Johnson Industries (Johnsonverse)

Johnson Industries

The Johnson corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, 2018
Formerly	Johnson Bros. Holdings (1862—1867)
Type	Public company
Traded as	NYSE: JON DJIA component S&P 100 component S&P 500 component
Industry	Mass media Entertainment Transportation Financing Restaurant Lodging Aerospace Publishing Sporting
Founded	February 1, 1862 (1862-02-01)
Founders	Daniel Johnson J. R. Johnson
Headquarters	Johnson corporate headquarters, San Jose, California , U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Tim Johnson (CEO) Belle Armstrong (Chairwoman)
Products	Amusement parks Films Music Video games Web portals
Services	Broadcasting Publishing Radio Streaming Television
Revenue	US$97.468 billion (2021)
Operating income	US$10.146 billion (2021)
Net income	US$3.460 billion (2021)
Total assets	US$279.870 billion (2021)
Total equity	US$135.850 billion (2021)
Owner	Johnson family
Number of employees	500,000 (2021)
Parent	Independent (1862—1981; 1991—present) Stacker & Associates (1981—1991)
Divisions	TBA
Subsidiaries	TBA
Website	https://www.johnsonindustries.com

Chocodile, Cherridile, Jenny G. Denver, Makayla Gómez, and Shinji Ikari, Johnson's mascots

Johnson Industries (often simply known as Johnson) is an American conglomerate operating in the mass media, transportation, financing, restaurant, and aerospace industries. Based in San Jose, California since its inception, the company was founded in 1862 as Johnson Bros. Holdings to fund the construction of the Central Valley Railroad between San Francisco and Fresno via Pacheco Pass, a railroad that opened in 1870. The railroad has grown to be the largest Class I railroad in North America, under the name Continental Rail (a name adopted in 1880 when the railroad's scope broadened). Shortly after the initial segment of the Central Valley Railroad was completed, a steamship company known as Continental Shipping Lines was formed in 1875, gaining an early head start on the Pacific and soon expanding to the Atlantic in 1886, operating scheduled transatlantic services between New York and Southampton.

First logo from February 1, 1862 to July 1, 1867.

Second logo from July 1, 1867 to January 15, 1937.

Third logo used from January 15, 1937 to January 1, 1962.

The 20th century was an era of immense growth for the company, and saw the formation of many of the company's subsidiaries, most notably Johnson Records (1900),Johnson Studios (1912), Western Broadcasting Company (1926 in radio and 1931 in television; parent stations KJON and KSJ, respectively), Johnson Television (1950), Johnson Technologies (1954), Johnson Comics (1957), Johnson Foods (1961), Johnson Motor Company (1964), Johnson Sports (1979), Johnson Paramilitary (1983), among others. Subsidiaries formed in the 21st century include Johnson Real Estate, formed in 2000, the Continental Wildlife Fund, formed in 2014 as a result of Johnson having found out about WWF working with SeaWorld, and Johnson Attractions, formed in 2017 following Johnson's acquisition of Dynamic Attractions.

The period between 1981 and 1991 was marked by a dark age when the company was bought out by Stacker & Associates. Infamous CEO Phil Stacker controlled the company until his resignation on October 10, 1991.

Following Stacker's resignation, Johnson climbed back to the top, with its never-retired steam locomotives and ocean liners, releasing new movies (most notably the 1997 blockbuster EarthBound) and television shows (most notably Detective Jenny and the famed and beloved Monster World), and launching its own spacecraft to service the International Space Station (under NASA, ESA, and RSA contracts), as well as providing a reliable fleet of launch vehicles for any customer's needs.

The 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s have been marked by multiple high-profile acquisitions, including the PrimeStar satellite television service and Hasbro. The 2010s saw the high-profile acquisition of the Walt Disney Company, which added a plethora of television networks (broadcast, cable, and satellite), production studios (Johnson was mainly eying Lucasfilm), theme parks, cruise ships, and websites under the Johnson banner. These acquisitions have only bolstered the company's profits, and Johnson Industries remains one of the most profitable companies in the world. Johnson also acquired Amtrak through a government order in 2015.

2012 also saw Johnson introduce the Johnson Aligned Universe. This consisted of high-profile movies, TV series, and video games, all of which have been massive successes. The company is also known for having been voted as the "Most Ethical Company" every year since 1940, as well as its iconic Blue J and Blue Globe logos.

Johnson Industries is not to be confused with the Johnson-owned Howard Johnson's brand of motor lodges, restaurants, and frozen foods, Johnson & Johnson or S.C. Johnson & Son.

