Shifting Gears star Tim Allen found a way to poke fun at his time behind bars.
During the Monday, October 27, episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live, Allen, 72, spoke about his support for the troops.
“I love helping our vets and I love anything I can do,” he said before joking, “I should have gone into the military rather than prison.”
Allen continued: “I had a choice and prison is the way I went. It is the same sort of thing. Food is kind of weird and you have to wear a uniform.”
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Before finding success as a comedian and sitcom star, Allen was arrested in 1978 for possession of more than one pound of cocaine. He pleaded guilty to felony drug trafficking charges and was sentenced to two years in federal prison. Allen has often been candid about the mistakes he made along the way.
“I was just a kid. [I was busted for] picking it up. It was just like in a freaking movie [where it was] in a locker,” Allen recalled on an October episode of the “Howie Mandel Does Stuff” podcast about being arrested at age 25 on drug trafficking charges. “If you want to get into the details of it, I was treated just as badly as people of color. I was pigeonholed because I was a light-skinned guy from an upper middle class family.”
Allen said he thought the authorities were trying to “make an example” out of him. “I didn’t have a pre-sentence report. Most of the situation — as I look at it — was a setup. I wouldn’t have any idea where to sell this amount [of drugs],” he added. “It was predetermined what was going to happen to me way before I was in there.”
Before turning himself in, Allen was worried about serving time.
“[I made] horribly stupid jokes because I was in there. I was going, ‘I’m going to kill myself,’” he said. “So I was going to kill myself and the comedy part of me goes, ‘OK, how are we going to do this?’ My comedy part is always funny at the weirdest times.”
Allen continued: “[The comedy side of me would go], ‘I say we string ourselves up over the bar over there and kick the stool. But you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to screw it up and you’re going to be hanging there and people are going to spin you around like a piñata when they come back.’ I burst out laughing and I said, ‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’”
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According to Allen, his lawyer convinced him to enter a guilty plea for something he “didn’t do,” claiming, “That’s guilty to conspiracy to bring it into the country. Then it becomes a federal offense, not a state offense. Then the federal offense is different. I said, ‘Whatever.’”
Mandel, 69, tried to clarified whether suicide was a “serious consideration” for him.
“Yes. Because … at that point, it was called the Rockefeller Act where any [drug charges] over a certain amount was life in prison,” he recalled. “They wanted to stop drugs like they’re trying to do now by increasing the sentence or putting people in prison. It didn’t work then.”
He concluded: “Then I get one old guy that was on the prison bus with me. He goes, ‘Just shut up, grow a beard and stop asking questions.’ He said, ‘You got to shut up. No one knows why you’re in here unless you tell them.’ And he says, ‘Mind your own business and stop checking off the days.’”
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