Tim Allen headed back to ABC with comedy ‘Shifting Gears’

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Tim Allen is returning to ABC to star in a new comedy titled Shifting Gears.

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Per The Hollywood Reporter, Shifting Gears will centre on a stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop (played by Allen) who has to build a new relationship with his estranged daughter and her teenage kids after they are forced to move in with him.

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The show will reunite Allen with ABC, which was home to his sitcoms Home Improvement (1991-1997) and Last Man Standing (2011-2017). But the cancellation of Last Man Standing hit the wrong notes with Allen fans after claims the sitcom was ditched by the network because of the actor’s conservative politics.

Allen — who likened being a Republican in Hollywood to living in 1930s Germany — appeared on Norm Macdonald’s podcast in 2017 and said that the show’s cancellation was “handled very badly.”

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“You couldn’t have handled this worse. Not for me, ’cause I’ll survive, but there’s 190 of us that work there,” Allen said. “I have no idea why they did what they did.”

Allen implied that his character’s politics (Last Man Standing’s Mike Baxter was a “man’s man” who hated President Barack Obama) had an impact on the show’s cancellation.

“There’s nothing more dangerous to me especially in this climate than a funny, likable conservative. That was the most dangerous thing,” Allen said. “Because he was mitigated on his show by a family of women that had different opinions — but the guy was a likable guy, a principled guy, just about work and ethics and all this stuff. I think there’s nothing more dangerous now than a likable conservative character.”

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On an episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast in 2021, Allen opened up on his political views and being drawn to former President Donald Trump because the divisive former leader didn’t mind ruffling some feathers.

“Once I realized that the last president pissed people off, I kind of liked that,” Allen said according to Fox News.

Allen became a conservative, he said, because he didn’t like the idea of not knowing how his taxes were being spent.

“Once I started making money, I had this silent partner (the government) that took almost half my money and never gave me anything for it. That was the taxes. I never liked taxes,” Allen said. “I’m a conservative person with money. That’s it.”

Last Man Standing was eventually picked up for Fox and ran from 2018 to 2021. Meanwhile, ABC said the show’s cancellation was never politically motivated and was a result of the network’s decision to shift away from comedy on Friday nights.

The cancellation has seemed to be water under the bridge for Allen, who has continued to work with Disney, ABC’s parent owner, on The Santa Clauses and the Toy Story franchise.

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