When the 1995 Pixar animated film Toy Story was released, it took the world by storm. Soon, every child wanted their own Cowboy Woody and Buzz Lightyear toy. The problem was that they were in limited supply as the company that made the toys, Thinkway Toys was much smaller than Hasbro or Mattel, and the bigger companies turned down the chance to make them. 
This created a shortage of “Toy Story” toys, and parents scrambled to find a Buzz figure for their kids. One of those parents was film writer, director, and producer Chris Columbus. This experience of looking everywhere for a superhero toy for his kid gave Chris an idea for a film he was already involved with. This film was 1996’s Jingle All the Way.
The film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as a father who forgot to buy his son what he wanted for Christmas. he spends all of Christmas Eve searching all over town for the toy, getting involved with crazed shoppers, underground criminals, the police, and a competing father played by Sinbad who is looking for the same toy.
The toy in question was a hero called Turbo Man. A man in a futuristic space suit with a jet pack and various other weapons and projectiles. However, this wasn’t the initial plan for the toy. Randy Kornfield wrote the film’s script, but based on his experience looking for a Buzz Lightyear, Chris Columbus made alterations to the script and gave us a new Lightyear-adjacent hero to fill the spot. This led to the creation of the film’s action-packed climax at the Christmas parade.
Despite its mixed response, the film has since become a Christmas classic. There were even official Turbo Man toys made by Tiger Electronics to coincide with the film.
Since then, in 2014, a co-production with WWE led to the creation of Jingle All the Way 2, starring Larry the Cable Guy. Disney has since acquired the rights following the 2019 buyout of 20th Century Fox. Some hope that we someday might see something Turbo Man-related come to fruition. In a way, it feels appropriate to see him under the same roof as his influence.
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