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Home Improvement of course makes fun of these men's-movement cliches. The show's chief joke is that Tim, the power-tool nut, is really a klutz around the house; his wife and kids run for cover when he starts talking about rewiring the dishwasher. What's more, he's a sensitive guy deep down. When one of his boys gets into a fight at school, the lad explains that he was embarrassed when Dad hugged him in front of the other kids. Tim proceeds to teach one of those neat sitcom lessons about how men shouldn't be ashamed to hug.
Is it any wonder that Home Improvement, for all its macho strutting, is actually more popular among women viewers than men? (The show typically ranks higher than even Roseanne among women ages 18 to 49.) It is TV's ultimate joke on the men's movement, defusing it with just the kind of '70s "sensitivity" the movement was devised to counter. Ho-ho-ho-ho, Tim. When you can't find refuge even in the tool shed, what's left?