If you were an avid sitcom fan in the 1990s, chances are you were glued to the television every Tuesday night to watch the antics of “Tim the Toolman” Taylor and his family and wacky friends on the hit entitled Home Improvement. The show, which ran for more than 8 years beginning in September 1991, was one of ABC’s most successful and highest-rated sitcoms ever because it was one of those shows the whole family could enjoy, with slapstick humor that appealed to children and more sophisticated jokes that kept the adults chuckling.
One of the most hilarious – and mysterious – characters in the cast of the show that launched the career of funny man Tim Allen was Dr. Wilson W. Wilson Jr., PhD, a neighbor of the Taylor’s who normally remained mostly hidden behind a fence or other prop during the scenes in which he spoke to Tim or another family member.
Wilson, it says, was inspired by a childhood memory of Tim Allen’s concerning a neighbor who would speak to him frequently but whom he could not see because he was simply too short. That simple memory created many of the show’s most memorable moments.
But who was that man behind the fence?
So, who played Wilson on Home Improvement? That man was Earl John Hindman, who was about 50-years-old at the time the show aired. Hindman didn’t really have any sitcom experience before he was cast in the ABC hit. He had been cast in fairly minor roles in a handful of movies made in the 70s and 80s, including The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The Brinks Job, and Taps. Hindman’s longest-running gig was actually on a soap opera, Ryan’s Hope, where he played ex-police officer Bob Reid, a confirmed nice guy who was unlucky in love. He appeared in more than 450 episodes of that show between 1975 and 1989.
That means that by the time Home Improvement premiered, TV audiences were more than familiar with the face of Earl Hindman if they were soap fans. However, those who were first introduced to Hindman via Home Improvement didn’t get to see his full face for any length of time until the show’s final curtain call during the last episode that aired in 1999.
So why did they hide Wilson’s face?
The character of Dr. Wilson W. Wilson Jr. was portrayed as an intellect, quite opposite of his bumbling neighbor who always seemed to be making a mess of things. Wilson was supposedly born in Chicago but had traveled the world after receiving his degree in “Forgotten Languages and Cultures.” He often talked of traditions he had learned from various peoples he had visited or studied at the far reaches of the earth and would sometimes show artifacts from his travels. He also often spoke of his deceased wife, Catherine, or his favorite pet parrot, Mozart.
But Wilson’s favorite thing to do was to pepper Tim with advice via famous quotes or from his own words of wisdom garnered from his many experiences in life. He was the neighborhood philosopher, the guru, the man who seemed to know a little something about everything.
Given Tim some much-needed parental advice was one of his favorite pastimes, and he was usually right on the mark. Here’s an example:
“Tim, it’s not unusual for a father to want his sons to succeed. You know I’m reminded of what Wally Schirra, the astronaut, said, ‘You don’t raise heroes, you raise sons, but if you treat them as sons, they’ll turn out to be heroes, even if it’s just in your own eyes’.”
So, why didn’t they just let Wilson come out from behind the fence, bush, wall, rake, or whatever other prop obscured the lower half of his face? Well, the show’s producers never really gave a reason for this other than it’s comedic effect, but many have hypothesized that Wilson was meant to be a sort of “God figure”; a person to whom Tim could turn for sage advice and a neighborly pep talk. It seems a good theory!
Sadly, Home Improvement was the end of the road for Earl Hindman, a long-time smoker who died of lung cancer in 2003. Nevertheless, his character – though he often appeared for less than 5 minutes of screen time per episode – will remain one of the most memorable in sitcom history.
For eight seasons between 1991 and 1999, Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor (Tim Allen) could count on his next-door neighbor Wilson (Earl Hindman) to offer him sage, sometimes amazingly specific advice on the hit ABC sitcom Home Improvement. Wilson was a fascinating character; over the course of the series' run, it was revealed that he'd been married, but lost his wife; he was apparently highly educated, well-read, had traveled extensively, and he may or may not have been the cousin of Dennis and Brian Wilson of the iconic pop band the Beach Boys.
Wilson always had a kind word and a common sense solution to even the stickiest problems the Taylor clan could encounter, and Home Improvement's audience saw a lot of him over the years, figuratively speaking. If we're being literal, said audience never saw anything but the top half of Wilson's head, obscured as his face always was behind the privacy fence separating his yard from the Taylors'.
