Why Pamela Anderson Left Tim Allen's Home Improvement

Family sitcoms in the 1990s were huge business, and few shows had the attention of middle America quite like "Home Improvement." The series starred Tim Allen as Tim "The Toolman" Taylor, a Bob Vila-esque home improvement TV show host, and as it ran from 1991 to 1999, the bizarre guttural sound of Allen's signature grunt was guaranteed to crop up in commercials during your Saturday morning cartoons. Based on Allen's stand-up, the show revolved around Taylor's family life in Detroit with his wife Jill (Patricia Richardson) and their three sons, but also contained a mini-episode of Taylor's show, "Tool Time," each week. The fictional show-within-the-show was a lot of fun, with Tim's co-host Al (Richard Karn) playing the straight man to Tim's antics, but for some, there was another big draw to "Tool Time": The "Tool Time" Girls.

Beginning with Pamela Anderson as Lisa for the first two seasons and continuing with Debbe Dunning as Heidi from season 3 onwards, the "Tool Time" Girls were gorgeous women who assisted Tim and Al on "Tool Time," mostly by modeling with tools and handing them to the co-hosts. It probably wasn't the most satisfying work for an actor to do, but for Anderson, who had mostly made her name as a model, it was a great starting point. So what happened, and why did Anderson leave "Home Improvement" when it was only in its second season?

While there have been a number of allegations over the years that Allen can be incredibly difficult to work with, including Anderson alleging that he flashed his genitals at her on the set of "Home Improvement" (Allen has vehemently denied those claims), the official and likely reason Anderson left the series was because she had been offered a major role on the hit NBC series "Baywatch." While both shows were heavily focused on Anderson's appearance, she would definitely have more to actually do on "Baywatch," and since the shows had scheduling conflicts, she couldn't do both. Not only would playing C.J. Parker on "Baywatch" give Anderson more to do than just stand around and hand tools to men, but it also had a more adult audience than "Home Improvement," which was much better aligned with Anderson's overall career trajectory.

Leaving "Home Improvement" for "Baywatch" definitely worked out in Anderson's favor, as she stayed on the series for several years before getting a starring role in her own series, "V.I.P", in 1998. She was one of the biggest stars of "Baywatch," alongside David Hasselhoff and her eventual replacement, Carmen Electra, and it did far more for her than her bit part on "Home Improvement" ever could have. Eventually "Home Improvement" would be cancelled in 1999, in large part because they couldn't afford pay negotiations to fairly compensate Patricia Richardson.