Tim Allen advice led ‘Home Improvement’ star to turn down Playboy

It was an improvement. 

In the Season 2 premiere of Tim Allen’s ABC sitcom “Shifting Gears,” he has an onscreen reunion with his former “Home Improvement” co-stars Richard Karn, Patricia Richardson, and Debbe Dunning. 

“Coming back was exciting,” Dunning, 59, exclusively told The Post. 

Dunning got a call from Allen, 72, asking if she was available to film for a few days in August. 

“I’m like, even if I was [busy], I’ll clear my schedule,” she explained. “Just going back and seeing everybody from the makeup and hair people to the group [of actors] was surreal.” 

Premiering Season 2 on Wed, Oct 1 (8.p.m) on ABC, “Shifting Gears” stars Allen, Seann William Scott, 48, and Kat Dennings, 39.

Created by “The Simpsons” writers Mike Scully and Julie Thacker Scully, the show follows Matt Parker (Allen), a widower who runs an auto restoration shop, as he reluctantly takes in his estranged daughter (Dennings) and her kids after she gets divorced. 

“Home Improvement” aired on ABC from 1991 to 1999, launching Allen’s career. The hit show followed Tim (Allen) and his family, including wife Jill (Richardson) and their sons Brad (Zachery Ty Bryan), Randy (Jonathan Taylor Thomas) and Mark (Taran Noah Smith). 

The show also included a “show within a show,” which was Tim’s home improvement show, “Tool Time,” where Tim was joined by co-host Al Borland (Karn) and a “tool time girl,” first Lisa (Pamela Anderson) and then Heidi (Dunning), who joined in Season 3. 

“We do talk to each other quite a bit. When you’re together for eight years, it’s a family. And then all of a sudden it’s over. But, fortunately, Rick and I do a lot of appearances together,” Dunning told The Post, referring to Karn. 

“I always talk to Tim. At least once a month I check in,” she added. “And it’s just one of those things where you guys are friends and you just can’t help but stay friends.”

Dunning and her former co-stars went down memory lane during the season premiere of “Shifting Gears.”

“We would sit around the couch and talk about different things that we had done. We talked about how much fun we had. We would say different things like you do in a family. And the only people that realize what that little inside joke was, are the people that worked on ‘Home Improvement.’ It was very funny.”

“We used to say, ‘if you’re not single, you’r’e ‘re Data, which was one of the wardrobe guy’s names,” she recalled. “And so I think I just said it out loud, and it was like we stopped and we all looked each other, started laughing. Like in a family, you have your little silly things you do where only your family [gets it].” 

Over the years, Allen has given Dunning career advice – which even led to her turning down Playboy. 

“Probably [to] just stay as natural, as you are,” she told The Post of his advice. “There were times where I wanted possibly to be a little more glamorous. And he’s like, ‘No, the way you look and the way you are, you will go so much further.’” 

The “tool time girl” often acted as a model posing with the tools on the show. Her predecessor, Anderson, had been a Playboy model.

Dunning recalled an incident when Allen and a director, “had said something so kind to me… ‘You’ve got that natural girl next door beauty. Don’t ever lose that. Don’t ever get sidetracked.’ And so when Playboy came to ask me if I wanted to do that…. I was like, ‘I’m going to have kids someday. I don’t know.”

“[Allen’s advice] helped me make a really good decision,” she recalled, referring to turning down the raunchy magazine. 

She’s not in touch with the entire former “Home Improvement” cast, however. Smith retired from acting and changed careers after the show, and Thomas also hasn’t acted since a 2015 appearance in “Last Man Standing.” Bryan, meanwhile, has had a slew of legal issues. 

“The only time I saw Jonathan was when we did that little tiny reunion. And it was after Earl Hindman’s passing,” she said. Hindman famously played Tim’s neighbor on the show. He died of cancer at 61 in 2003.

“I don’t know what those boys are doing,” she said, referring to Thomas, Smith, and Bryan. 

As to whether she might appear on “Shifting Gears” again, Dunning said, “As of now, it’s a one time appearance. It does have the ability to go on, but we’ll see!”