FanX Flashback - Home Improvement Reunion Panel Highlights [FanX 2025]

As a product of the late '80s and '90s, the "Home Improvement" reunion panel at FanX 2025 was a blast. It reunited cast regulars Richard Karn, Patricia Richardson and Debbe Dunning for an hour of reminiscing, nostalgia, and family-friendly laughs. Here are some of the quick highlights:

On what “Home Improvement” meant to her career and becoming part of the cast:

Debbe Dunning: I was working on all sorts of commercials and little bits of shows here and there. When I came in the first year, I came in as Kiki Van Fursterwallenscheinlaw. Remember that?

I was blessed enough to be asked back after Pamela decided to go, and I realized I had a family. I had a place where people tuned in.

It’s a crazy thing when you work so hard and all of a sudden you’re like, now you have a name. You’ve actually made a name for yourself doing everything that you love.

I loved showing up. I loved the fact that my dressing room became a nursery when I had a kid. This show was so good for me.

We had antics. We were a family. When you work with somebody year after year, five days a week, you become like family. Sometimes we’d argue. Sometimes we’d be a little pissy. But at the end of the day, we all really, really loved our job.

I feel like you guys come to our table and say, “This was one of the best parts of our childhood, because this is when our families would meet at dinner on a Tuesday or Wednesday night.” It really left an imprint.

So I feel very blessed to have been part of this show. And thank you guys for not only showing up today, but for all your nice comments. I was here two years ago and I was like, “Oh, I’m definitely coming back.”

You guys are just amazing.

On joining “Home Improvement” at the last minute and when she realized the show could become a hit:

Patricia Richardson: I was a last-minute replacement for Frances Fisher, who’s a friend of mine now and a wonderful actress.

[Richardson explains that Fisher’s performance simply wasn’t the tone the producers ultimately wanted for Jill Taylor.]

It wasn’t that she was bad. It was that, the way the show is written, if you play the wife as a victim, they were worried because [Tim’s character] was seeming abusive.

I’d already been signed with Disney for something that was supposed to happen in September. I had just given birth to twins three months before this. I was not interested in working then.

But they called me on a Wednesday and said, “We want you to start tomorrow. You’ll rehearse Thursday and Friday, maybe Saturday. Monday we’ll do cameras. Tuesday we shoot the show.”

I hadn’t worked in a year because I was pregnant, in bed, and then had two kids with colic.

Richard Karn: Tell them the show that you were supposed to do.

Richardson: The show I was supposed to do, ironically, was called “Home Movies,” and it was by the people who wrote “The Wonder Years.”

It was supposed to be a dramedy about a young husband and wife with a very young child, which was really what I was interested in doing. I’d already done three sitcoms that failed.

[Richardson explains that she and her then-husband, actor Ray Baker, had been through enough pilots to know that big studio-audience reactions did not guarantee a pickup.]

So when we did the pilot, the laughs were like -

Richard Karn: Eleven seconds. Thirteen seconds.

Richardson: They didn’t know who we were. They hadn’t seen the show yet, so they were laughing in the moment without having any context.

I’m sitting there waiting through these laughs - waiting, waiting, waiting - and thinking, “God, we have done so many pilots.” I knew they always stack the audience with your friends, so I thought the reason we were getting these ridiculous laughs was because it was full of friends.

I was like, “These people are nuts.” I almost wanted to go, “Calm down, calm down. We’re trying to do a show.”

When it was over, I went upstairs and my husband was there. I still thought I would do the show, it would fail, and I could go home and be with my babies.

There had been other shows with a stand-up and a family that had bombed, so I just thought, whatever.

But the script was good.

And even when something is going really well, that’s not a guarantee. In Hollywood, you can do a brilliant sitcom and not get picked up.

Then Ray said, “Well, welcome to the show you’re going to be doing for the next seven years.”

And I was like, “What? That’s not my plan.”

And he said, “It is so good.”

I was stunned. I just didn’t know.

[Richardson says her confidence grew when ABC gave “Home Improvement” a strong time slot next to “Roseanne.”]

And we were up against “Seinfeld.”

And we won. We beat “Seinfeld.”

