Focus : If I Had a Hammer...

The fact that ABC’s “Home Improvement” is a hit sitcom tells you something. It means that the serious home-improvement how-to shows that it parodies have really arrived.

And so they have.

Public TV’s “This Old House,” the model for such programs, is celebrating its 15th year.

“This Old House” also has been cloned a number of times, with slight genetic variants. (Its producers have clearly noticed this; some of “This Old House’s” publicity stationery includes the words “The Original. Accept no substitutes.”)

Perhaps foremost of the clones is public TV’s “Hometime,” which has introduced the element of a host couple to the genre. Host and executive producer Dean Johnson is now teamed with his fourth female on-air partner, Robin Hartl. At least one of her predecessors now appears in reruns on cable’s The Learning Channel.

The list of shows goes on.

“First came ‘This Old House,’ which begat ‘The New Yankee Workshop.’ And then came ‘Hometime,’ the so-called male-and-female show, which begat at least a half-dozen others,” says Ed Feldman, one of two furniture restorer-refinishers from Philadelphia who has put together one of the most offbeat how-to shows so far, “Furniture on the Mend,” which airs on Philadelphia’s public TV station, WHYY, and on cable TV’s The Learning Channel.

It’s a how-to heyday. But, as the shows have risen in popularity, so has the perception among many viewers that, in general, the shows are something other than true do-it-yourself instruction.

This is admitted, pretty much, by the father of public TV’s how-to shows, Russell Morash, creator, director and executive producer of PBS’s “This Old House,” “The Victory Garden” and “The French Chef,” among a list of cooking, gardening and home-improvement programs dating to the 1960s.

“This Old House” isn’t a do-it-yourself show, says Morash.

He says jobs such as the $80,000 restoration of an 1907 vintage Victorian home in Belmont, Mass.--the current project on “This Old House”--are too big for most do-it-yourselfers who don’t own thousands of dollars’ worth of power equipment and don’t have expert skills in carpentry, plumbing and other areas of construction.

“Few of us will be able to draw from the demonstrations that are seen on ‘This Old House’ enough of the actual information to do it ourselves,” says Morash.

So, if it’s not a do-it-yourself show, what’s the point, and what is the attraction? (“This Old House” is one of PBS’ most popular shows, broadcast 568 times a week around the country on local public television stations.)

Morash says “This Old House” is intended to “tell everybody how the job is done,” and some people actually take their cues from it.

But its larger benefit seems to be to help people understand construction and perhaps become better-informed consumers.

“The theory of the show,” Morash says, “is that most people only come in contact with the craftsman when they get the chance to pay the bill.

“What I think is the interest of the show is that it tells people what’s going on ... what’s going on when the painter has to paint your shingles -- what does he stand on, what does his brush look like, what sort of paint he’s using ...

“You can use that information,” Morash continued. “I mean, I’d like to know what my doctor does after I’m in his office -- how he migrates through the lab, what he learns and what he knows. Nobody ever tells you that. I’d like to know what my mechanic does when he takes my car and puts it up on the lift ...”

Johnson of “Hometime,” meanwhile, believes his show, which first aired in 1986, does address home-improvement projects that the viewer could easily duplicate at home.

The idea that the projects on “Hometime” are outside a normal handyman’s reach, he says, is “something I would really take issue with.” A big reason that New Britain, Conn.-based Stanley Works underwrites costs for “Hometime,” Johnson says, “is that we are a do-it-yourself show.”

Feldman says “Furniture on the Mend,” which he co-hosts with Joe L’Erario, is a true do-it-yourself show because furniture-restoration projects are small enough that they can be done at home in little time. “We tell people where they can buy the things they need to do the project, and do it step-by-step.”

The lucrative benefits of hosting home improvement programs led to the departure a few years back of the original host of “This Old House,” Bob Vila, over the issue of his commercial endorsements. The host since 1989 has been Steve Thomas, who has worked as a professional carpenter and painter and is author of the book “The Last Navigator” that later was made into a PBS documentary.

Vila went on to start his own syndicated show, “Home Again With Bob Vila.”

The host’s role on “This Old House” is to act as an inquisitive everyman who, Morash says, “asks the question that you would like to have asked.”

The expert who answers many of those questions is master carpenter Norm Abram, who has been on “This Old House” with both Vila and Thomas. Since 1989 Abram has had his own spinoff show on public TV, “The New Yankee Workshop.”