Today, Tool Time picks up with a show about cranes. Having been quite the crane fanatic and even at one time a licensed operator, Al shows off his toy crane collection. Including one he made entirely out of Popsicle sticks. Tim talks about their upcoming live show in which they will show the audience how to operate a real crane, and then he and Al practice hand signal communication. In the process, Tim predictably breaks Al's Popsicle stick crane, and we cut away just before Al shows him a hand signal that isn't in the manual. At home, Jill confiscates rubber band shooters from Brad and Randy, who built them as a defense against the school bully, while Tim nags her over little imperfections on her Chevy Nomad. Remember how he overacted when Jill told him she ignored the oil light? He didn't like that very much, did he? So imagine how he felt when Jill told him she touched up a scratch on the door with nail polish? Tim wants to take it to the body shop, and Jill reluctantly agrees after he persistently pesters her about how the scratch can get progressively worse. So he drives it down to the Tool Time shoot and parks it out in the open where nothing could possibly happen to it, and despite the foreman saying no to Tim operating the crane, he climbed in the cab anyway to demonstrate how to lift a 20-ton beam. It goes up without a hitch...but you know the old saying, what goes up must come down.
Long story short, Tim swings the beam around, then he accidentally releases it, sending it crashing down on his wife's Nomad. Tim sneaks in the front door, hoping Jill hadn't seen Tool Time. She didn't, but the boys did. They use this as a chance to blackmail their father into keeping a little secret of their own: they were kicked off the bus for gluing the bully's butt-crack shut. Fortunately, Jill was none the wiser for what happened to her car as Tim took it right to the body shop after the accident. However, one fateful day, Jill had misplaced her abnormal psychology book, and Mark lets it slip that she left it in the station wagon, so off she goes down to Eddie's body shop...and boy is she in for a surprise when she sees her new red hot dog bun. What was once a classic Nomad was now a big, busted mess virtually beyond repair. Tim rushes down to the body shop to try and head Jill off, but it doesn't work. Apparently Eddie had been told (by Tim) that the accident was Jill's fault for parking the car under a crane, and if that didn't infuriate her, finding out that Tim was the crane operator made her livid. How Tim got out of there with his head still attached is beyond me. Hopefully a talk with Wilson can calm things down. Tim relays to him how Jill thinks he's obsessed with cars, and of course he can't see it. Wilson affirms Jill's theory, when it comes to cars, Tim is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. So he apologizes wholeheartedly for the stupid, bonehead mistake he made and offers to get Jill a new car, anything she wants and he won't complain (until Season 6 when that scenario actually comes to pass). Jill would rather wait for the Nomad to be fixed and admits she's crazy about that "hunk of metal" too. Then Tim calls their insurance adjuster to see if their policy covers metal beam drop damage. It doesn't.
In some airings of this episode, there's a credit sequence in which Tim Allen shows both the original Nomad, which is actually his, and the prop car they actually dropped the beam on. Well, I think I can safely say this episode is infamous among Home Improvement fans as "the one where Tim drops the beam on Jill's car." Of course, in reality, it would be impossible to fix that kind of damage. But if they could pull it off by some miracle, it would be insanely expensive. So if you haven't already seen this episode, though let's face it, all fans of the show have...then see it again. It's well worth it, and it really shows how strong Jill and Tim's marriage is, as any other woman would've left her husband in an instant if he did that to her car...or she'd be in prison for murdering him. I'd say their love is stronger than a 20 ton beam. Well, their love and her tolerance.
Long story short, Tim swings the beam around, then he accidentally releases it, sending it crashing down on his wife's Nomad. Tim sneaks in the front door, hoping Jill hadn't seen Tool Time. She didn't, but the boys did. They use this as a chance to blackmail their father into keeping a little secret of their own: they were kicked off the bus for gluing the bully's butt-crack shut. Fortunately, Jill was none the wiser for what happened to her car as Tim took it right to the body shop after the accident. However, one fateful day, Jill had misplaced her abnormal psychology book, and Mark lets it slip that she left it in the station wagon, so off she goes down to Eddie's body shop...and boy is she in for a surprise when she sees her new red hot dog bun. What was once a classic Nomad was now a big, busted mess virtually beyond repair. Tim rushes down to the body shop to try and head Jill off, but it doesn't work. Apparently Eddie had been told (by Tim) that the accident was Jill's fault for parking the car under a crane, and if that didn't infuriate her, finding out that Tim was the crane operator made her livid. How Tim got out of there with his head still attached is beyond me. Hopefully a talk with Wilson can calm things down. Tim relays to him how Jill thinks he's obsessed with cars, and of course he can't see it. Wilson affirms Jill's theory, when it comes to cars, Tim is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. So he apologizes wholeheartedly for the stupid, bonehead mistake he made and offers to get Jill a new car, anything she wants and he won't complain (until Season 6 when that scenario actually comes to pass). Jill would rather wait for the Nomad to be fixed and admits she's crazy about that "hunk of metal" too. Then Tim calls their insurance adjuster to see if their policy covers metal beam drop damage. It doesn't.
In some airings of this episode, there's a credit sequence in which Tim Allen shows both the original Nomad, which is actually his, and the prop car they actually dropped the beam on. Well, I think I can safely say this episode is infamous among Home Improvement fans as "the one where Tim drops the beam on Jill's car." Of course, in reality, it would be impossible to fix that kind of damage. But if they could pull it off by some miracle, it would be insanely expensive. So if you haven't already seen this episode, though let's face it, all fans of the show have...then see it again. It's well worth it, and it really shows how strong Jill and Tim's marriage is, as any other woman would've left her husband in an instant if he did that to her car...or she'd be in prison for murdering him. I'd say their love is stronger than a 20 ton beam. Well, their love and her tolerance.
