History Series / LastManStanding2011

[[caption-width-right:350:"[[RealitySubtext It is GREAT to be back home!]]" [[note]]L-R:Kristin, Mandy, Boyd, Vanessa, Eve, Mike, Ed, Kyle[[/note]]]]

Allen plays Mike Baxter, director of marketing at Outdoor Man, an outdoor sporting goods store in Denver, Colorado. He is proudly a man and is frustrated about how the world is trying to make his gender more sensitive. At home his world is dominated by women -- his wife Vanessa and three daughters: adult single mom Kristin, high school-aged girly girl Mandy and middle school-aged tomboy Eve. The only other male in his house is Kristin's young son Boyd.

He originally was often away from home taking up sponsors for the store catalog, but as things become more Internet-based he turns to promoting products on the website in videos while ranting about various topics surrounding masculinity, making him a mild celebrity and keeping him at home. He is good friends with his boss and owner of the store, Ed, while also striking a friendship with a younger employee, Kyle, who becomes friendly with the family.

While the show was never a hit with critics like its predecessor, it did well enough in the ratings to warrant six seasons and over 100 episodes and was one of the most notable [[AvertedTrope aversions]] of the FridayNightDeathSlot in this age of television...[[ScrewedByTheNetwork until ABC cancelled it in 2017]]. However, Fox picked it up over a year later, and a seventh season began airing in fall of 2018. The series managed to continue for another three seasons, with its ninth and final season concluding in May 2021 with a hour-long series finale.

* ActorAllusion: This isn't Nancy Travis's first time playing the wife in a sitcom starring a stand-up comedian with old-fashioned values. She was also the wife on ''The Bill Engvall Show''.

* KinkyRoleplay: when Mike catches Vanessa wearing her reading glasses to grade papers he asks if she's finally agreed to his "Hot librarian" fantasy?

* ShoutOut: When Mike realizes that Kristen wrote Mandy's paper on Virginia Wolfe, Vanessa replies "Nice work, ''Series/{{Castle}}''."

* AccidentalProposal: In "The Ring" Mike catches Kyle with an engagement ring and thinks he's going to propose to Mandy. It's actually Ed who's going to propose to Wendi and he gave Kyle the ring to get resized. The Baxters think Kyle is going to do it when he and Mandy go to dinner that night so Mike tells him to take her to a fancy restaurant. During dinner, Mandy tells Kyle she knows about the ring and Kyle mistakenly thinks she knows about Ed proposing and goes to show it to her. Kyle drops the ring and gives it to Mandy, who cries and accepts while the restaurant applauds. Then Mandy gets a call from Vanessa explaining the mix up, devastating her [[spoiler: until Kyle actually proposes to her at the end of the episode]].

** [[spoiler: Also, the fact that she got rejected from the school makes little sense since she is a straight A student (except art), a three season athlete, an award winning JROTC participant, had a recommendation from a congressman and the ''Vice President of the United States'', and at the time the episode aired, West Point had launched an initiative to increase the number of female cadets.]]

* CerebusSyndrome: "Polar Run" is a light-hearted episode until [[spoiler: Eve finds out she was rejected from West Point.]]

** Mike drives a 1956 Ford F100 (from Tim Allen's personal collection) most of the time. [[spoiler: The series ends with it being stolen and destroyed at a chop shop).

* ElectionDayEpisode: These are expected with the political nature of this show. One episode that came during the 2012 election involved Mandy being able to vote for the first time, with Mike encouraging her to vote for Mitt Romney and Kristen encouraging her to vote for Barrack Obama. [[spoiler: [[LeftHanging Mandy's choice is never revealed in the episode.]]]]

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

*** The series finale leans heavily on the fourth wall as the Baxters come to terms with the unexpected end of [[spoiler: Mike's prized Ford Truck]], while also making several BitingTheHandHumor gestures at Fox.

* NotADate: The Baxters and Larabees believe Eve and Brandon are dating because they were hanging out a lot and kept it a secret. [[spoiler: It turns out Brandon was actually giving Eve golf lessons at the driving range.]]

** Ryan is his Democratic counterpart who plays this painfully straight. He embodies the "bleeding heart liberal" to a T. He's also a vegan, pacifist, [[PoliticalOvercorrectness overly politically correct]], borderline hippie SoapboxSadie who blames the 1% for every problem suffered by the working class and wants socialized medicine, benefits, and wages. The final season, while still keeping his character very much left-leaning, has him undergo CharacterDevelopment thanks to the COVID-19 Pandemic, making him realize he has to sacrifice some of his beliefs to better take care of his family. [[spoiler: This leads him to sell his pot store to a multi-million dollar company, and become a top-ranking executive, something that even Mike is impressed with.]]

* SuddenDownerEnding: The ending of "Polar Run", [[spoiler: Eve is rejected by West Point, her dream college and life goal for three seasons.]]