History

Origins

Johnson Industries began life as Johnson Bros. Holdings on February 1, 1862, when the eponymous brothers, Daniel and J. R. Johnson, who were down to their last $2,900 after several failed ventures, founded the company to fund the construction of the Central Valley Railroad (now Continental Rail) between San Francisco and Fresno, California, via Pacheco Pass. The growing port in San Francisco was rife with opportunity, and the growing agriculture industry in the Central Valley was a prime target for moving exports to Asia. Due to the Civil War, the railroad wasn't completed until 1870, when the first train departed San Francisco, made a stop in the railroad's hometown of San Jose, and arrived at Fresno five hours later, on time, where the train was greeted by schoolchildren. The railroad’s logo used the famous "Blue Globe" logo that became affiliated with Johnson.

Five years later, Johnson Bros. Holdings was reorganized as Johnson Industries, now eying rapidly-expanding markets in the Pacific and Asia. The San Jose Times newspaper was established in 1869, and Continental Shipping Lines was established in 1875. With few Pacific-based steamship companies in existence at the time, CSL had a virtual monopoly on the Pacific and Asian markets. CSL then began steamboat operations on the Sacramento River, which saw the growth of inland seaports in Sacramento and Stockton. Starting mainly with freighters and riverboats, the influx of immigrants from China saw the addition of transpacific ocean liners. CSL expanded to the Atlantic in 1886, entering into direct competition with Cunard and White Star.

One of Continental Rail's first locomotives during the Central Valley Railroad days (this locomotive was scrapped in 1912)

The Central Valley Railroad was renamed the Central Valley and Lake Tahoe Railroad in 1875 following the completion of the Sierra Line from Sacramento to Carson City via the Lake Tahoe Basin, and again to Continental Rail in 1880 as its scope expanded. The railroad had already expanded to Sacramento via Oakland to connect with the First Transcontinental Railroad, as well another line from Fresno to Sacramento, creating the "California Circle Route", plus the aforementioned Sierra Line. The first major expansion project was from Gilroy to Los Angeles, the Coastal Route, as well as a northern route from Sacramento to Portland, Oregon. In 1887, the West Coast route was further expanded to Seattle. A northern route between Seattle and Chicago was briefly considered, but James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway put pay to those thoughts. Continental Rail also began feeling pressure from the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific, both of whom built parallel lines in an attempt to sap the railroad's business. Southern Pacific was granted trackage rights on the Coast Line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, via its own line built west of Continental Rail's trackage between San Bruno and San Francisco (Continental Rail's route was the more direct, and was referred to as the Bayshore Cutoff by SP). Several smaller California railroads were folded into Continental Rail and were established as branchlines, all of which are still in operation today.

Era of Expansion (1900—1914)

Johnson Industries began rapid expansion in the early 1900s, obtaining trackage rights via the Central Pacific from Sacramento-North Platte, Union Pacific from North Platte-Chicago, and New York Central via the Water Level Route to Grand Central Terminal. Shortly afterwards, Continental Rail's flagship passenger train, the Transcontinental Zephyr, was created. Considered one of the most elegant passenger trains in the United States, it still runs today. Continental Rail also expanded its Pacific Northwest services, establishing regular services between Los Angeles and Seattle, later expanding to San Diego via ATSF trackage rights. These ventures proved fruitful, and soon, Continental Rail bought controlling interest of the New York Central in 1904, a move that was not revealed until 2014.

CSL expanded its Pacific and Atlantic services. By now, they had left the freight business to focus on the ocean liner industry, mainly competing with Cunard and White Star in the Atlantic and Canadian Pacific in the Pacific (this was a two-front war, being fought both at sea and on the rails). CSL ran a smear campaign in 1912 following the sinking of the Titanic, blaming the disaster on the incompetent helmsman who decided it would be a good idea to reverse speed while going hard to starboard, when simply maintaining speed, as investigations using their own ships had revealed. They also ran a smear campaign against Leyland Lines over the non-response of the SS Californian, who had believed that Titanic's emergency flares were fireworks, when in fact, no passenger ships were, at the time, certified to launch any fireworks of any form.

The early 1900s also saw the formation of a third subsidiary, Johnson Records, and a fourth subsidiary, Johnson Publishing. The publishing arm was the first company to publish Victor Hugo's novels in translated and unabridged format.

The fifth subsidiary, Johnson Studios, was formed in 1912 to chronicle operations of Continental Rail and Continental Shipping Lines, with Johnson Films also being founded at the same time as a distribution firm for other studios. Johnson Optical and Sound was founded three years later to provide special effects for their films.

World War I, 1914—1918

Johnson Industries was hit hard by World War I, with CSL losing roughly 45% of its fleet to submarine warfare. When the United States entered the war, Continental Rail was affected. Operating in all three divisions of the USRA, the railroad was provided with the new standardized locomotive and freight car designs, also taking the opportunity to replace their aging passenger equipment with new Pullman cars.

