In what must be this week’s biggest forehead slap, Reuters has squashed an online rumor that CBS has offered Tim Allen and Richard Karn a billion dollars — billion with a B — to create a non-woke sitcom that’s “bound to make waves.”
The story, which was picked up by clickbait peddlers as truth because of course it was, originated on a site that claims to publish satirical news and commentary. Despite promising “laughs at the expense of American culture,” there’s nothing particularly funny about any of the site’s stories — they’re just lies dressed up as “satire.”
The original article reported (satirically!) that, “in a groundbreaking move that promises to redefine sitcom television, CBS has offered Tim Allen and Richard Karn a staggering $1 billion deal to create a non-woke sitcom. This bold investment reflects CBS’s commitment to fostering creative freedom and addressing the evolving landscape of entertainment.”
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Even when the story was labeled SATIRE on Facebook, gullible readers began the inevitable comments of “I love Tim Allen shows!” and “I hope they get the original cast back!” As one version of the fable was shared nearly a thousand times, the Reuters Fact Check Team leaped into action.
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A CBS spokesperson sent a weary clarification for anyone dumb enough to even consider the story’s veracity: “There is no truth to these posts and reports.” Representatives for Allen and Karn couldn’t even be bothered to respond.
Maybe the rumors wouldn’t have caught fire if Allen himself wasn’t speculating late last year about a Home Improvement reboot that would reunite him with Karn and company. “I see Richard Karn a lot,” Allen said in an interview with The Messenger. “And I talk to the boys (Zachery Ty Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Taran Noah Smith) … and I’m there as one of their friends. We keep talking about (a spin-off).”
The Patricia Richardson Fact Check Team called bullshit on that rumor as well. “I would hear on Twitter or whatever that (Allen) was coming out publicly and saying this stuff about how everyone was on board to do a Home Improvement reunion,” she said on the Back to the Best podcast earlier this year. “But he never asked me, and he never asked Jonathan (Taylor Thomas). I called Jonathan one day, and I said, ‘Has he asked you about this?’ And he went, ‘No. Why is he going around telling everyone that we’re on board when he hasn’t talked to you or me?’ I think that’s weird. He was lying to people and telling them that I was on board and I didn’t know anything about it.”
Ooh, a sitcom about TV wife Richardson publicly calling out Allen as a liar? Now there’s a billion-dollar idea.