Fool Time

Throughout humankind’s journey, we’ve often been led forward, or backward, by Tims and Als. Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, the face of the beloved 1990s sitcom “Home Improvement,” was a thoughtless, inconsiderate, and calamity-prone doofus. Al Borland, his co-host of the show-within-a-show “Tool Time,” was the counterbalancing figure Tim required: wise, mature, empathetic, and an exceptionally skilled craftsman. In the 1800s, the Internet began with a Tim and an Al: the guy you know, Samuel F.B. Morse, and the guy you probably don’t, Alfred Vail.