My Life and Toys

About Brian Levant

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 Levants 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 Levants 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 Networks first original productionThe Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space and the two live action/CGI Scooby Doo films which remain the Cartoon Networks highest rated programs of all-time. Illumination Entertainment is currently in pre-production on Levants 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 Peoples Series for My Secret Identity which he created. Nearly every year since the late 1970s 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 Colleges Semester in L.A. program Arizona State University George R.R. Martins 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 Subways 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 authors massive toy and pop culture collections. Pellegrini and his wife Jennifer Levant live in Chicago and are the parents of two grown children.