Home Improvement carved out a wide audience in the 1990s with the charisma of Tim Allen and the wealth of supporting talent in the rest of the cast. Animated transitions, unique running gags, and supreme holiday episodes made the show feel different from competitors like Full House and Family Matters.
Allen's willingness to poke fun at himself while involving his macho humor formed a winning solution for ABC. Here are the 22 best episodes of Home Improvement for fans who want to return to their childhood and have some fun!
1. “The Longest Day” (Season 5, Episode 22)
Home Improvement perfected a perfect 1990s sitcom formula of problem, solution, repeat throughout the show's eight years. When they decided to go more serious, the results were often exquisite. The show leverages the acting ability of Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the role of middle son Randy, as the Taylor child has a cancer scare. The interactions with his parents will surely bring a tear to anyone's eye.
2. “Twas The Blight Before Christmas” (Season 3, Episode 12)
Christmas episodes always highlighted the best parts of Home Improvement. “Twas the Blight Before Christmas” stands out in the holiday spirit by presenting some growing pains with the kids and how Tim and Jill juggle with their ever-growing sons not wanting to celebrate Christmas with them.
3. “Let Them Eat Cake” (Season 5, Episode 6)
Home Improvement always effectively balanced the kids and the adults in both storylines. This Halloween episode brilliantly gives audiences a look into the desperation of the Tool Time crew waiting for an award at a small-time show and Brad throwing a mess of a Halloween party while his parents are away.
4. “Love's Labor Lost” (Season 8, Episode 18 & 19)
Tim and Jill possess one of the more authentic and romantic marriages in 1990s sitcoms. As the kids grow into adolescence, their chemistry evolves even more, allowing the writers to flesh out serious mid-life storylines. Jill's emergency hysterectomy at the end of the final season gives ample time for laughs and feel-good scenes.
5. “I Was a Teenage Taylor” (Season 6, Episode 7)
Another Halloween prank war episode lets the older actors of Brad and Randy shine in a battle of wits and scares with Tim and Jill. Home Improvement often tried to immerse the holiday experience into episodes like this by creating a dissonance between truth and reality. Viewers don't know who's telling the truth and who's lying when demented strangers spook the home and say the haunted Taylor basement may not be fit to live in.
6. “The Look” (Season 5, Episode 7)
The show combines the daily occurrence humor of a show like Seinfeld with the gender-role satire Allen so expertly flourishes under in “The Look.” Jill gives Tim a glance of judgment that all too many husbands have experienced during a marriage when he buys expensive tickets to a basketball game. Even Tim's friends falter under the eye of Jill!
7. “Bachelor of the Year” (Season 4, Episode 16)
Al Borland pretends he doesn't know how to attract women or make friends, but fans and characters in the show love the flanneled fellow just as much as they do Tim. Al gets a lot of time in the spotlight after he's named one of the most eligible bachelors in the Midwest, and Tim can't wrap his head around the accolades of his buddy!
8. “Advise and Repent” (Season 5, Episode 5)
The B-plot creates the most laughs here as Al becomes super stressed over his pet turtle becoming encased in cement on the set of Tool Time. Jill also gets in unusually hot water when she ruins the marriage of two friends with amateurish psychology advice, a position she's not all that familiar with. Tim usually messes up well before Jill, but not in this scenario!
9. “Wild Kingdom” (Season 1, Episode 5)
The rapport between Tim Allen and young actors Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Zachery Ty Bryan immediately set the screen on fire in this early-series episode in which Tim tries to protect the boys from an animal in the basement. When he realizes the pest might be too much for him to handle, the fun begins!
10. “Blow Up” (Season 3, Episode 7)
It feels like a lot of sitcoms use the embarrassing nature of a photo or painting as a plot thread for an episode, and “Blow Up” fits that mold for Home Improvement. Jill's driver's license picture certainly doesn't appease her when she finds out it was Tim's idea to hang it up at a work event.
11. “Reel Men” (Season 3, Episode 15)
Tim and Al form the perfect buddy pairing. When the friends leave the confines of the Tool Time set, some of the best episodes in the series benefit from the choice. They go ice fishing to disastrous results, and the B-plot lets the friendship between Jill and Al's girlfriend, Illene, grow.
12. “Rebel Without Night Driving Privileges” (Season 7, Episode 23)
The show discusses how parents differ in their approach to siblings when Randy gets a contrarian set of driving rules from Brad. The episode also introduced the final love interest of Al, Trudy, in a funny skit on Tool Time about rats. The show's dip in quality at the end wasn't in action here!
13. “Wilson's World” (Season 6, Episode 17)
Wilson's unique nature, spurred by a brilliant performance by Earl Hindman, gives Home Improvement a secret weapon other programs didn't have. When Wilson thinks his weird idiosyncrasies are pushing people away, he tries to act “normal” to no avail! Hindman does excellent work getting a much more significant role than usual.
14. “The Great Race” (Season 2, Episode 25)
Tim's rivalry with the superior talk show host Bob Villa gets taken to new heights in the season two finale. Tim races Bob on a jet engine-powered lawnmower like only he can! Brad and Randy have some fun at the expense of younger brother Mark by tormenting him with tadpoles.
15. “Future Shock” (Season 6, Episode 2)
Home Improvement has fun with a time travel scenario in which Tim and Jill imagine their lives if each other's worst qualities continue to take over in the future. Over-the-top scenarios and outlandish slapstick humor lend the episode a fresh vibe early in the series's sixth season.
16. “Love Is a Many Splintered Thing” (Season 2, Episode 15)
Everyone knows Tim and Jill are compatible with one another. The bickering is part of the fun, right? Both spouses take a test to prove the other one doesn't gel in the marriage, a funny ode to their stubbornness and determination to gain the upper hand. Randy's ventriloquist storyline gives a solid B-plot.
17. “Adios” (Season 8, Episode 2)
Jonathan Taylor Thomas' exit from Home Improvement was one of the things that made the eighth season a rocky ride. The send-off episode poignantly shows why the character was essential to the family while celebrating his time on the sitcom for seven seasons.
18. “Quibbling Siblings” (Season 4, Episode 8)
Randy and Brad typically get along well as siblings, but “Quibbling Siblings” puts a wrench of jealousy into their relationship after Tim lets Brad work with him on TV. Tim handles it quite well, finding a middle ground in cozy sitcom fashion by the end of the episode.
19. “Dream On” (Season 3, Episode 14)
Tim's ego bursts after Illene's dream about him comes out in the open at a group dinner. Al and Tim don't often fight over non-work predicaments, but the writers handle the novelty of everything well. Illene's sweetness always gives the show a burst of wholesomeness.
20. “Reality Bytes” (Season 3, Episode 24)
Remember when dating sites were message boards with primitive methods of communication? Randy decides to catfish an older woman, a keen storyline that addresses the dangers of online romance in a humorous way. Tim and Mark get a solo storyline regarding the latter's school projects.
21. “Where There's a Will, There's a Way” (Season 2, Episode 9)
One of the heavier plotlines of the second season occurs in season two, episode nine. Jill's desire to make out a will strikes fear into Tim and Mark, as both deeply fear impending death. Home Improvement instituted quite a few more serious topics than peers from the 1990s.
22. “Flying Sauces” (Season 1, Episode 8)
A non-holiday prank scenario sees Tim and Mark scare Brad and Randy out of revenge when the big brothers convince little brother that he's adopted, a well-worn joke in real life and TV. The end of the episode puts the show in mid-series form with a big finale!
