Saturday, June 9, 2018

Gaming Ads: LJN

Based in New York and then New Jersey, LJN Toys was founded in 1970 by Jack Friedman who named his company after the reverse initials of a previous employer, Norman J. Lewis, who also ran a toy company. LJN manufactured a variety of types of toys, including water guns, talking baseball cards, and numerous action figures based on popular properties, such as Indiana Jones, Thundercats, AD&D, and the World Wrestling Federation. Acquired by MCA in 1985, LJN began publishing video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1987. Acclaim Entertainment purchased LJN from MCA in 1989 and proceeded to phase out all of its toy lines in favor of video game publishing. Like its toys, LJN's games were often based on licensed properties, like movies and comic books.

In 1995 LJN was completely absorbed by Acclaim and ceased to exist as a separate entity. However, Acclaim did use the LJN brand name on the Dreamcast game Spirit of Speed 1937 which released in 2000. I posted some of LJN's ads last year as part of Acclaim's multiple brands ads; those are ads that feature two or more game publishers that were owned by Acclaim, the others being Flying Edge and Arena Entertainment.

LJN albums: Facebook - Google Photos





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