Brow Beat

Watch, Slack-Jawed, as Tim Allen Says Supporting Trump in Hollywood Is “Like ’30s Germany”

There have been a lot of Nazi comparisons floating around recently, what with the alleged ties between Trump advisers and the actual historical Nazis, and it’s not too surprising Home Improvement funnyman Tim Allen wanted to get in on the action. So on Jimmy Kimmel Live on Friday, the comedian and onetime drug informant tried his hand at the genre. When Allen seemed reluctant to talk about attending the Trump inauguration—“I went to go see Democrats and Republicans,” he hedged—Kimmel told him “I’m not attacking you.” It was the perfect setup for Allen to draw on his deep knowledge of the rise of the Nazi Party:

In this town, I’m not kidding, you gotta be real careful around here, you know, you can get beat up if you don’t believe what everybody believes. This is like ’30s Germany! I don’t know what, I don’t know what happened. If you’re not part of the group—“You know, what we believe is right … ” I go, “Well, I might have a problem with that.” I’m a comedian—I like going on both sides.

The 1930s were a turbulent decade in Germany, but any highlights reel would include the Enabling Act, the Nuremburg Laws, Kristallnacht, and the first Nazi mass extermination program, though it’s unclear exactly what Allen was referring to. It wasn’t a great time for comedians, but it seems unlikely entertainers like Fritz Grünbaum (d. Dachau, 1941) would be all that sympathetic to the plight of a multimillionaire who’s cast his lot with an administration packed with white supremacists.

In other news that definitely happened, Allen told Kimmel that he took his 5-year-old to see “the Santa Monica parade, down on Santa Monica Boulevard, the gay parade” and was shocked to discover it wasn’t wholesome. It’s hard to tell exactly when Allen moved to Los Angeles (stories from the 1980s put him in Michigan, to the dismay of his agents, despite being billed in his home state as someone who offered audiences an “L.A. style”)—but Home Improvement premiered in 1991, the first gay pride parade in Los Angeles took place in 1970, and the first “Oh no! I took my kid to a gay pride parade on accident!” bit probably showed up in a hack comic’s set a few days later. Allen must have been out of the loop.

Allen currently stars in Last Man Standing on ABC and will be presenting his “kooky” takes on politics, history, and sexuality at the Mirage in Las Vegas on April 8.