However, they moved “Seinfeld” to Thursday night, and that became Must See TV. And it became, well, “‘Seinfeld’ is the smart show, and ‘Home Improvement’ is the show for children and their parents.”

Which is a good thing, because now we are really rewatching it, and it is such a safe show. It’s a show that you don’t have to worry about. And it’s also giving a really great lesson.

I feel like you guys have learned something from it and been affected in some way by it, and mostly it’s all been positive.

So when you ask when I knew it was going to be a hit... I felt like it was a hit when I started. I really did.

We were always People’s Choice. Every time we went to an awards thing, we won.

And I really didn’t watch it because I was working so hard. You work a full week, and then coming home and actually sitting there watching the show that you’re on... we would just tape it.

We’d be working when it aired.

FanX Flashback - Sean Astin Panel Highlights [FanX 2025]

Our next FanX Flashback takes us to the Grand Ballroom panel featuring Sean Astin at FanX 2025. Astin covered a lot of ground during his appearance, from the possibility of a long-awaited “Goonies” sequel to his time on “Stranger Things” and his newly expanded role in public service. Along the way, he reflected on joining beloved franchises, what Bob Newby meant to Joyce Byers, why he once imagined becoming a congressman and the simple rule he tries to follow when stepping into an already-successful project: “Don’t suck.”

Here are a few of the highlights:

On whether “The Goonies 2” is actually happening and whether the original cast could return:
Sean Astin: No, he was in Italy at the film festival and said that he finished the draft. I know what you know, but I have a sense of confidence that it’s actually happening. Fans seem to want it. I know it’s been years.

Moderator: Maybe they’ll want the original cast to be in it as well. I don’t know. I mean, would you like to get the band back together in some form?

Astin: I mean, it’s just lived in all of our imagination for so long, probably because of the conventions, that this is what people want. It’s what they want. And we’ve all had different ideas for it. Corey Feldman and I wrote a treatment for it, and we pitched that treatment, and they’re like, “Oh, no, I’m not gonna do that.” So, you know, it’ll be weird if we’re not…

Moderator: Yeah.

Astin: So it’s gotta be good.

On whether he could eventually run for political office after becoming SAG-AFTRA president:
Astin: So before I put my name forward to be the SAG president - SAG president - I talked to my wife and kids. And I think this role is about as much as I’m gonna convince them is okay. I think at this point my wife is like, “We have these dogs, there’s a rocking chair somewhere, we’re gonna, you know, we get to just relax and have each other and time.” So who knows what the future holds in store? I always hate it when politicians who are obviously about to do something are like, “I really don’t know.” It’s like, “Yeah, you do. We already saw the bumper stickers on the back of your car,” right? Whatever. But I don’t know. I always thought I’d be a congressman or something.

Moderator: But this role of union leader –

Astin: Well, yeah. I love “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” anything Frank Capra ever did, [several unclear film references/titles], “To Kill a Mockingbird.” As a performer, you aspire to this great civic virtue. That’s the thing: What can you do to contribute to the lives of the people around you?

And because I’m an actor who’s enjoyed more than my fair share of good fortune working and earning, you might start to buy the press. You might start to believe that you can actually do all that.

So, I have no idea. But what I look for in people who are doing that, I want to see people who are passionate. I want to see people who are honest, but not held to some ridiculous cartoon standard.

And I want to see people who have real, genuine curiosity and passion for what it is that they’re going to be doing, you know, and, like, that. And as much as you go for good leaders, we need to be good people. Like, leaders require good people.

On playing Bob Newby in “Stranger Things” and joining franchises that were already massive:
Astin: I learned about “Stranger Things” coming to conventions. People would come up to me, “Have you seen Stranger Things?” I’m like, “What is that?” They’re like, “No, no, no, it’s Goonies. It’s Goonies. It’s Goonies.” I’m like, “It’s Goonies? Goonies didn’t have big monsters.” It looked a little scarier, but they’re riding bikes, there’s RadioShack, it’s the ’80s.

To me, Bob’s function in the story was to give Joyce and the audience a moment to breathe, because you’d spent an entire season with her in absolute terror with the loss of her son. It was kind of unrelenting cruelty to that character.

