At the end of the season 8 premiere of Last Man Standing last night, the sitcom paid tribute to two members of their backstage staff who sadly died between seasons of the show. They were lighting technician Wayne Lee and production accountant Lyle Brummett.
Wayne Lee worked on the show for 20 episodes from 2011 to 2013 when the showed aired on ABC. He is no stranger to working a sitcom as he also worked 43 episodes for It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia from 2005 to 2009, he also did six episodes for Parks and Recreation in 2009.
Lyle Brummett clocked up 45 episodes on Last Man Standing as a production accountant from 2013 until 2017. While the show was at ABC, he was the lead accountant responsible for all accounting connected with the show. He also worked the same number of episodes on sitcom Reba, in the same role, from 2001 to 2003.
Brummett also worked on the pilot for the shows Anatomy of Violence and Paging Dr. Freed. He worked for 20th Century Fox Television for five years and was educated at the Eastern Illinois University.
The show also lost recently lost actor Robert Forster. He died in October 2019 after a battle with brain cancer. Forster was 78-years-old and had been nominated for an Oscar for the movie Jackie Brown.
He had a recurring role on the show as the character Bud Baxter, father to Allen’s Mike Baxter. He was not included in this post-show tribute.
ABC canceled the show in 2017, but Fox stepped in to keep it going, and it has switched from Friday night to Thursdays, due to Fox’s new deal with WWE Friday Night SmackDown.
This new season will see significant changes in the storyline, with all three daughters leaving the Baxter family home.
New episodes of Last Man Standing air on Fox at 8 p.m. ET Thursdays.