If he is despairing, it hasn't stopped Mr. Allen from endlessly jotting down ideas for comic bits on any available scrap of paper, or staying in constant touch by Powerbook with his "Home Improvement" staff in Hollywood.

Nor does it in any way diminish a fire that burns with the intensity of a big-time college football coach. He has a thing for being No. 1.

"All of business and all of sports wants to be No. 1," he said. "It's a frightening view from there because there's nothing left. It's a gorgeous feeling but if you don't like looking down, which I don't, there is no place to look."

Mr. Allen's perspective is colored by a feat he calls the "trifecta." He can cite exactly when it happened: the first week of December 1994. That Tuesday, "Home Improvement" finished in its usual No. 1 position in television, and that weekend his movie for Disney "The Santa Clause" became the top movie at the box office. It was also the week his book of observations on male life was at the top of the New York Times best-seller list.

"I'm really proud of that," Mr. Allen said. "That had never been done before, and it's going to be very difficult to repeat it."

Mr. Allen's competitiveness was severely tested this past season by ABC's decision to move "Home Improvement" out of its unassailable position on Wednesdays at 9 to Tuesdays at 9. ABC felt it needed its biggest weapon to stave off the challenge of "Frasier," which NBC had moved against ABC's "Roseanne."