So they gave her a few episodes where she could have somebody who was there and cared about her, and cared about her kids. His whole thing was just like, “Bring some puzzles. I want you to be happy.” Boy, that would be pretty great if some of us knew how to do that - just make someone else happy.

[Astin said he appreciated joining a show that had already become a major cultural phenomenon, comparing the experience to entering other established worlds such as “The Color of Magic” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”]

The feeling is, number one, you want to make sure you do your job and don’t suck, right? That’s the number one thing: don’t suck. And contribute. Find some way to contribute to what this thing is that’s being created.

I actually auditioned for a different character. I auditioned for the reporter, the guy who was investigating [Barb]. But then they said, “Can you come back and read for this other guy, Bob?” I was super appreciative that they had accomplished this amazing thing, and I was there to basically help it keep going.

I didn’t know, when I got “Lord of the Rings,” anything about the Tolkien lore and mythology and how well-known that story was around the world, in every language, for generations. I knew it intellectually, but I didn’t feel it like that.

So “Stranger Things,” yeah, it was pretty great to just be able to walk in and feel like I get to be with all these people who are doing this. The Duffer Brothers, the world they created...

I didn’t get to work with Millie. I was bummed out. In the eighth episode, they sent her to Chicago for some reason to get in, like, gang fights in Chicago. (The audience laughs.) I don’t know what happened in that episode.

But she wasn’t there, so I didn’t get to interact with her. That was the only disappointment I had, because I just thought that what they had all created with Eleven was just next level. But I got to hang with my peeps, and it was fun.

FanX Flashback - Zachary Levi Panel Highlights [FanX 2025]

With FanX Salt Lake Comic Convention right around the corner, it's time for that time-honored tradition of scrambling to transcribe a ton of audio clips from last year's convention. But, thankfully, with the recent realization that technology is amazing and we no longer have to manually re-listen to these clips, try to determine what the celebrity is saying over the audience noise, and type it out word-by-word, this process just got significantly easier and faster!

So hey. Zachary Levi has been an awesome guest for several FanX conventions. His panels are always must-see, and he gives some truly thought-provoking and uplifting responses to the fans' questions - and he's coming back in a couple weeks! Can't wait! Looking forward to it.

With no further ado, here are some highlights from his panel in 2025, in which he discussed his greatest hits, hinted at potential projects in the future, and shared some very insightful thoughts about human emotions. Enjoy!

On what he would do if he had a magic purple crayon (like his movie “Harold and the Purple Crayon”) in real life:

I know this is a little lofty for the kids, although drawing a cool jet ski wouldn’t be bad. But I think that we are overtaken with consumption, we are overtaken with materialism, we all are overtaken with consumerism. We all are being programmed to, like, “Oh, I need this thing, I need that thing, and I need the new phone and I need the new bag, and I need whatever all that stuff is.” And the reality is, guys, we don’t need almost any of that stuff. What we need is community - that’s a huge thing. By the way, that’s one of the things I love about conventions: so much wonderful community at conventions, right? So many people that are really passionate about so many things, and you get to come together about that - you get to come together with your love for that. So, genuinely, I would be drawing peace on Earth. I would be drawing good will toward men. Whatever that looks like, that’s what I would be drawing.

On whether the “Chuck” movie could ever reasonably happen:

That’s a great question. And it’s a question that I would love to answer with a “Chuck” movie one day. (The audience cheers loudly.) Listen, listen. So at some point, I might - I might - need everybody in this room, or… Actually, that’s a good question. Who here is a “Chuck” fan? (The audience cheers loudly.) That’s a good answer. So, I am actively - and have actively - been trying to get Warner Bros., who own the rights to “Chuck,” to be open to, at least, allowing me [to make] a “Chuck” movie. I believe that the show - of all the shows that keep getting rebooted or movies that are made from shows - I feel like “Chuck” is so deserving of that, and you, the fans, are so deserving of that, because we did kind of end the show on a little bit of a cliffhanger. If you haven’t seen the show, I won’t spoil it for you, but you should go see the show. And I think we need to resolve that. At the very least, we need to resolve that. So, in order to do that, there might be a moment in the near-ish future - I don’t know - where I might, on [social media], I might post to the world, and I might say, “Hey, go to this website and say - raise your hand - and say, ‘I want this.’” Not only will I need you to sign that petition… I know there’s some petitions that have floated around but none of them have been really official, so none of them have really been […] respected by the [movie studio]. So, to do an official petition or an official website, where I can send all of you people to it and say, “If you want this, let me know”… and it can’t stop at you; you’ve got to spread that all over the world. It becomes your mission, beyond that, right? And if I could get enough of those signatures and even, like, commitments of, like, “I would spend $10” or “I would spend $20,” or “I would go, I would spend money on this thing,” I think we could make that thing happen. And it would be cool, going back to your question, “What would Chuck and Sarah and Casey and Ellie and Awesome and Morgan… What would their lives look like, 15 years down the road?” - because we’re almost there. I know this because of this. (He gestures to his hair.) Look at all this gray!

