Tim At the Top

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Allen began shuttling to Los Angeles, picking up a commercial agent and eventually breaking into the big-time comedy clubs. After a few TV appearances and cable specials, he was discovered by a group of Disney executives who were having a meeting to discuss new TV projects. "We were sitting in the room practically snoring," recalls Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former Disney movie chief. Then someone put one of Allen's Showtime specials on the vcr: "He set the room on fire," says Katzenberg. "It was like everyone had touched a raw electric wire." Some of the group, including Disney chairman Michael Eisner, later went to the Improv comedy club to see him in person. "It was one of those nights that was magic," Allen remembers. "They came backstage and said they'd like to have a meeting with me at Disney."

The studio's first offer wasn't quite magic: a TV sitcom based on the movie Turner & Hootch, in which Allen would co-star with a dog. Allen turned that down, along with two other proposals. Then he came up with his own idea: a series about the host of a TV handyman show. Disney teamed him with producer Matt Williams (the former producer of Roseanne), who added three kids to the mix and helped turn Home Improvement into TV's biggest family-show hit of the '90s. Allen's first movie went through a similar Disneyfication. The original script, by Steve Rudnick and Leo Benvenuti, was a dark fantasy about a man who accidentally shoots Santa Claus. Eight drafts later, with a more benign death scene and the addition of the father-son relationship, it became a cuddly holiday family film.

"I think what people see in Tim Allen," says Williams, "is a man-child. He's attractive, sensitive and strong, and he's a little impish 12-year-old boy. You feel like he could be you." People might feel the same way about Allen's offstage life. He lives in the San Fernando Valley with his wife Laura and five-year-old daughter Kady. But they travel frequently back to Michigan and just bought a lake house in the northern part of the state, right next door to his in-laws. Allen remains friendly with a clubhouse gang of old neighborhood pals. Ken Calvert, a Detroit disc jockey, still tries to match him in things like power lawn mowers. Calvert cross-cut his yard with twin 21- in.-blade Lawn-Boys; Allen bested him with a John Deere riding mower -- with Baby Moon hubcaps.

Allen's leisure-time pleasures include a collection of automobiles -- among them a '66 Ferrari and a pair of Mustangs. His latest passion is reading books on physics. Allen remains close with his family, though they're seeing less of him. Allen missed his stepfather's ordination as an Episcopalian deacon last June but managed to make it to the Detroit Grand Prix the next day. "You can imagine, we were very disappointed," says his pink-cheeked, white-haired, mother, known as Marty. She is also a little bothered by the chapter in Allen's book in which he makes fun of his original family name. "It's not something I would recommend reading," she says. "I don't like the connotations."