Home Improvement

Jill has planned a romantic surprise dinner for Tim, who is at Big Mike’s with Al and the guys from K&B Construction. He phones home and she flirts with him, and he doesn’t notice and comes home two hours late. Jill is upset and accuses him of not picking up all the signals she sends. Tim thinks that signals should be clear and dresses up as Fred the phone repairman so he can fix the problem. Meanwhile, Brad is wondering whether Jennifer pounding him is a sign that she wants to kiss him.

Tim still lets Brad off the hook and go to the planned truck rally after he pulls a prank at school, until he is caught by the police throwing bricks at a greenhouse.

Jill and Karen think that Tim will look at a woman in a restaurant, after he checks out a woman on Tool Time. Randy has trouble playing football. Tim’s solution? Super glue.

Tim pulls a groin muscle when trying to impress Jill by carrying a big trunk of books. Randy plays Peter Pan in the school play, but the school doesn’t have the necessary machine for him to fly.

When Tim throws a party to celebrate putting in the hot rod’s engine, Jill decides to hook her friend Karen up with one of the guys coming to the party and ends up ruining Tim’s day with a barbecue. Meanwhile, the boys have problems with the McGurn brothers.

Brad and Jennifer plan to dress like Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy on Halloween, but she shows up with Danny and is instead dressed like him. After Danny tries to ruin Tim’s "Catacombs of Terror", Tim scares him with the help of Al and Wilson.

When Mark contracts chicken pox, Jill forces Tim to move out for a few days, since he has never had it. Al then offers for Tim to stay with him, and although he doesn’t want to, he decides against hurting Al’s feelings, which he does anyway when he embarrasses Al severely on Tool Time in front of special guests Mario and Michael Andretti.

When John Binford marries a young, hot tool model, he assigns his daughter Maureen as the producer of Tool Time, who Al fully supports, but Tim is unhappy that she is taking over his show. Meanwhile, Tim is forced to take over the house when Jill unexpectedly gets a job as a researcher for a magazine, and Tim is weirdly left without advice when Wilson is more eager to take a herb bath than help Tim with his predicament.

Jill decides to finally complete the will, which Tim does not want to be part of because of his fear of mortality. Mark fears that his father is going to die. Meahwhile, Brad and Randy build a human catapult.

Dave has Tim tell Karen that they had lunch that day, even though they didn’t. When Tim tells Jill about the secret, he learns Jill has been holding a secret for Karen at the same time. The boys built a catapult in order to launch garbage into the McGurns’ yard to avenge all of their cruel pranks.

When Jill gets to research the cover story for the magazine, Tim takes over the house, however Jill is unhappy with the way Tim operates the house when he "improves" the washing machine and dryer, forgets to make the boys’ lunches and fails to make Mark’s gingerbread house for the bake sale.

Brad and Randy start canvassing the neighborhood for charity and are great successes, however when presented with the amount of money that they collect the boys can’t help themselves and steal some of the money to buy Rooster Man comics and Barbarian 2 for Game Boy.

Tim complains to Jill that she has too many things in their closet, so she starts cleaning it out - but when all she throws away is a pair of pants and a single shoe, Tim decides to remodel the closet. Meanwhile, Brad tries to con his parents into signing a "field trip release form" without them knowing that it’s actually a note from school explaining that Brad punched a kid at school because Tim hugged him in front of all his friends.

Jennifer is going away on holiday, so she leaves her goldfish Howard in the care of Brad, who inadvertently kills the fish. Tim and Jill get into a fight over who owns what when Jill opens a private checking account for herself.

Jill takes a compatibility test from the magazine, and the results show that her and Tim are not compatible. In revenge, Tim creates a test that intentionally shows that Jill is not the woman for him. Meanwhile, Randy volunteers to perform a ventriloquism act for the school talent show, but he discovers that it’s harder than it looks.

It’s the Taylors’ anniversary. Tim bribes Mark to tell him where the present Jill has bought for him is, and after discovering that it’s the steering wheel from Mario Andretti’s racecar, he decides to get her ballroom dancing lessons, however in true Tim Taylor fashion, he makes a mess of it by making fun of the dance, making smart comments and spinning the teacher right into the piano, sending her to hospital.

One of Jill’s friends is getting married, but Tim gets lost on the way and refuses to get directions, which leads them to end up in Ohio. Meanwhile, Karen babysits the boys, and they cheat her in card games.

A woodpecker arrives at the Taylor household, and Tim goes crazy trying to get rid of it. Brad and Jennifer break up, and after he flunks a maths test, he blames it on his being lovesick. However, when Jennifer drops by and gives Brad his workbook, revealing that she had been doing his homework, explaining why Brad failed the test, Tim and Jill are forced to tutor Brad to get his grades up again.

Hoping to boost Mark’s confidence when the boys continue to disallow him to play with them and their friends, Tim and Jill put him into a karate class, after an influence from a wood-breaking demonstration on Tool Time. However, a boy starts bullying Mark, leading to a fight between Jill and the boy’s mother.

Jill’s computer crashes, so she has to go into work and recreate her research paper, forcing Tim to take Mark to Swan Lake instead of her. Tim reluctantly agrees, but when Wilson gives him front-row courtside seats to the basketball game, he decides to leave the ballet after thirty minutes and go to the game instead. Brad and Randy are left home alone, time they spend smoking one of Tim’s cigars.

Jill’s mother, Lilian, comes to visit for Mark’s birthday. She comes bearing gifts: a drum set for Mark, and a family heirloom for Jill. But instead of the antique clock that she loves and really wanted, Lillian gives her a tea set, which Jill does not know why she received it.

When Tim’s high school girlfriend Stacey Lewis returns to town, Jill invites her over, which leads to Stacey revealing an unpleasant secret about Tim.

For Mother’s Day, Tim decides that each of the boys will build something for Jill. Brad and Mark succeed in making jewelery and recipe boxes, however the more unskilled laborer Randy does not want to build anything, since he is not interested in tools, so Tim consults Wilson and his mother about what to do about Randy.

Jill asks Tim to fix the ice dispenser on the refrigerator, replace the knob on the back door and repair the burner on the stove, however all he is interested in is getting his hot rod’s engine to turn over. Jill calls a repairman, but Tim distracts him with the hot rod, leaving Jill angry.

Bob Vila re-appears on Tool Time, and challenges Tim to a lawnmower race for charity. Determined to beat Vila once and for all, Tim inserts a jet engine from a helicopter into the lawnmower. Meanwhile, Brad and Randy create "The Tadpole Secrecy Test" for Mark, who wants them to play with him. The test involves Mark holding a live tadpole in his mouth for three seconds, however he accidentally swallows it.