Talk:Home Improvement (TV series)

On 18 November 2022, it was proposed that this article be moved to Home Improvement. The result of the discussion was not moved.

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It was set in Detroit

I have a difficult time believing that Home Improvement was set in Detroit. --24.200.35.253 00:41, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are several indications it was set in Detroit.

In the first season Tim explains that him and his wife had dinner in West Bloomfield, which is a suburb of Detroit. However, the show is based in Birmingham, Michigan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:401:C500:200E:8D59:81C7:411E:6BEE (talk) 07:36, 2 January 2019 (UTC) Tim grew up in Birmingham and still has strong connections to the area today. Birmingham is about 20 minutes out of the downtown Detroit area. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.23.158.185 (talk) 10:37, 29 August 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The biggest indication is in the episode "The Look", where Tim buys season tickets for the Detroit Pistons.

On a side note, there is no mention of "The Man's" line of rooms from ToolTime. Usually tended to be one of the funnier things in an episode.

Modor Another indication is the mention of several other cities in Michigan; for example; the episode when Tim gets lost in a blizzard on the way to a wedding. This episode mention the city "North Adams"; which is a city off US 12, near Brooklyn, Michigan. Additionally, a reference is made that Toledo, Ohio is a short drive in the episode where Tim's old shop teacher appears.

Toffile

Everything sports related on the show was about Detroit teams: Detroit Pistons, Detroit Lions, Detroit Red Wings. It snows in the winter. Tim once made a quick trip to Canada in an afternoon. I'm sure it was directly mentioned several times they are in Detroit (like the final episode where they considered moving away). I would never believe anyone who says this did not take place in Detroit.--Will2k 16:35, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Tomohuynh

One episode has Tim and Al flying home on a plane when the pilot mentions they are close to landing in Detroit Metro airport. Also in the episode, Tim asks if they should rather drive to Detroit.

Wiki

The show was set in Detroit... yet the show was actually filmed in Burbank, California. It was mentioned that the show was in Detroit. One episode that comes to mind is episode #1.16 "Jill's Birthday," where Jill says "That'll be a cold day in... Detroit."

Actually, it seems like they live in a suberb of Detroit. Suburbs are usually considered part of a city(so someone in a suberb of Los Angeles would say they are from Los Angeles). TJ Spyke 18:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

JoeCool

I was watching the episode "Feud for Thought" from the third season and an old friend of Jill's at a high school reunion asks Jill where she and Tim are living. Jill out right responds, "Detroit."

Guys there is no doubt the Taylors lived in Detroit. Its evident in every episode pretty much. Jwjkp (talk) 20:36, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Clean Up Tag Removal?

Anyone else feel that this tag can be removed? Phasedice 22:19, 15 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, the article is still pretty unorganized and doesn't follow a very logical sequence. --Dalkaen^T/C 23:05, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

This article has been renamed from Home Improvement to Home Improvement (TV series) as the result of a move request.

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was - unopposed move to avoid confusion in line with WP:MOS. Keith D (talk) 10:45, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Home Improvement → Home Improvement (TV series) — WP:NC(P) recommends "adding a parenthetical (bracketed) disambiguator to the page name: for instance when both spellings are often or easily confused." In this case, only capitalization separates Home improvement and Home Improvement. —Mika1h (talk) 21:24, 18 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Support per WP:NC cited above. — AjaxSmack 07:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support totally agree, at the moment it's just too confusing. Ged UK (talk) 11:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support It's like the problem they have with the goerge lopez show. you type in george lopez and you get the person instead of the show. RC-0722 (talk) 15:51, 19 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support per nom. JPG-GR (talk) 00:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Support If anyone wants, I can go ahead and move it? Burner0718 (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Any additional comments:

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Unsourced Material

Below information was tagged for lacking sources in 2011. Feel free to reincorporate with appropriate references. DonIago (talk) 14:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Show background

The series regularly won its time slot against Seinfeld in its second season, which prompted NBC to move that show to Thursday nights (where it was much more successful). NBC's placement of Frasier opposite Home Improvement in 1994 was effective enough to do some damage to the show's ratings, but it remained a Top 10 show for its entire original run. The final episode aired on May 25, 1999 with a 90-minute finale, which was the fourth highest rated comedy series finale of the 1990s, behind Cheers, The Cosby Show and Seinfeld.

Development and early recasts

=== Development and early recasts ===Home Improvement had been in the works between Tim Allen and the writing/producing team of Carmen Finestra, David McFadzean, and Matt Williams since the summer of 1990. Originally, the project's proposed title was Hammer Time, both a play on the catchphrase made popular by artist MC Hammer and the name of the fictional fix-it show within the series, which was also called Hammer Time. By the time ABC committed to the project in early 1991, Allen and his team had already changed the title to Home Improvement. The show hosted by Tim Taylor in the shooting script for Home Improvement was still called Hammer Time when the first pilot with Frances Fisher was filmed in April 1991. The catalyst for the series' name change was to represent the aspect of fixing problems within the family and home life, as well as the use of mechanics and tools. Once the second phase of the pilot was produced, with all the actors that made the final cut into the series (including Patricia Richardson), Tim Taylor's Hammer Time became Tool Time.

