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It’s been 34 years since comedian Tim Allen landed into our living rooms with one of TV’s most beloved sitcoms, Home Improvement. Since then, he’s blazed a comic path that includes

best-selling books, box-office hits, sold-out stand-up shows and another network comedy, Last Man Standing, which finished its nine-year run in 2021.

Ask him how he got here, and Allen admits there was no master plan. There was, however, a motivator. “I was always a funny guy … But I saw [Richard Pryor] live, and he really changed how I

felt about myself. And I said, boy, a comedian has a lot of input on a deep level. Laughter is the best medicine, as they say.”

That helps explain why at 71, he’s still eager to jump back into the sitcom world with a new ABC comedy, Shifting Gears, premiering Jan 8. Allen talked with AARP about the personal decisions

that went into the show’s themes, the relationships he’s always working on, and why he’s like his good friend Jay Leno in that he’s not the retiring type.  

This video interview has been edited for length and clarity.

I see cars behind you — are you relegated to talking to me from your garage?

I prefer it out here, actually, because it’s got better sound and better lights and all that kind of stuff. 

It’s fitting given that Shifting Gears takes place in a garage.

I said if I did a third sitcom, I would like it to be about grief and loss, the undercurrent drama. And then I want to do it about cars and the restoration process, the people that get stuff

done and restore things as they are [and] not buy new stuff. So that's the gist of it.