My Life and Toys

Brian Levant is a nationally recognized toy and pop culture collector now in his fifth decade in the entertainment industry. Director, writer, and producer, Levant has been at the creative helm of some of the biggest franchises in family entertainment. Among Levant’s more than 400 television credits include being the showrunner of “Happy Days”, “Mork & Mindy” and “The Bad News Bears” series. After winning the 1989 Cable Ace Award as Best Director in a Comedy Series, for his long running “Leave it to Beaver” revival, Levant turned his attention to writing and directing feature films. Among Levant’s feature directing credits are the original “Beethoven,” the two Steven Spielberg produced Flintstones films, Jingle All the Way” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Snow Dogs”, Are We There Yet” and the 2010 Jackie Chan vehicle, “The Spy Next Door. In addition, Levant has produced, written or directed another 10 network and cable films including the Starz Network’s first original production,“The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space” and the two live action/CGI Scooby Doo films, which remain the Cartoon Network’s highest rated programs of all-time. Illumination Entertainment is currently in pre-production on Levant’s original C.G.I. animated musical feature, which is being produced and the music written by Pharrell Williams. Additional awards his works have collected include an 1981 NAACP Image Award for “The Bad NewsBears”, 1987 Youth In Film Best Series Award for “Beaver” and the 1988 International Emmy for Best Children and Young People’s Series, for “My Secret Identity”, which he created. Nearly every year since the late 1970’s, Levant has lectured at his alma mater, The University of New Mexico, where, in January he launches his fourth annual “Sitcom Boot Camp” class and for the past three years has taught the same class as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Arizona, where for the last 22 years, he has regularly spoken to and worked with film students. Levant has also led six editions of his “Sitcom Lab” seminars with the Hanson Film and TV Institute, where students create autobiographical situation comedies and pitch them over ZOOM to studio and network executives and showrunners. He has also made dozens of appearances at Columbia College’s Semester in L.A. program, Arizona State University, George R.R. Martin’s Stagecoach Foundation, Long Beach State, USC and The American Film Institute. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and four gigantic dogs. For over two decades Joe Pellegrini has delivered memorable imagery as an industry leader in product and food photography, highly regarded for his work that appears in store windows, magazines, catalogues, cookbooks, and on billboards and social media. Also an accomplished painter, Pellegrini has brought his artistic sensibilities to scores of national campaigns, such as Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Kelloggs, TRUFF and an array of household names, from Scrubbing Bubbles to Jim Beam. For the past 16 years, he has shot virtually all of Subway’s national fast food print and outdoor ads, as well as their in-store displays. His work in My Life and Toys, a collaboration with his brother-in-law, Brian Levant, brings his unique vision to chronicle and detail the author’s massive toy and pop culture collections. Pellegrini and his wife, Jennifer Levant, live in Chicago and are the parents of two grown children.