Tim Allen’s Celebrity Power Trip : Comedy: The star of television’s ‘Home Improvement’ series will tool up for tonight’s show at the Anaheim theater.

On ABC’s new hit comedy series “Home Improvement,” comic Tim Allen stars as the host of a cable-TV do-it-yourself show that’s a takeoff on PBS’ long-running “This Old House” series. In the original, host Bob Vila advised viewers on the right and wrong ways to do everything from weatherproofing with double-paned windows to planing door jambs; Allen describes his version as “Bob Vila on Acid.”

Actually, his TV character evolved out of his popular stand-up act, which focused on men’s obsession with power tools. He’ll bring that act to the Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim on tonight as part of a “5 O’Clock Funnies” comedy bill hosted by KLOS-FM disc jockey Geno Michellini.

The 1990 winner of an ACE award (cable TV’s version of an Emmy) for best performance in a comedy special, Allen’s premise, reflected in both facets of his career, is that all men are Neanderthals whose sole purpose in life is vehicle maintenance and lawn care.

“My mom says men aren’t men until they can get to Sears by themselves,” Allen says in his act. Indeed, Allen’s vision of heaven is a trip to the Sears tool department to buy a heavy-duty leaf-and-garden shredder.

His whole act is a celebration of maleness, punctuated by his trademark Neanderthal grunts and snorts. (His new Showtime special, “Tim Allen Rewires America,” premieres Dec. 7 at 10 p.m.)

The former creative director of a Detroit ad agency who broke into stand-up comedy 12 years ago calls himself the leader of the “masculinist”--as opposed to the feminist--movement.

As he has explained it: “It’s a celebration of men’s stuff: gunk, gaskets, Lava soap, aluminum boats, bass fishing, V-8s and blowing your nose with your thumb over a nostril.”

It’s no wonder one critic labeled Allen “the comic poet of the manly arts.”

Tim Allen performs tonight at 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Celebrity Theatre, 210 E. Broadway, Anaheim. Tickets: $20. (714) 999-9536.