Updated May 15, 2020 2.4K votes 636 voters 38.2K views
Voting Rules
Vote up the Home Improvement fan theories that tickle your brain bone nicest.
As streaming platforms allow bored millennials to revisit '90s sitcoms with a mixture of nostalgia and presumptuousness, insane sitcom fan theories about those shows have exploded online. Home Improvement was one of the most watched comedies of the '90s, running for eight season, with more than 200 episodes. No matter how good the continuity oversight, there's bound to be plot holes, character contradictions, confused history, and other weird elements to a show with that much volume. This leaves a lot of room for speculation, with which come Home Improvement fan theories.
Of all the characters on Home Improvement, Wilson Wilson Jr. (Earl Hindman) is by far the most mysterious (really, he's the only mysterious character on the show). Because of his enigmatic nature, many of the best Home Improvement theories address aspects of Wilon's personal history the show never revealed. From Norse God to the illegitimate father of serial killer Jason Voorhees, there are a wide range of ideas explaining Wilson's strange quirks and mysterious behaviors.
Check out this list of crazy Home Improvement theories to discover whether one of the Taylor boys murdered his girlfriend, if Tim's loveable sidekick is a spy, and any number of other potentially horrifying things about Home Improvement.
Although Tool Time is never mentioned in Toy Story, Binford Tools, the hardware and power tool company from Home Improvement, exists in the Toy Story universe, as evidenced by a scene in which Buzz and Woody interact with a Binford tool box.
As you surely know, Tim Allen played Tim Taylor in Home Improvement, and voiced Buzz Light Year in all the Toy Story films. As one theory suggests, toy developers came across Tool Time, Tim Taylor's show, while looking for an 'every man' voice actor to record lines for Buzz Light Year. Tim was approached to voice the cartoon/action figure and agreed. Hell, Tim even says "I am Buzz Light Year" on an episode of Home Improvement.
Is it possible the friendly, wisdom-dispensing neighbor from Home Improvement is God? A Home Improvement analysis podcast, Grunt Work, presents solid evidence to back up this theory.
Besides Wilson's obvious wisdom and seemingly endless knowledge, both of which are commonly associated with gods, there's Biblical evidence. Exodus 33:20 states, "But you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live." This would explain why no one ever sees Wilson's entire face.
In one episode, Wilson seems to give life to some wooden ducks he has carved. In another, he appears in two places at once. What's more, Tim heading out to confess his problems to an semi-anonymous entity behind a fence is eerily similar to the Catholic tradition of confession.
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Randy Is A Sociopath (And Maybe Even A Psychopath)
Tim's sons Randy (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) and Brad (Zachery Ty Bryan) get in a lot of trouble tormenting their younger brother Mark (Taran Noah Smith); could there be more to this than youthful mischief? Randy does some pretty messed up stuff, including digging holes in a cemetery to convince Mark bodies are coming up and stealing money from orphans at Christmas.
So, either Randy is a sociopath or the Grinch. Seriously, though, it's possible the entire subplot of Randy following Lauren to Costa Rica in Season Eight was a cover story. Maybe Randy killed Lauren, then created the story to explain her absence and give himself an out to leave the country. Which, actually, would make him more of a psychopath than a sociopath.
If you've watched even one episode of Home Improvement, chances are, you've seen Tim 'the Tool Man' Taylor seriously botch a home improvement project. In fact, it would seem that no matter how good Tim's plan or intentions, his projects always blow up in his face (sometimes, literally).
One explanation for this is formulaic comedic relief. However, it could be possible the Tool Man is cursed. It would help explain why bad things always happen to him, and why he needs the guidance of a god-like figure (Wilson) to navigate the savage world in which he lives.
And it might not be any old random curse, but one inflicted by a powerful witch or some kind of feminist gypsy intent on undermining Taylor's attempts at traditional masculinity as revenge for the domestic subjugation he inflicts on his wife and the poisonous masculine values he imparts on his sons.
"Wilson is a man on the older side of middle aged who dispenses wisdom to the Taylors with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of philosophy, foreign culture and a whole bunch other random stuff, he also has a lot of skills that would take years to master and once had dinner with Albert Einstein (who died in 1955). There is no way he isn't some kind of immortal or semi-immortal being.
Odin is a Norse god who put a lot of importance on things like knowledge, wisdom and poetry (which could maybe be expanded as art in general), he also would visit the realm of humans disguised as an old wanderer.
So my theory is that Odin was reincarnated and went back to wandering the earth in disguise, then after a while he falls in love with a mortal woman (in the episode where Wilson is planning to move to South America you find out he was married but his wife died) and when she dies he gets depressed and loses interest in pretty much everything so settles down in Detroit. After a while he meets Tim, a man completely devoid of wisdom but constantly in need of it, and in helping Tim with his problems Odin/Wilson finds a renewed purpose."
If Wilson is God, is it possible Tim is his Earthly son, a tooled up Christ? One Reddit user found some interesting similarities.
"He was a carpenter and learned/taught moral lessons every show.
He also talked to his mysterious neighbor, a god figure whose face you never saw, when he had ethical dilemmas. This neighbor would never give him a straight answer, but instead provided anecdotes and parables that allowed Tim to reach his own conclusions."
