LJN Toys



LJN Toys was founded in 1970 by Jack Friedman, who later founded THQ and Jakks Pacific. The name LJN came from the initials of Lewis J. Norman, the reverse of Norman J. Lewis, whose toy company had employed Friedman as a sales representative in the 1960s. Lewis initially backed the company financially, but later sold his interest to a Chinese investor.

In 1985, MCA, which had been actively acquiring companies in the mid-1980s, acquired LJN for $66 million or $67 million in an effort to retain more profits from the merchandising of its film properties.

In 1986, LJN started publishing video games, nearly all of them for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but its games have been notorious for having abysmal design flaws such as lack of recovery time, limited attack range, etc, as well as most of the studio's games were outsourced, sometimes to studios who mostly do top notch games like Atlus (Snowboard Kids, Shin Megami Tensei, Xexyz, etc.), Westone (the Wonder Boy studio) and Rare (Golden Eye 1997, Banjo-Kazooie, Conkers Bad Fur Day, etc.). The company is probably best known today as a frequent target of The Angry Video Game Nerd's outrage (he's joked that the name must stand for "laughing joking numbnuts").

Compare Acclaim and THQ, two other game studios that mostly make bad games (however, THQ did get better); Contrast Capcom and Konami, the polar opposites of LJN.

Rare

 * Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
 * The Amazing Spider-Man
 * A Nightmare on Elm Street
 * WWF Wrestlemania Challenge
 * WWF Superstars
 * Beetlejuice
 * Beetlejuice: Horrific Hijinx from the Neitherworld!

Bits Studios

 * Terminator 2: Judgement Day
 * Terminator 2: Judgement Day
 * The Amazing Spider-Man 2
 * Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
 * The Amazing Spider-Man 3: Invasion of the Spider-Slayers
 * Alien³
 * Wolverine: Adamantium Rage

Sculptured Software

 * Roger Clemens' MVP Baseball
 * WWF Superstars 2
 * WWF Wrestlemania: Steel Cage Challenge
 * WWF Super Wrestlemania
 * WWF Royal Rumble
 * WWF Raw

Beam Software

 * Back to The Future
 * Back to the Future Part II & III
 * The Punisher
 * Bill & Ted's Excellent Game Boy Adventure: A Bogus Journey!
 * True Lies

Software Creations

 * Pictionary
 * Wolverine
 * Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade's Revenge
 * Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage
 * The Incredible Crash Dummies

LJN

 * Gotcha! The Sport!
 * Town & Country Surf Designs: Wood & Water Rage
 * The Uncanny X-Men

Enteractive

 * Major League Baseball
 * NFL Football

Grey Matter

 * The Incredible Crash Dummies
 * WWF King of the Ring

Atlus

 * The Karate Kid

Pack-In-Video

 * Friday the 13 th

Probe Entertainment

 * Alien³

Rocket Science Productions

 * Bill & Ted's Excellent Video Game Adventure

Westone

 * Jaws

Broadsword Interactive

 * Spirit of Speed 1937