Shifting Gears‘ return to the 2025 TV schedule won’t just be your average sitcom season finale, as fans will get to see a three-prongedHome Improvement reunion for Tim Allen. (I wonder if Matt was watching in the ‘90s.) One-third of the premiere’s guest stars is Debbe Dunning, whose Heidi was the helpful female voice on “Tool Time” for the bulk of the hit sitcom’s run after Pamela Anderson’s exit. The actress reflected on the not-quite-fun fact that she suffered some anxiety in a later season over Anderson’s potential return.
As many fans of Tim Allen‘s first sitcom remember, Anderson did indeed return for a fun reunion episode in Season 6, which will come up a little lower. But as Dunning put it when talking to EW, there was a point earlier where learning about Allen’s interest in bringing the Baywatch superstar back into the fold had quite a disruptive effect. The actress said her co-star was talking on-set about having met up with Anderson in Las Vegas over the weekend, at which point she entered the convo. As she put it:
I go, ‘What are you guys talking about?’ And Tim was like, ‘Yeah, she really misses the show.’ And he goes, ‘Well, I was telling her maybe we could sprinkle her in once in a while and you guys could both kind of share the role.’
In a perfect world, welcoming an international star back onto a network series would be seen as a grand gesture by all involved. But as the person whose on-screen time would theoretically shrink the most if Anderson’s Lisa returned on a regular basis, Dunning’s worries are already easy to understand before learning another reason why she was perhaps on more of an emotional edge than at other points in life. She continued:
I just remember my head slowly turning towards him and going, ‘It’s your show. I guess that’s what you want.’ And my entire neck got blotchy red splotches, and I was like, ‘I need to be excused for a moment.’ I had just had a baby, so let’s just give me a little bit of grace. I was a little bit emotional.
Yep, that combination of post-childbirth hormones and the stress of raising an infant can heighten the most minutely negative weather update into a Greek tragedy. So for Dunning to hear something so legitimately game-changing, something that would affect her job, she understandably fretted pretty heavily over it in the immediate short term.
Her stress levels were translated pretty clearly via her actions, which set off the stage manager’s alarm bells. The woman warded off Dunning’s worries by saying they wouldn’t actually being teaming the two female “Tool Time” characters together, and in the midst of the conversation, Dunning had cried enough to warrant a trip back into makeup so that filming could recommence.
Before the actress could continue working herself up into too much of a downward spiral over the issue, a producer reached out to Dunning and gave an additional guarantee that Allen’s comments were off-the-cuff and didn’t reflect the reality of the future. At least not entirely, as the producer had a request.
He said, ‘Listen, Tim was probably just throwing ideas out there. We’re not bringing her back as a team. This is your role. Would you be opposed to letting us write about this situation just now?’ And I go, ‘It’s not my show. It’s your show. Do whatever you want to do. I just don’t want to feel threatened with my job. I love my job so much, and I just had a kid and I’m supporting a house and a child.’
I guess it worked for the sitcom’s advantage, but getting Debbe Dunning to agree to fictionalizing her genuine angst for the sake of comedy doesn’t seem like the best move, at least not during a conversation where that angst is still dissipating.
Home Improvement‘s Season 6 finale, “The Kiss and the Kiss Off,” featured Pamela Anderson’s Lisa getting an open invitation back onto “Tool Time,” which causes new-mom Heidi to quit the show. Tim eventually convinces her to return, so all was well going into Season 7, but wow, if there’s ever a behind-the-scenes story that can change one’s lens for a TV episode, this was it.
To be sure, Dunning treasures her time co-starring on one of the best sitcoms of all time, and her life wouldn’t be the same without it. Neither would fans’, and I think many of those Home Improvement fanatics will be tuning into Shifting Gears‘ Season 2 premiere when it airs on Tuesday, October 1. (Or will at least be streaming it the next day via Hulu subscription.)
If Dunning, Patricia Richardson and Richard Karn aren’t enough, what about other guest stars like Lilly Singh, MLB Mookie Betts, stand-up superstar Gabriel Igalsias or Shark Tank beast Lori Greiner.
