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LJN Toys was founded in 1970 by aspiring New York businessman Jack Friedman and was named in reverse after the initials of Toy entrepreneur Norman J. Lewis. Everyone is mostly familiar with this company for making horrible games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but they were a pretty huge toy company back in the 1980’s with properties like E.T., Thundercats, Six Bionic, Wrestling Superstars, and Michael Jackson under their belt. Alongside violent properties like Gremlins and Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, they also acquired the rights to make products based off Nightmare on Elm Street: a series of horror films about a serial killer named Freddy Krueger who murders teens in their sleep. Many of LJN’s products that featured the Springwood Slasher’s likeness include squishable dolls, squirt balls, a “squirt mask,” and the 1990 video game for the NES. Listed as Item #9136 Monster Squirt Assortment in a 1989 toy catalog was a water gun made to look like Freddy Krueger with the trigger underneath his iconic blade glove (despite him being left handed in the movies, the glove on the toy here is on his right hand). On the square box at the top of the image is another water gun modelled after Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th franchise. It appears he would have been able to swing his axe down while the knife lodged in his stomach would have acted as the trigger. These toys would have operated similarly to the battery operated water gun released under the Entertech subdivision which may have led to their downfall. In 1987, a series of incidents involving the water guns occurred where children that carried them were shot dead by deputy law enforcers who mistook them for real firearms as well as reports of criminals utilizing them in robberies of banks and retail establishments. Entertech tried to make the guns look less realistic by adding brighter orange colours, but the damage was already done as LJN’s profits went down due to concerned parents taking the guns back. To make matters worse, MCA’s profits plunged 79.5% in the second quarter of the year. It is worth noting that the Elm Street toys came out in 1989 which would be two years after the Entertech disasters and a year before the sellout. With no choice, MCA agreed to sell to Acclaim Entertainment for cash and their common stock for 30 to 50%. Under Acclaim’s rule, LJN completely shredded their toy division and became a strict video game publisher for Nintendo. In 1995, they were closed and folded into Acclaim Entertainment where they would still release three video games (the last one being a Dreamcast port with LJN’s name only) before the company went defunct in 2004.


It is unknown where the original water gun prototypes are now and its highly likely that they are either sitting away in a storage facility, sold online at an auction years ago, or where thrown away as trash after Ljn went under.

Sources[]

https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/70938/10-awesome-horror-movie-toys-never-released/5/

Wikipedia articles on LJN and Entertech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdeDtiobyNc&vl=en

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