🛠The Origin of America's Funniest Handyman

America’s Funniest Handyman was born on a job site, which is where all handymen and women are born. Let’s face it, nobody becomes handy without getting their hands dirty and stubbing a few toes, but this guy, this funny handy dude, well he popped into my head one day while I was working on a big commercial job site in downtown Philadelphia.

When he got here isn’t as important as HOW he got here.

My name is Tommy Highland and I have been working in the trades since I was 22 years old. I went to college as a theater major and when I was done I tried an office job, but that didn’t last long at all. I hated sitting in one spot all day wishing I was outside doing something creative. So I quit and I got an apprenticeship as a painter with a Victorian renovation company. Turns out that job would be just the beginning of a long career in the trades.

That was the early nineties and since then I have worked in and out of a lot of different trades while always moonlighting as an actor and a comedian. I would have been a full time performer, but I was never willing to be broke for as long as you have to be broke to break in to show business. I was always building or fixing things during the day and doing plays and stand up at night, and I guess I never got tired of it because here I am almost 30 years later still a full time builder and a part time comic.

When I started out you had to get information from mentors or by a lot of trial and error, which is how I learned back in the day. Then HGTV and YouTube came along and made it super easy to learn whatever you want to learn whenever you want to learn it. Absolutely fantastic and totally revolutionized the way we learn to “Do It Yourself”.

I have an engineer’s brain so I am always curious about how things work and how they are put together. I love to dive in and take it apart, often knowing that I will have to learn something new in order to fix it and put it back together. YouTube is an excellent learning tool, but you’ve got to admit that most of what is available is excruciatingly boring. You often have to sit through a long, painfully monotonous video just to get to the one or two kernels of information you really need to finish the repair.

For years I have thought to myself, “I should do something about this”, and then one day while pulling data cable in a downtown Philly high rise it finally came to me! America’s Funniest Handyman materialized in my head and began to talk to me, filling my weird brain with more and more ideas of how to bring some humor and laughter into the home improvement process.

I love working on homes and fixing things around the house AND I’m often a giggling smart ass while I'm doing it. Why shouldn’t you? Probably because you didn’t even know it was possible, and that’s why I started this new thing, because you deserve to laugh a little bit while learning to work around the house.

Since starting last January of 2020 I have I have published 27 informative and funny DIY Videos on my YouTube Channel and that’s just the beginning. I have found my stride and we are totally down for the journey ahead. We are in there like swimwear and moving forward, Bruh!

In addition to my regular blog, this year I will be putting up a new DIY video every Saturday at noon followed by YouTube Live Stream every Sunday Morning at 11 e.s.t.

America’s Funniest Handyman, we put the f.u.n. in Home Improvement!

Wait, it wasn’t there? Well it is now..

America’s Funniest Handyman, come for the knowledge, stay for the laughs.