Exclusive Interview with "Jingle All the Way” Director, Brian Levant: Part 1!

Put that cookie down because we have an even better treat for you all. TheArnoldFans staff met up with Brian Levant, director of Jingle All the Way, so we could bring you all an exclusive interview on the greatest Christmas movie of all time! Yes, the movie about the true meaning of Christmas: Getting a Turbo Man doll!  Brian Levant directed over 20 movies and his other films includes Beethoven, The Flintstones, Snow Dogs, Scooby Doo films and an upcoming reboot of Police Academy.

Since the Terminator: Dark Fate premiere was cancelled in Los Angeles in late October, this opened a new window of opportunity for our staff to meet with the Jingle All the Way director and do a personal interview in his home. Brandon Krum and Ryan Gillen joined me as we all followed Brian through his compound and ended up in his home office. Upon entering, our eyes went directly towards a glass case featuring the ultimate “Parade edition” Turbo Man doll from the film! What an absolute treasure to behold!


Brian’s office was filled with hundreds of collectibles from the films he directed or from the TV series that we wrote or produced.  There was a Mork & Mindy merchandise shelf, Happy Days, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones and the rest all have their own collections on display. One shelf, taking a center spot amongst his collection, was dedicated entirely to the Jingle All the Way film merchandise.


We sat in Brian’s office for nearly an hour as we fanboys geeked out with the director and asked our burning questions. So let us share highlights of of interview and bring you some exclusive photos of Brian Levant’s personal Turbo Man collection!

The craziest thing we learned this evening was that Brian had only recently displayed his special one-of-a-kind, screen-used “Parade edition” Turbo Man doll in his house as it was stored in a sad and lonely box for decades!

Brian Levant: "My Turbo Man sat in the garage for over twenty years in a box. I just didn’t wanna look at it! Over the years, it’s become very evident that people’s affection for the film is greater than my hostility towards it (laughs).  You know, Jingle was a failure. I mean, although the domestic gross was back then on the line with many of Arnold’s films that followed in the next couple of years, “The Sixth Day” and films like that, they grossed $60M, like “Jingle.” However, we didn’t expect that, we expected better. Everybody expected better. An important thing to remember, I don’t think anyone ever anticipated “Space Jam” or “101 Dalmatians,” which were films that had much more time to develop campaigns.

The director explained some of the difficulties working on the film.

Brian Levant:  "Then we ended up shooting a lot of it here (in California), in July, for the winter scenes. All the parade stuff was done at the backlot of Universal (Studios). and you’ve got 2,000 extras and 500 of which passed out at one point from heat exposure! Arnold’s in the rubber suit, after he tries it on, I said “You gotta do something to let him go to the bathroom,” (laughs) and they did. It (an easy solution to allowing him to pee when wearing the costume) wasn’t part of the original design. Because for Arnold, my God, he’s going to have to be in the suit for three or four hours at a time! It was a terribly difficult production – 84 days, which is a lot more days than I had ever had. But everyday was jam-packed and we went full-tilt boogie everyday to try and do it. It’s just, we were humbled, let me tell ya."

One of the best characters, Ted, played by Phil Hartman, received a natural praise by the director.

Brian Levant:  "I can’t say enough about Phil Hartman, I mean, everyday, it was a joy. Every single minute of the movie, I’ve never seen anyone enjoy his success or his wealth more than him. Phil drives right up to the camera in his new Ferrari and says “is this Crew parking?” (laughs) He came in to read for Myron (the Mail man) but wasn’t very good as Myron and I said “Would you mind taking a look at this other part that I think might suit you,” and he goes, 'Well, that’s not really what I came in here for’ and he saw it as much smaller part but he just looked at it for about 20 seconds and said “okay, let’s try it.” He knocked everybody dead. He (Phil) was just great, you know, he’s funny, a very high-spirited guy. Some of his larger improvs, are like when he looks at Arnold and goes “You can’t bench-press your way out of this one!” It was off the top of his head and he’s like “You want another one?” And I go "No, I think we got it!" (laughs)


Brian couldn’t pick his favorite Phil Hartman scene because he loved them all.

Brian Levant: "All of them are great. Things that we thought were just throw-away lines like “Put that cookie down” you know,  you go on Instagram and there’s 85,000 views (of that clip)! Now, will somebody explain this to me?! Oh, and by the way, the first scene we shot in the movie was Arnold at the phone booth talking to Phil Hartman and the very last scene in the movie was shot was Phil talking to Arnold!"


Well, that’s all I can report on for now as it’s Christmas Eve and I should probably start to do my Christmas shopping because there’s nothing like waiting until the last minute, right? Stick around for part 2 of our exclusive Brian Levant interview! This gift certificate ensure that we will get to Part Two…”Eventually!”