Jakks Pacific, Inc. is an American toy manufacturer founded in January 1995. The company is best known for producing licensed action figures, playsets, dolls, plush toys, and dress-up sets. They are also well known for their line up of Plug-n-Play Television Game Consoles popularized in the 2000s.
The company was co-founded by Jack Friedman, who had previously founded the toy and video game companies LJN and THQ. Friedman presided over the company, until retiring as CEO and chairman after March 31, 2010, a month before his death on May 3, 2010.
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History
Jack Friedman and Stephen Berman co-founded Jakks Pacific in January 1995. His first master toy license was a seven-year deal with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) to mainly produce figurines and playsets. In July 1998, the seven-year-deal that would have expired in 2002, was extended to December 2009.
In early 2002, Jakks began working on their own interactive software with creating their own handheld TV games called Plug-&-Play TV Games, where the user plugs the device straight into the television. As of 2002, the original TV Games device from Jakks Pacific sold over 350,000 units. By 2004, the TV Games series had sold 1 million units. As of 2007, Pac-Man TV Games sold over 15 million units.
In December 2002, FUNimation Entertainment awarded Jakks Pacific with the master toy license to produce toys based on the Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z and Dragon Ball GT licenses.
In February 2005, Jakks Pacific was instructed to restate the financial statements for fiscal year 2003 to account for the acquisition of Toymax, Trendmasters, and P&M Products.
Partnerships & acquisitions
In 1997, Jakks Pacific purchased the defunct Remco brand from Azrak-Hamway International (AHI).
Child Guidance, and Road Champions in 1997.
In June 1998, Jakks Pacific entered into a joint-license agreement with THQ to release WWF video games, to release their first title in October 1999. Under the deal, publishing would be handled by THQ, and with most of the development being handled by Yuke's. In October 2004, it emerged that the (since renamed) WWE had filed a lawsuit against Jakks Pacific, alleging that both parties had given bribes to the WWF executive Jim Bell and agent Stanley Shenker to hide 'superior' pitches from other publishers, such as Activision. The federal suit was dismissed in December 2007, the state court litigation was dismissed in August 2008 and an appeal was dismissed by the court of appeals in May 2009. In December 2009, WWE announced settlement of the litigation, without any party admitting any wrongdoing. By this point, the WWF's Bell and Shenker had both pleaded guilty to fraud elsewhere in the WWF, involving illegitimate kick-back schemes. The end of 2009 saw the end of the joint-license agreement, THQ signed a new eight-year video game license with WWE, without Jakks Pacific.
Berk, the maker of oversize foam toys, was acquired by Jakks in June 1999. Later that year, in September, Flying Colors was purchased. In November, the purchase of Funnoodle was completed.
Jakks acquired Pentech International in 2000.
Toymax International Inc. and Kidz Biz Ltd. were purchased in 2002.
The company acquired Go Fly A Kite, Color Workshop and Trendmasters in 2003; and Play Along Toys was acquired in 2004.
In 2005, Jakks signed a toy deal with Black+Decker. In December, Jakks purchased Pet Pal Line.
In 2006, the company acquired Creative Designs International.