On his favorite episode of “Chuck”:

I would say, if I had to pick one, um, the first episode that I got to direct, which was in season three - I think it was episode - it ended up airing as episode 13 or something. It was called “Chuck Versus the Beard.” And it was the episode where Morgan finally found out about everything that was going on. (The audience cheers.) And that was special for myriad reasons. One, it was the first one I got to direct, and I was really grateful for that. But one of the most frustrating things about playing that role was I hated that I had to constantly lie to everyone in my life all the time. And it felt a little repetitive eventually. You know, a helicopter is dropping me off in the courtyard, and I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know what that was.” And I was like - you know. So, so - and Morgan was kind of like the first of, of, like, kind of, you know, broke the yoke a little bit to, like, start - then other people started finding the secret. Um, so that was my favorite, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

On his least favorite character in “Tangled”:

I don’t know that I have a… Like, I think all the characters in “Tangled” are fantastic. Like, they’re so fantastically done. They’re so fantastically made. You know, it’d be easy to say, “Well, my least favorite is the evil, you know, Mother Gothel.” But she’s a fantastic character. You know what I mean? Like, she’s - she’s so good. “Mother Knows Best” is such a fantastic song. (The audience cheers.) Um, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Uh, it would be easy for me to say Maximus, because he was a little bit of a pain in the - (The audience laughs.) Yeah. Touché. Also, some of you have heard me rant about this before: How is it that Maximus got a Pop before Flynn got a Pop?! (The audience cheers and laughs.) That made me angry, bro. Angry. (An audience member shouts, “You don’t need a Pop - you’re gorgeous!”) I - I don’t need a Pop because I’m gorgeous? All right. (The audience laughs.) I love all the compliments. This is good. This is very nice. (Another audience member shouts something.) Okay, enough already. (The audience laughs.) They did. They got my nose right. The Pop got my nose right.

On his favorite part of playing Shazam:

The Wizard chose Billy because of his heart. It wasn’t because he was, you know, hyper-intelligent, or wise, or experienced. He was a child, right? But when you give that level of power to someone, it’s their heart that ultimately dictates how that power affects the world. And Billy had a heart that cared and was sacrificial, and really wanted - literally laid his life on the line in order to save his family and to save the world. And so, I think that’s my favorite part of playing Shazam, for sure.

On identifying with Anxiety in “Inside Out 2” and the importance of crying:

This is why we’ve got to love ourselves. This is why we’ve got to love each other. Because it’s hard. Life is hard. (The audience applauds and cheers.) I watched “Inside Out 2,” and they introduce - if you haven’t seen it - they introduce Anxiety into the story. I could not stop crying. Like, I - my girlfriend was sitting next to me - (He imitates exaggerated sobbing; the audience laughs.) My girlfriend - I don’t know why I - Also, listen, I’m not embarrassed about this. We should all cry. It’s important. Especially guys. (The audience cheers.) Especially us guys. But I’m watching this movie, and I’m watching Anxiety portrayed in this funny, wacky, animated form in this young girl’s head, and I silently weep. Like, I didn’t want to audibly weep, because everyone in the theater would have been like, “This guy is out of his mind. Like, something is - did he stab himself? How bad is the popcorn?” (The audience laughs.) I could - I just - I saw myself in that, in that Anxiety represented in this form, and it wrecked me. It wrecked me. But that’s beautiful. So, that’s up there. That’s up there as well. But also all the other ones I was talking about. Thank you.