TIm Allen has been a TV dad for so long that all of his Home Improvement “kids” are older than his current Shifting Gears offspring, as played by Kat Dennings. (I admittedly didn’t do the math for his Santa Clause rugrats.) With age comes wisdom, as it often goes, and Allen acknowledged that, while he had a great relationship with his trio of TV sons, he was able to serve as a better father-figure mentor to his Last Man Standing co-star Kaitlyn Dever.
With the already wrapped Shifting Gears Season 2 currently airing amidst the 2026 TV schedule, Allen talked with US Weekly about how his on-set presence behind the scenes has evolved over the years from project to project. He addressed his closeness with Dever, who actually stopped by the set of his latest sitcom in 2025, saying that their shared sense of humor was a stepping stone to taking a more active mentoring role. As he put it:
