Hello, and welcome to another installment of Shit from the 90s. I was going to write about something worthwhile and actually good in this column for a change, but then I saw Jungle 2 Jungle playing on TV this morning, and the light went on above my head. Tim Allen! Is there anyone more distinctively 90s; a star that emerged in the decade and became one of its bigger stars, only to fizzle away into relative obscurity shortly thereafter? I say no.
I’m aware that Allen was a successful stand-up comic in the 70s and 80s, but he really started gaining attention from mainstream America when his perennial saccharine-sweet sitcom, Home Improvement, began in 1991. Home Improvement somehow managed to stay on the air for eight seasons and 200 episodes, despite not being funny. Episodes consisted of Allen making various grunting noises, either he or one of his sons learning a life lesson, his next-door neighbor giving him sage advice behind a tree, fence, or other perfectly positioned obstacle, and Tim making fun of his fat oaf co-worker. Storylines revolved around Tim upsetting his wife, his sons, or his friend and verbal punching bag Al Borland and trying to make amends by the end of the episode. Again, it wasn’t funny. But somehow, the series managed to land in the top ten in Neilsen rankings for each of its seasons, confirming the adage, “People are stupid”.
Not only was Home Improvement a runaway success (it also met the mid-90s benchmark for nationwide acceptance; a Super Nintendo game based on the series), but Allen became a mega-star and a household name. How this happened is beyond me; he’s a likable enough guy and he’s admittedly decent with a one-liner. His acting, however, fell somewhere between wooden and forced. Allen’s “everyman” persona always seemed like part of the character of Tim Taylor from Home Improvement, and not genuine, but the people at large didn’t see the distinction, and Allen was soon cast in a number of box office hits.
Nearly all of his ensuing films were the kind of comedies the whole family can enjoy. You know, bland, unremarkable, and inoffensive; the exact type of thing a stand-up comic is supposed to stay away from. I suppose, however, when they’re driving a dump truck full of money up to your house, you don’t really have much of a choice.
Anyway, his 90s film run began with The Santa Clause (1994, $144 million domestic), in which Allen transformed into Jolly Ol’ St. Nick himself. It continued with Toy Story (1995, $191.7 million domestic/Canada), at the time a state-of-the-art animated film that laid the groundwork for all of the 3-D animation we see today in films. The aforementioned Jungle 2 Jungle followed (1997, $60 million domestic), in which Allen, an uptight business executive, finds out he has a son who lives in the rainforest with his tribe, though he’s white and the rest of the tribe is clearly South/Native/whatever American. Finishing the decade, we got another Toy Story, For Richer or Poorer (an Amish send-up co-starring Kirstie Alley; yes, it’s awful) and Galaxy Quest (a Star Trek spoof).
Since the turn of the century, Allen’s career path has followed a similar trajectory to that of Chris Tucker’s. He comes out of hiding once in a while to do a Santa Clause sequel (one came in 2002, another in 2006), much like we only see Tucker in Rush Hour sequels now. He’s still a star, and he’s still a name, but he’s almost never in anything anymore and no one really cares when he is. There were no sex scandals or big box-office bombs to derail him (though he did get a DUI in 1997). People seem to like him well enough, and when a new Tim Allen movie comes out, people think, “Hey, alright, Tim Allen!” But no one’s clamoring for him now like they did in that magical decade of the 90s.
If anyone has any idea why Tim Allen became one of the biggest stars on the planet in 90s, I’m all ears. He was affable and goofy, he was witty and he had a childish charm about him. But he couldn’t act, his comedy was so inoffensive it made Jay Leno look like Redd Foxx, and nearly everything he was in (minus the Toy Story films) was awful. I guess we’ll just have to throw him on the 90s pile next to the Talkboy and the dancing flowers, and I’ll be back with you soon.
John Lacey
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