Tim Allen: To Infamy And Beyond

All Neanderthal grunting aside, Tim Allen is nothing like the character that made him very famous, rich and aware that his personal demons have shaped his comedy.

The stand-up comedian reached the pinnacle of stardom, earning $1.25 million per episode on the popular television series “Home Improvement.” And during one week in 1994, he earned the trifecta of starring in the top-rated TV series, plus the highest grossing film “The Santa Clause,” while his memoir, “Don’t Stand Too Close to a Naked Man,” topped the New York Times Bestsellers List.

He remains relevant to kids today as the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story franchise, and to baby boomers who remember "Home Improvement."

But all this came with a lofty price tag. After a very long climb to the top, he battled his personal “devils,” as he calls them. He served two years and four months in a federal prison for drug trafficking in the 1970s. He admits it was a low point in his life, but insists overcoming adversity is possible through focus and education.

Tim Allen has returned to his stand-up comedy roots and takes to the stage  Thursday, March 3 at 8 p.m, at Palm Desert’s .

PalmDesert.Patch.com - First, getting one thing cleared up, about the Golden Globes, Ricky Gervais kind of dissed you and you didn’t get the chance for a comeback line. Did you have one?

Tim Allen - Oh, yeah, I had a great comeback. And it was funny because we were planning it anyway. I was having a very fun time backstage with Sandy Bullock and Tom Hanks. We were laughing about something else, while watching the monitor. And Tom’s very acerbic and very clever. Well, Ricky had just taken a shot at someone and Tom said to me, “He used to be so funny … and chubby.” So I added, “And neither, of which, is he now.”

Patch.com - Which was the punch line you gave to Tom Hanks when you two came onstage. All’s fair in war and comedy?

Allen - Well, Ricky was taking shots at everybody, the Hollywood Foreign Press, the movie “The Tourist” with Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. So we were going to take a mild shot at him. Little did I know he took a shot at me before I came out. So it looked like we were geniuses.

Patch.com - Some reviewers claimed Gervais’ humor was mean-spirited.

Allen - I think it’s just a matter of preference. It’s like Howard Stern. He’s really quite a nice man, two seconds offstage. But onstage he has no reduction valve. He’ll say anything. And Ricky was into that mode. Some of what he said was kinda funny. But it’s different if it’s aimed at you. It was a little mean-spirited, that’s my opinion of his work. I can assure you he didn’t intend it to be mean. He intended it to be funny. I saw him at a Hollywood thing after and he was all nice and a big fan and all that.

But his bit about Steve Carell (The Office) and Steve’s comeback line made me laugh out loud.

Patch.com - And is there any truth to the rumor that you’re taking Carell’s place in “The Office” when he departs?

Allen - Absolutely no truth in it. I had a lunch with Greg Daniels, the guy who created the show, that’s how that rumor started. All of L.A. is like a hair salon. If you have lunch with one guy and you are talking about something else entirely …

Patch.com - Then, you’re dating or working together.

Allen - Yeah, then all of a sudden we’re married.

Patch.com - Now, according to Wikipedia - and I’m sorry to begin a question like that - but you were born Timothy Dick. Why did you change your name?

Allen - I’m sort of a stubborn guy and I never would have changed it. I mean I made it through the worst of my life with that name, through school, and there were no more jokes you could do. But I was doing a TV gig early on in my career, a beat reporter saying funny stuff. I was told by the producer, ‘Whether or not that’s your name, people are going to think you made it up trying to get a laugh.’ So I told them my name is Timothy Allen Dick, just put ‘Tim Allen’ on there. 

Patch.com - Did you always know you were funny?

Allen - Yes. My father, who passed away when I was young, he was a very funny man. My grandpa was a funny man, my uncle was … I loved, and continue to love funny people. My favorite thing in the world is spending a half-hour, whatever I can, with Marty Short.

Marty Short is really, at the point of impact, one of the funniest people I know. I can’t get enough of him. And I’m like that to a lot of people and I enjoy being that for people. There’s no more joy than there is in comedy, to me.

There is a gift to being funny and there is a pain to it, because I don’t know when to turn it off. I got punished in high school and elementary school constantly for not being able to shut up. And it happens – for a person like me – it’s addictive. I have that personality. You gotta calm down sometimes.

Patch.com - Who are your other comic heroes, people who’ve inspired your career?

