Tonight at 9p on Fox, we say goodbye to Last Man Standing. It survived 10 years, 9 seasons, 3 casting changes (two daughters and a son in law), 3 Presidents, 2 networks, 1 Jay Leno, and many, many laughs.
It was a show about a family who was always there for each other, even if they didn’t agree on everything. LMS was also known for its politics. That was something I admired about the sitcom. Like All in the Family, they covered all sides of the political spectrum and met in the middle. That is what made it unique.
Tim Allen likened his character of Mike Baxter to “Archie Bunker with a college education.”
That was not all Allen had to say about the program on a press call for the show’s series finale.
To be very honest, I had problems letting go of this one. It’s just been, what, three or four weeks? And I’m literally just feeling better. Never have I enjoyed, outside of Home Improvement and maybe moments of Galaxy Quest and one of these jobs in stand up I love. But this crew from the guy at the gate to Radford to people that we ate with. I loved every second of this experience. Earl Hindman and I, may God rest him, we used to love what we did, and we’d look at every part of the set every morning. I’ll always remember this, and that gratefulness kept me level. And this set, I looked at every set piece. I walked through every hallway over and over again. I always looked around; I’m going to miss it.
It didn’t help. Having this canceled several times like that, you get used to the sudden death, and for some reason, I prefer that. Knowing we were canceled all year long; I’d look at all of this wonderful cast. You can hear this a million ways. You just don’t know how much affection I have for all of these people, the people behind the scenes, everybody involved in this thing. I really enjoyed myself, and I said this was not comfortable weeks. I was counting off the hours. I did not do well with this. In a very moralistic way, I’m glad it’s done because I can’t feel this way anymore.
This was a wonderful experience, and it expressed itself, I believe, in a wonderful television show like none other. There’s other sitcoms that I really adore, I do watch, but I would shout out to this one. What these guys did, a most selfless group of performers. We all worked as a team, very unusual, and Gary on camera #3.
It was so busy that last week. It was the last five, ten minutes of that show that everybody broke. It just came so fast. They didn’t want that show to end. The network really was pleading with us to keep that going. For whatever reason, this was the end of the nine-year stretch on this, very difficult on me. I can only speak for myself. I just adore this cast, and I said, ‘That was my story.’ Again, each one of us has got a different story.
The other people with stories to tell are Nancy Travis, Héctor Elizondo, Amanda Fuller, Jordan Masterson, Molly McCook, Christoph Sanders, Jonathan Adams, and Krista Marie Yu. To all of the actors and the crew, I just want to thank you for a sitcom that made me think and, more importantly, made me laugh.
