In the current issue of TV Guide, voters in the magazine's "Fan Favorites" poll overwhelmingly hailed Allen, arguably Michigan's favorite adopted son, as their "Favorite Comeback" for his current ABC series Last Man Standing (8 p.m. Tuesdays, Channel 7 in Detroit, abc.com, @LastManABC).
"It's an absolute pleasure to break everybody's belief that you can't go back to TV," Allen tells the magazine, noting that many of the crew members behind the scenes at Last Man Standing are the same people who worked with him for eight seasons on Home Improvement, one of the top-rated series of the 1990s.
In Last Man Standing, Allen plays Mike Baxter, marketing director for a major outdoor sporting goods chain who struggles to balance his bigger-than-life, man's-man image at work with being the husband of a career woman (Nancy Travis) and father of three headstrong daughters at home. "ABC put us on a night where they had nothing and left us on an island," Allen notes in the TV Guide issue, "to somehow compete with the [NCIS] juggernaut.
"But we're getting really good ratings," he adds. "So somebody is TiVo-ing something!"