Allen - Oh, boy … I like the old guys. I really liked Milton Berle on occasion. Bob Hope, overall. I didn’t find Bob Hope particularly funny. I found Bob Hope a funny guy. His life was funny. He was a remarkable person. I really like how he conquered all media: radio, vaudeville, television, movies.

He had challenges, but I loved Jonathan Winters. Robin Williams, probably for comedy, the dark part of comedy, which is where that comes from and how you organize it from something that’s not funny. I liked Lenny Bruce quite a bit in his heyday. The best of all of it was Richard Pryor. I mean the best of all of it. George Carlin, I followed for a long time and then, Richard Pryor was everything. I mean the most amazing person to watch. So that’s probably the best.

Patch.com - One of the funniest films I’ve seen is Galaxy Quest. Why was there no franchise?

Allen - You know, I’m probably not the guy to ask because I don’t know all the details, but I think you’ll find, if you investigate, it’s a Writer’s Guild issue with the original screenwriter and the studio. It was a bunch of missteps, between the original guy who wrote it, and he didn’t get credit when it was arbitrated.

The same thing happened to me on “Shaggy Dog.” I co-wrote “Shaggy Dog,” but you’ll never find my name on it. It was ridiculous that we had to arbitrate it because we wrote it and it had nothing to do with the 1950’s version. And there were two punch-up writers that came in on it.

There’s a prejudice I felt, real or imagined, against having the star as the executive producer and the writer. In the Writer’s Guild there seems to be a built-in prejudice. You really have to prove that you wrote it. And they decided I didn’t have enough proof. So they took my name off of it. And I challenge anyone to tell me I had nothing to do with it because I have the drafts.

So the original writer of “Galaxy Quest” did pretty much the same thing. He wrote it and it got manipulated into a movie that maybe he didn’t even like, because it’s very different in tone than the original script. Doesn’t mean it isn’t the same story. And he never recovered from that.

Patch.com - So that put the kibosh on any sequel?

Allen - No, he’s not going to let anything happen with it. That’s it.

Patch.com - Which is too bad. It’s such a funny set-up.

Allen - Oh, believe me, it made great friends out of everybody who did it. I love “Toy Story.” I really like “The Santa Clause,” I like a lot of the movies that I’ve done – some of them didn’t come out the way we read them and rehearsed them, certainly that happens – but “Galaxy Quest,” top to bottom was one of the best movies. I still watch it. If it comes on TV, I don’t care how many times I’ve seen it, I’ll still watch it. I find something I like every single time I see it. It holds up.

David Mamet [the respected playwright], I did a movie with him, and he couldn’t stop talking about it. He said it was one of the most perfect movies. It works on many levels.

Patch.com - You’ve had remarkable highs and lows in your career, and life, so far. Have you developed an overall philosophy through all of the changes?

Allen - Oh, boy … yeah, we could go on for hours on that. I was a philosophy major in college. I really enjoyed that art form. It’s an art form because it’s so preferential and so personal. My lesson off the top of my head is battling what I consider ‘The Devil.’ It’s not an external thing; there’s no horns involved. It’s centered around what psychologists call ‘the ego’ and anytime I get full of myself, I have the potential to run into trouble.

My mother used to say that idle hands are the Devil’s hands. And a guy like me, when I get bored, or thinking that I run this show or that the world is centered around me, I need to stay humble and grateful as I possibly can. It is not a natural position for me to stay humble. It’s a constant source of conflict with me. My problems always seem to lie in when I think I am more potent and more powerful than I actually am, because at any moment you can be reminded, ‘This isn’t your show.’

Whatever your faith and spiritual beliefs are, you can’t answer the big questions: Where you came from, what are you doing here and where are you going? But this whole life experience does seem to have a feeling of movement to it. Unless you are Buddhist and meditate all day and slow it down and live minute to minute, it’s a very unnatural position for humans to live moment to moment. We live in a constant state of what am I doing tomorrow and I wished I hadn’t done this yesterday. I’m worried about everything. It’s very difficult to sit and smell the roses. So, it’s a constant battle.

The highs and lows and hopefulness and pain … they are all the same thing. It’s just different perspectives. It’s very difficult for some people around me. I don’t get very excited about good things happening because they are just the flip side of bad things. So if I celebrate the good things in my life, I must celebrate the bad things in my life … in my point of view.

I’m an old soap opera fan and I’ve always been afraid of - ‘Oh my god! Things couldn’t be better … !’ And the next thing you know, the evil twin shows up.

Look for part II of our interview with Tim Allen Sunday morning.