** The entire season finale does this again, only to the Fox Network, treating [[spoiler: Mike's truck]] like the show; something that has been worked on carefully and painstakingly for ten years, only for it to be stolen and destroyed by "professionals". The entire Baxter household and friends then spend the episode mourning for [[spoiler: the truck]] and the memories it brought, lamenting its loss because of someone deciding it was worth destroying.

** [[spoiler: In the Season 9 episode "Dual Time," the tropemaker, a visiting handyman from Michigan named [[Series/HomeImprovement Tim Taylor]] fixes the garbage disposal only to have it launch a carrot into the ceiling, much to Mike's annoyance.]]

* WhamShot: In "Mike's Pole," Mike and Eve go with Ed to the VFW hall and Eve meets a female Iraq War veteran and talks with her about her war experiences. The woman gets up from her seat to talk to someone else [[spoiler: revealing that she is a double leg amputee who was wounded in combat.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: In "Polar Run", Vanessa suggests getting Eve a puppy after [[spoiler: the latter is rejected by West Point.]] This makes no sense since Eve was seen playing with Muffin just three episodes prior and he appears in the one after this.

* CreatorBreakdown: InUniverse, this is what made the Outdoor Man internet ads so popular, as Mike skewed into a long rant that he probably didn't intend to be shown. But his attitude was so fired up and his comments so funny that it became an InstantWebHit.

** In "Private Coach", Mike ends the Internet ad with "[[Film/GalaxyQuest Never give up. Never surrender.]]" He even does the salute.

While the show was never a hit with critics like its predecessor, it did well enough in the ratings to warrant six seasons and over 100 episodes and was one of the most notable [[AvertedTrope aversions]] of the FridayNightDeathSlot in this age of television...[[ScrewedByTheNetwork until ABC cancelled it in 2017]]. However, Fox picked it up over a year later, and a seventh season began airing in fall of 2018. The series managed to continue for another three seasons, with its ninth and final season concluding in May 2021 with a one-hour series finale.

While the show was never a hit with critics like its predecessor, it did well enough in the ratings to warrant six seasons and over 100 episodes and was one of the most notable [[AvertedTrope aversions]] of the FridayNightDeathSlot in this age of television...[[ScrewedByTheNetwork until ABC cancelled it in 2017]]. However, Fox picked it up over a year later and a seventh season began airing in fall of 2018. The series managed to continue for another three seasons before ending with its ninth season in May 2021 with a one-hour series finale.

* TeensAreShort: Rather notable in that both Mike ''and'' Vanessa tower over all their kids.

** Kristin started off as an [[OverprotectiveDad Overprotective Mom]] who felt Boyd was too young to be exposed to the Halloween "pagan death imagery," and was mostly about her ICouldaBeenAContender regrets about being a young mom and putting her career dreams on hold. Starting with the recasting and the second season, she became a lot more of a liberal GranolaGirl who was trying to [[MyBelovedSmother keep Boyd away from anything negative whatsoever]], dodge ball being just the start of that, and her attempts at going back to college were dropped. Could be justified in that Ryan exacerbates that side of her. Then in season three she undergoes CharacterDevelopment that brings her closer to her previous characterization and by season six she's completely de-flanderized.

* OverprotectiveDad: Zigzagged. On the one hand, while Mike is concerned about his daughters just as much as the next guy and if things seem wrong he ''will'' come to the rescue; but he is also aware he can't fix everything. Additionally, in the first episode he actually invites Kyle to take Mandy out on a date because he felt her current boyfriend wasn't good enough for her. In a later episode, after being given a hard time Kyle comments, "I get the feeling you don't respect me much." and Mike responds with, "I'm letting you date my daughter. Where I come from that is the ''highest'' form of respect." On the other hand, whenever Mandy and Eve go on dates with guys he doesn't like, Mike makes sure the boy is aware that he owns a large collection of guns.

* ReallyGetsAround: Mandy, although this is [[InformedAttribute mostly implied rather than actually seen]]. She is extremely boy-crazy but also desperately wants Mike to like her boyfriends, [[OverprotectiveDad which he rarely does]]. She does admit, when she starts dating Kyle, that she tends to rush into the physical stuff.

** Likely to prevent the Covid-19 pandemic from dominating all episodes (while still making general references to the aftermath), the FinaleSeason opens with "Time Flies" where it starts a few weeks into the pandemic then uses a sequence Outdoor Man vlogs to convey the passage of time. Mike grows a longer beard with each vlog alternating with ExplodingCalendar cut scenes until coming to a future, post-pandemic time in 2023 where Mike's beard is gone.

* TookALevelInJerkAss: Kristin in season 2. She went from being a level headed young woman who was mildly annoyed at Mike's beliefs and restrictions at worst to a CommanderContrarian GranolaGirl who undermines him at every opportunity and, on one occasion, calls him a "toxic" influence on Boyd.

