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The Atlanta-based company behind the Super Soaker water gun and Nerf toy guns  has been awarded nearly $73 million in royalties from toymaker Hasbro Inc.,  according to the law firm King & Spalding.

The year of 1989 began the water weaponry revolution. The origin of the Super Soaker® actually dates back to 1982 when Dr. Lonnie Johnson, a nuclear engineer, first had the idea of making a high performance toy water gun. At the time, he was employed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California as a spacecraft systems engineer on the Galileo mission to Jupiter.

As a part time inventor, it took eight (8) years before the gun was finally introduced to consumers. In 1991, the Power Drencher (eventually renamed as the Super Soaker®) was unleashed onto the water blaster market, still in its infancy.  In the interim, water gun companies such as Entertech™ and Larami ruled the water fight scene with their advances in battery powered motorized water guns. However, the motorized blasters did not offer much soaking power and the batteries required to keep these guns working proved to be costly.