Tim Allen is about to kick off a new season of his Fox sitcom “Last Man Standing”, and he’ll be joined by a very special guest star: Tim Allen.
In fact, he’s reviving Tim “the Tool Man” Taylor, whom he portrayed for eight hit seasons on “Home Improvement”.
Allen made an in-studio appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”, where a clip from the upcoming “Last Man Standing” episode was shown in which Allen’s Mike Baxter meets the the Tool Man when he’s working as a handyman for the Baxters — and yes, his signature grunts are featured, although Baxter finds them “a little annoying.”
RELATED: Tim Allen Reprises Iconic ‘Home Improvement’ Role In ‘Last Man Standing’ Crossover
“They call this episode ‘Dual Time’,” Allen tells host Jimmy Kimmel, revealing the series’ showrunner pitched him the idea of “a standalone episode, what if we could get the two guys to meet.”
There was, Allen revealed, an issue with his grunting.
“The only other character I’ve done this for is Buzz Lightyear, sometimes I’ll say, ‘Buzz wouldn’t say that,'” Allen said, referencing his “Toy Story” astronaut.
“Inevitably, people are telling me how to grunt,” he explained. “The writers are going, ‘I want a curious grunt,’ and they write it. ‘That’s a curious grunt? R-r with a question mark?'”
As Allen discovered, the character he plays now is very different from the one he played then. “It was very difficult to be the two guys,” he admitted. “What’s Tim Taylor like nowadays? I got way into this.”
“I appreciate so much that these writers came up with a clever way to bring” his old character into his current show, he added.
The new season of “Last Man Standing” begins on Jan. 7.
