Tim Allen has broken his silence over the cancelation of Last Man Standing.
And he isn’t very happy about it.
Earlier this week, ABC announced that it was giving the axe to the long-running sitcom, which has helped anchor its Friday night block of comedic programming for years.
For six years, to be exact. Last Man Standing was canceled after six seasons.
This is far more time on the air than most programs get to enjoy, yet a controversy has broken out over the reasons why ABC decided not to bring the series back.
Some believe the choice was made due to Allen being one of the few outspoken Republicans in Hollywood.
In March, remember, the actor told Jimmy Kimmel that being conservative in Hollywood was akin to living in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
“You’ve gotta be real careful around here,” he said as a guest on the talk show, explaining why as follows:
“You get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes. This is like ’30s Germany.
“I don’t know what happened. If you’re not part of the group, you know, ‘What we believe is right!’ I go, ‘Well I might have a problem with that.’ I’m a comedian, I like going on both sides.”
This reference did NOT go over well.
In response to the cancelation of the sitcom, meanwhile, a Change.org petition, which calls for a boycott of ABC, has garnered more than 170,000 signatures.
“Last Man Standing is one of the only shows on broadcast television, and the only sitcom, that is not constantly shoving liberal ideals down the throats of the viewers,” the petition reads.
“And sadly, that is likely the real reason the show has been cancelled.”
Is Allen discouraging this mindset?
Not really.
On Tuesday afternoon, he reacted as follows on Twitter:
Stunned and blindsided by the network I called home for the last six years. #lastmanstanding
Allen, of course, doesn’t directly mention any sort of political agenda in that Tweet.
But he’s clearly aware of the controversy and is not-so-subtly doing his best to stoke the angry flames.
Earlier on Tuesday, during a conference call with reporters, ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey defended her decision to cancel the show.
She acknowledged the ratings have been decent, but said the network simply chose to go in a dramatic direction Fridays this fall.
“A large part of these jobs are managing failure and we’ve made the tough calls and canceled shows that we’d otherwise love to stay on the air,” Dungey said, adding:
“That’s the job. I canceled Last Man Standing for the same business and scheduling reasons that I canceled Dr. Ken, The Real O’Neals, The Catch and American Crime.
“And Last Man Standing was a challenging one for me because it was a steady performer in the ratings, but once we made the decision not to continue with comedies on Fridays, that was where we landed.”
Will this explanation satisfy those threatening to boycott ABC?
We don’t know.
Do people out there truly believe that a network would employ an actor for six seasons on a series that brought in a lot of money… and then suddenly think of non-business, political partisan reasons to fire that actor?
Yes, evidently they do.
Leave a comment below with your thoughts on Last Man Standing and click around above for more scoop from ABC this week.
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