As mentioned above, the first pilot was produced in April 1991, with Frances Fisher playing Jill Taylor. Fisher, primarily known as a dramatic actress, was well qualified for the co-starring role but was viewed by the studio audience as not being comedic enough, and too serious in her line delivery. The producers tried to work with Fisher on adapting to the situation comedy setting, but shortly after the pilot wrapped post-production, they decided to recast her.

Before the first pilot was shot, actor John Bedford Lloyd was in the running for one of two roles; that of Tim's Tool Time co-host (originally named "Glen") and the role of Wilson. Bedford Lloyd eventually got the part of Wilson, but his agent later made claims that the actor was unaware that most of his scenes would require his face to be partially hidden behind a fence. For this reason, the crew received news just one day prior to taping the first pilot that Bedford Lloyd had dropped out. Casting immediately contacted the other actor considered for the role, Earl Hindman.

Stephen Tobolowsky was tapped to play the Tool Time co-host, Glen. However, he was still busy with a movie that was in the middle of production at the time the first pilot was to be shot. Therefore, the producers set out to cast an alternate character that would stand in as Tim's co-host for the pilot, or for however many episodes were required until Tobolowsky was available. The casting department auditioned Richard Karn, for what would be his first major appearance on a TV sitcom; the character of Al Borland was created from there. After the first few episodes completed with Patricia Richardson as Jill, Tobolowsky was still tied up with his other commitments, and Karn found himself in his role permanently when Tobolowsky decided he would have no time to do a series. Thus, the character of Glen never came into being.

"Home Improvement"'s Last Season Didn't Finish in the Nielsen Top-10

"During its eight-season run, the show always finished in the top 10 in the Nielsen ratings during a season..."

While Home Improvement did finish in 10th place during season 7 in 1997-98 (with an average of 18.4 million viewers), I have a source ([1]) that says Home Improvement fell out of the Nielsen Top-10 during its eighth and final season (placing at #14 with 14.8 million viewers). And those figures are in terms of viewers, not households. This article used to have a table on its ratings in which Home Improvement's last two seasons are in viewers while its seasons 1-6 are in households. TVBuff90 made some changes to this article in October of 2017 that resulted in the removal of that table and the insistence that each of its seasons be in households (which I don't agree with in the case of HI's seasons 7 and 8) Jim856796 (talk) 13:36, 8 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 18 November 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Per consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) – robertsky (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

– The article for the television show should be at the undisambiguated title (base name) as the primary topic for the proper noun per WP:DIFFCAPS. Users using the capitalized form are much more likely to be seeking a proper noun instead of the common noun Home improvement. Among the uses of the proper noun on enwiki, the television series is the clear primary topic. A hatnote is sufficient to get users to other pages. The disambiguation page should be moved to the capitalized form since all topics disambiguated there are capitalized (i.e., the lowercase Home improvement is not ambiguous). This setup would be analogous to other shows titled after multi-word common nouns, e.g. Growing Pains and Growing pains. Mdewman6 (talk) 18:07, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose other stuff exists but this TV show ended in 1999, it's survived with (TV series) on it 23 years since ending. Let it continue to be recognisable. In ictu oculi (talk) 21:47, 18 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Clearly there is another article called Home improvement leading to much confusion as it is something people do to their homes. TV series describes the show and doesn't lead to much confusion. Magical Golden Whip (talk) 04:08, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, WP:DIFFCAPS is obsolete and should be dumped. This has been shown many times, and this is another. Some Wikipedians trust that readers will not mix upper and lowercase up as they search. They live in a fool's paradise. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:14, 19 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Of course users may sometimes capitalize both words when they are seeking the lowercase term, the point is that WP:HATNOTEs exist to serve such users, which is what DIFFCAPS says. Parenthetical disambiguation is not the only form of disambiguation- in fact it is meant to be used when natural disambiguation is insufficient, which is not the case here, as we have a proper noun and a common noun. Extra disambiguation violates WP:CONCISE. Mdewman6 (talk) 21:39, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Support Like it or not, WP:DIFFCAPS remains policy and no other subject listed on the disambiguation page is more commonly sought than the TV show. -BRAINULATOR9 (TALK) 00:15, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

This n-gram shows that the commonest use of the term involves the lowercased meaning of improving the home. Wikipedia uses a descriptor on the name of the television show to differentiate from this otherwise common usage, which is also WP:DIFFCAPS compliant, and the n-gram also shows that the uppercased use referred to improvements in the home long before the series commenced in 1991. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:06, 20 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment as nom It looks like the television show is getting ~6x the page views as the article on the general concept. I'm not arguing it's the primary topic for both capitalizations, as I do believe the lowercase term easily wins in terms of long-term significance, but right now anyone typing either form and seeking the television show must go through a disambiguation page, and we are doing those users a huge disservice. Mdewman6 (talk) 21:46, 21 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – a disambig page is not a disservice, and DIFFCAPS does not really encourage this. Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 25 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.