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He was featured on one of the biggest sitcoms of the 1990s.
He played a major supporting role to star Tim Allen from 1991 until the series’ hit 1999 finale.
This actor has also had a varied career that included a multi-year stint hosting a popular game show in the 2000s.
And he had a career resurgence beginning in 2019 with a recurring role on the acclaimed Hulu series Pen15.
Can you name this veteran television and film actor?
He starred on one of the biggest sitcoms of the ’90s, became the fourth host of Family Feud, and had a late-career renaissance on Hulu’s PEN15. Do you know who he is?
It’s the 68-year-old film and TV actor Richard Karn, who’s best known for co-starring with Tim Allen (R) on the ratings juggernaut Home Improvement (pictured) from 1991 to 1999
He’s 68-year-old Richard Karn, who’s best known for playing Tim Allen’s trusty sidekick on their classic ’90s sitcom Home Improvement.
Karn was pictured with his wife Tudi Roche earlier this month as they went grocery shopping in Los Angeles.
The actor was dressed casually in a mottled blue-and-red gold short-sleeve golf shirt, along with navy blue shorts and gray slip-on trainers.
He looked significantly different from his ’90s heyday. Karn had slimmed down, a departure from his heartier figure on Home Improvement, but it was his mostly white beard and gray hair that made her look strikingly different from his Home Improvement character.
He played Al Borland, the co-host of the show-within-a-show, Tool Time, a fictional home improvement series host by Allen’s character, Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor.
Al was the less telegenic of the duo, but he was also the real expert with tools and construction, rather than Tim.
Karn had an instantly identifiable uniform for the series: some form of plaid flannel shirt and a thick beard that was sometimes the subject of Allen’s jokes.
The actor began as a recurring character on the series after filling in for Groundhog Day actor Stephen Tobolowsky, who had to drop out after the pilot episode taping conflict with a film project he was working on.
Even though Karn was a replacement, he proved to be a hit with viewers, and he was bumped up to the main cast by Home Improvement’s second season.
Karn wore a red-and-blue golf shirt and navy shorts with gray slip-on trainers. He had slimmed down from his hearty ’90s figure, but his white beard and gray hair made him look unrecognizable compared to the thick, dark hair he sported on Home Improvement
He played Al Borland, who was the less-prominent co-host to Tim Allen’s Tim ‘The Tool Man’ Taylor
Al, who also wore plaid flannel shirts and sported his bushy beard, was a lovable square but less telegenic than Tim, even though he was the true tools expert
Following Home Improvement’s conclusion after eight seasons in 1999, Karn took over as the fourth solo host of Family Feud in 2002.
He departed the series in 2006, when Seinfeld actor John O’Hurley replaced him.
He later hosted another game show, Bingo America from 2008 to 2009, and he remained an in-demand guest actor on television.
Karn had one of his most high-profile roles in years beginning in 2019 when he started appearing on the critically adored Hulu comedy series PEN15.
The series was created by its writers and stars, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who played fictionalized versions of themselves beginning at age 13.
The women were both in their early 30s, which created a surreally hilarious contrast with the rest of the age-appropriate child actors who populated their middle school.
Karn appeared in several episodes as Maya’s father, a drummer for struggling cover bands who was often on the road and away from home. (In reality, Erskine’s father is the respected jazz drummer and former Weather Report member Peter Erskine.)
In 2021, the creators and stars announced that the show’s second season would be its last.
He had a career resurgence with a major recurring role on Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine’s acclaimed Hulu comedy PEN15. He played the father of Erskine (R)
Karn later hosted Family Feud from 2002 to 2006, and he reunited with Tim Allen in 2021 on the home repair competition Assembly Required, then in 2022 on the tool-themed series More Power; pictured in 2017 in Burbank, Calif.
That year, Karn reunited with Allen for the pandemic-era Home Improvement–inspired series Assembly Required, which was a home repair competition.
The two hosted with April Wilkerson, and she joined them again in 2022 for the series More Power, which featured the three tracing the evolution from classic tools to some of the newest technologically inspired gadgets out there.
Although Karn has appeared in supporting roles in several films, he didn’t appear in his first move until 1998’s Legend Of The Mummy, though he has worked steadily in film ever since.
Last year, Karn appeared on two episodes of the revived Jonathan Frakes–hosted series Beyond Belief, and he has multiple low-budget films and shows on the horizon.
