Another Last Man Standing reunion episode is in the works for Tim Allen’s new sitcom Shifting Gears. However, unlike the recently aired Valentine’s Day episode, the returning Last Man Standing alum was not a main cast member during the show’s nine-season run on ABC/Fox.
Per Screen Rant, in an upcoming episode of Shifting Gears, Allen will reunite with Jay Leno, who made recurring appearances in Last Man Standing as semi-retired auto technician Joe Leonard in the show’s final five seasons. However, Allen and Leno’s working relationship goes back even further than that, with Leno having made two guest appearances as himself on Allen’s first sitcom, Home Improvement, in the 1980s. Leno will appear in the March 12 episode of Shifting Gears, titled “Gummies,” as himself, with the storyline seeing the former Tonight Show bringing his car into Allen’s character’s car restoration shop, Parker Customs, for repair. Check out a first look image of Leno below.
The sitcom’s production designer explains why some changes to the set were necessary.
Leno isn’t the first Last Man Standing alum to make a guest appearance on Shifting Gears. Nancy Travis, who appeared in all nine seasons of the ABC/Fox sitcom as Tim Allen’s character’s wife Vanessa Baxter, guest starred in the sixth episode, “Valentine’s.” In the episode, directed by frequent Allen collaborator John Pasquin, Travis played a widow named Charlotte who stumbles upon Matt (Allen’s Shifting Gears character) visiting his wife’s gravesite on Valentine’s Day.
After the episode aired, Travis spoke with TheWrap about working with Allen again. “I got to work with Tim again, not in the role of a wife or a girlfriend, but as a stranger who shares a similar past and is a catalyst for him moving forward after the death of his wife in the show,” she said. “It was a very, very interesting character, and I was really excited to jump in and do these scenes with Tim.”
Shifting Gears Has Been a Ratings Hit for ABC
Created by Julie Thacker Scully and Mike Scully, Shifting Gears stars Allen as Matt Parker, a widower who runs an auto shop, and Kat Dennings as his estranged daughter, Riley Parker. The series revolves around Matt reluctantly taking in Riley and her two children after she returns home, as well as day-to-day auto shop life. Seann William Scott, Daryl Chill Mitchell, Maxwell Simkins, and Barrett Margolis are also part of the show’s main cast.
Shifting Gears star Kat Dennings fondly remembers Bob Saget, who once played her father in a sitcom on TV.
While his film career as a leading man was short-lived, Allen has remained a constant draw on television, with Home Improvement and Last Man Standing lasting eight and nine seasons, respectively. Shifting Gears has the potential to run just as long, especially if it maintains the ratings it’s currently getting. The series premiere of Shifting Gears set an audience record for ABC with its subsequent viewership on streaming, drawing almost 17 million viewers across ABC, Hulu, Hulu on Disney+, and digital platforms. This makes Shifting Gears the strongest series debut for ABC since the Roseanne spinoff series, The Conners, premiered in 2018.
