards, winning Favorite TV Comedy and Favorite Male TV Performer (for Tim Allen) in 1994. It also received nominations at the Emmy Awards, including a nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1993.
Richardson herself was nominated for four Emmys and two Golden Globes for her work on the show.
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