--->'''Joe:''' Still better than being stuck on some [[TakeThatUs stupid sitcom]].

*** The series finale leans heavily on the fourth wall as the Baxters come to terms with the unexpected end of [[spoiler: Mike's prized Ford Truck]], while also making several TakeThat gestures at Fox.

* SelfDeprecation: Kristin jokes (especially in season one) about having gotten pregnant in high school. "We all have our own talents... apparently I'm fertile."

* TakeThatUs: When Helen Potts (Patricia Richardson) says that Mike reminds her of her late husband but not as funny, Mike replies that "he probably had better writers."

* MarsAndVenusGenderContrast: Considering the premise, this isn't to be unexpected.

* MiddleChildSyndrome: Mandy

* BuxomBeautyStandard: when Vanessa teaches a class at Eve's school her friend Cammy observes that she is really smart and Eve comments that she also hopes to inherit her mother's very enviable cleavage.

* BuxomBeautyStandard: when Vanessa teaches a class at Eve's school her friend Cammy observes that she is really smart and Eve comments that she also hopes to inherit her mother's cleavage.

* BuxomIsBetter: when Vanessa teaches a class at Eve's school her friend Cammy observes that she is really smart and Eve comments that she also hopes to inherit her mother's cleavage.

* MsFanservice: Mandy wears some fanservice-y outfits on occasion. For example, in "Last Halloween Standing," her parents stuck Mandy with a Comic/{{Garfield}} costume that covered practically her whole body as her Halloween costume. She tried to sneak upstairs after coming home from a Halloween party, but Vanessa caught her, and she ultimately revealed underneath her overcoat a more revealing version of said cat costume, which shows off her... curves.

* PlayingGertrude: Robert Forster, who plays Mike's father Bud, is only 12 years older than Tim Allen.

** [[spoiler: In the Season 9 premiere, "Time Flies," the series only depicts pandemic life in the present day for the first few minutes. Afterwards it fasts forward with a sequence of the Outdoor Man vlogs with Mike having a longer beard with each vlog alternating with ExplodingCalendar cut scenes until coming to a future, post-pandemic time in 2023 where Mike's beard is gone.]]

''Last Man Standing'' is an American sitcom starring Creator/TimAllen and Creator/NancyTravis that aired on Creator/{{ABC}} from October 11, 2011 to March 31, 2017, and Creator/{{Fox}} from September 28, 2018 to May 20, 2021. It's often referred to as a DistaffCounterpart of Allen's first series ''Series/HomeImprovement''.

Considered a SpiritualSuccessor to ''Series/HomeImprovement'' due to being an Allen vehicle where he plays similar characters as a father obsessed with preserving and passing down manhood and has a public forum as part of their jobs to share their views on the episode's subject matter. In fact, the second episode of the final season even [[{{Crossover}} had the two characters meet]].

* DarkerAndEdgier: Although very similar in tone and style to ''[[SpiritualSuccessor Home Improvement]]'', having Tim Allen take on the more Archie Bunker-esque role of Mike here opposed to the more huggable accident-prone man child of Tim Taylor (along with the show's much more more overt and contentious political topicality) make it a mild version of this trope.

* {{Retool}}: The second season [[TheOtherDarrin recast]] both Kristin and Ryan, as well as making Ryan a common RecurringCharacter. While there were some hints towards politics and social issues in the first season, Ryan's strong liberal leanings clash with Mike's conservative opinions made them come to the forefront, having the effect of turning the show into a SpiritualSuccessor of ''Series/AllInTheFamily''. The main difference is that Mike is opinionated and loud but generally well educated, while Ryan's opinions lean toward ignorant, spoiled idealism (which even he admits is not the best for ''his'' family), and he has been shown to be very hypocritical and self-serving with his beliefs.

* SpiritualSuccessor:
** The children may be gender flipped, but a lot of the basic themes are the same as in ''Series/HomeImprovement''. Whereas Jill was the one surrounded by testosterone, here Mike is surrounded by estrogen (the personalities of the characters are also closely matched). Mike's rants for the Outdoor Man website (and minor celebrity status) are pretty close to the filibusters Tim would give on ''[[ShowWithinAShow Tool Time]]''.
** Thanks to the conservative vs. liberal clash, it could also be seen as one to ''Series/AllInTheFamily''. In this case, it's also a SpiritualAntithesis, as while Archie Bunker was an UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist, Mike Baxter is this show's viewpoint character and an AuthorAvatar for Allen himself.

** When Ed puts in his new home theater, we see Mike stand in front of a ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'' poster on the wall. Tim Allen starred as the voice of Buzz Lightyear.

** "Trick or Treat" is one to "Halloween." Mike, inspired by Kyle's Ed costume and Ed's reaction to it in the latter episode, decides to take it UpToEleven for the family's Halloween party by having everybody swap roles so they'll make fun of each other and have a terrible time.