The running gag evolved in Home Improvement's later years, with Wilson venturing outside the confines of his backyard from time to time, only for the bottom part of his face to still be hidden from the audience through some convoluted means. The joke was inspired, but fans have long wondered: inspired by what, exactly?
Well, just because Home Improvement went off the air right around the time the internet was beginning to pick up steam doesn't mean there haven't been myriad fan theories concerning the matter in the years since the series ended. In fact, there are too many of them to properly detail here — which is probably a good thing, considering that most of them are ridiculously outlandish. (We know, we know... the internet? Outlandish fan theories? What the heck?!)
But here's one that bears examination, simply because it hits that sweet spot of being a) really, really weird and b) somehow strangely plausible. The gist of this theory: Wilson is remiss to show his face to anyone, because he is in the witness protection program.
Sure, it might seem a little on the nose, but there's a surprising amount of evidence in support of this theory. Consider: Wilson is known to have been born in Chicago, which was an absolute hotbed of gang activity in the '80s and '90s. (In case your memory is a bit rusty, Home Improvement takes place in Detroit.) His wife, Catherine, died under mysterious circumstances. His next-door neighbor is a local celebrity to whom Wilson pointedly never shows his face — just in case, the theory presumes, there may be stray paparazzi in the area.
Not terribly convincing? Well, consider that Wilson's full name was once revealed to be "Wilson W. Wilson." This is a freaking fake name if we've ever heard one — unless, just maybe, Wilson's parents were huge fans of the 28th U.S. President, and we have no memory of this ever having been mentioned on Home Improvement.
Another fan theory: we never see Wilson's face because he is the biological father of one or more of Tim's children, and Wilson doesn't want the kids (whom he consistently addresses as "Taylor lads") to notice that they kind of look like him. Honestly, we don't give this one much credence; we just thought it deserved a mention because it's sordid, uncomfortable, and messed-up — none of which are descriptors that leap to mind when thinking of Home Improvement.
Well, before we get to the real reason why Wilson's unobscured mug never made an appearance on the show, let's pay a bit of homage to Hindman, a veteran actor who has appeared (showing his entire face) in an impressive number of iconic movies and television series.
Hindman's first turn in front of a camera was in a bit part in the 1967 exploitation flick Teenage Mother, directed by Jerry Gross (who was responsible for producing such classics as Girl on a Chain Gang and I Drink Your Blood). Bit parts in several TV series followed, which led to his (respectable) feature film debut in the 1974 conspiracy thriller The Parallax View; that same year, he also appeared in director Joseph Sargent's classic crime drama The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.
Hindman then moved on to a 27-episode run on the genre-defining soap opera The Doctors, which he parlayed into a long run on the ABC soap opera Ryan's Hope. He also drew paychecks largely from minor TV appearances until he was tapped for a role in Lawrence Kasdan's excellent neo-Western Silverado in 1985, and he continued starring in TV movies and smaller theatrical features until Home Improvement came calling in 1991.
Sure, it might not have been the most high-profile role, owing to its "face obscured all the time" aesthetic. But Wilson quickly became a fan favorite character, and when ABC aired a special containing Home Improvement's final curtain call shortly after the end of its run, fans finally got to see Wilson's entire face for the first time.
And why had it been hidden all of those years? Simple: as a child, Tim Allen would hold regular conversations with the guy next door, separated by just such a privacy fence —and since Allen was only a wee tyke at the time, all he could ever see was the top of his neighbor's head. The guy must have made a pretty strong impression on the young Allen, because he proved to be the inspiration that would one day hand an amazing character actor his signature role.
Unfortunately, Earl Hindman passed away from lung cancer in 2003 at the age of 61. But fans will always remember him as one of the best parts of their favorite show, and they can rest assured that his castmates remember him just as fondly.
In 2013, TMZ asked Patricia Richardson — who portrayed Tim Taylor's wife Jill on the show — if there were any possibility of a Home Improvement reunion on the horizon. Her reply was short and to the point, and if the Taylor family was a huge part of your life like they were for so many of us in the '90s, it just might bring the waterworks.
"Never," Richardson said. "No. Earl died. We can't have one without Earl."