CSL was a key player in ending the war. One liner, the USMS Canaveral (USMS standing for United States Mail Ship, in vein of Royal Mail Service, or RMS), had a record of sinking five U-Boats, the most of any liner.

Following the end of World War I, Continental Rail retained its USRA equipment, and gave the Canaveral a well-earned retirement, eventually being converted into a hotel/museum in 1974 and moored in Stockton.

The First Golden Age (1918—1941)

The Roaring Twenties (1918—1929)

In 1918, Johnson formed its theater arm, Johnson Theatres, though it only had one theater, the San Jose Theatre, which was (and still is) used for the premieres of many Johnson Studios productions. It eventually acquired the Indian Hills Theater in 2002 and, with the Disney acquisition in 2013, the El Capitan Theatre.

Johnson Industries entered into its first Golden Age in the 1920s, expanding rail operations into Canada and Mexico. The operations in Mexico proved especially fruitful following the Mexican Revolution, as the railroad contributed to reconstruction efforts in hard-hit areas. The railroad also began electrifying the coastal line from San Diego to Seattle, later extending to Vancouver and Tijuana, forming the "Northwest Corridor". Using electric locomotive designs made for the Milwaukee Road and New York Central, the first electric-powered train ran on July 4, 1925.

CSL expanded its operations in the Atlantic and Pacific, establishing new routes, most notably the Vancouver-Vladivostok, Hamburg-New York, and Valencia-Boston routes. CSL also entered into an agreement with Cunard Line, by which any ocean liners they retired would be sold to CSL instead of the scrappers or any other line. This was in the interest of preservation, rather than competition. CSL also established a dedicated fleet of tugboats, initially operating in their homeport of San Francisco, before expanding to harbors and ports worldwide. The tugboat division is still operational.

Johnson Studios began producing its own movies in 1919. In 1920, the studio created its own cartoon division, Johnson Cartoon Studios, and in 1925, it became the first studio to use sound in its movies, while new subsidiary Western Broadcasting Company (WBC) was established in 1926. The first station, KJON, serves the San Francisco Bay Area. A year later, the Johnson Philharmonic Orchestra was formed. Its first composer was Wilbur Johnson, who remained until his retirement in 1963. His son Cal took over, composing until his 2010 death, and Cal's son, Cal Johnson, Jr., took over and remains the composer today.

The Great Depression (1929—1941)

When the Stock Market crashed in 1929, Johnson Industries surprisingly weathered the Great Depression quite well. In addition to acquiring multiple failed shortline railroads, the newly-merged Cunard-White Star Line upheld its agreement to sell ships and tenders to CSL. The initial set of ships were:

• RMS Olympic (later used in the 1979 TV movie SOS Titanic)
• RMS Mauretania
• RMS Adriatic
• SS Ceramic
• RMS Homeric
• SS Doric

All ships of the original class remain in service, except the Ceramic, which was lost during World War II as one of only two ships lost by CSL during the war.

In 1931, WBC expanded to the then-rising medium of television, with WBC personality Don George anchoring the network's first news broadcasts on television. Currently, they are handled by Tom Stephenson and Ally Tyson.

Johnson Studios co-produced and co-distributed King Kong with RKO Pictures in 1933, and in 1938, WBC broadcast messages stating that there was no Martian invasion in progress in response to the mass panic incited by Orson Welles' now-famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

Johnson Studios' main output in the 1930s consisted of the Johnsontoons (which have been continually produced since 1926) and Little Orphan Annie shorts, the latter starring Shirley Temple as Annie and Lon Chaney Jr. as Daddy Warbucks. The shorts were produced from 1934 to 1940, when Temple became too old for the role and Chaney was moving on to horror films such as The Wolf Man.

Continental Rail had a fling with diesels in 1938, acquiring five NW1 switcher locomotives. These locomotives, while cheaper to maintain and easier to operate, were not seen as a replacement for steam traction, as Johnson Industries had a policy stating "if it isn't broke, don't replace it", a philosophy that has seen steam locomotives and steam-powered ocean liners survive into the present day. In 1935, Continental Rail entered into an agreement with Southern Pacific. SP, unsatisfied with the Market Street Depot in San Jose, CA that it had shared with CR for some time, built a brand-new depot at Cahill Street. Continental Rail was allowed to move its long-distance trains to the new station in exchange for CR taking full control of the Market Street Depot and the entire 4th Street Line. Shortly after the deal was completed, CR was given permission to electrify SP's new bypass to allow its electric locomotives to run into Cahill Street as needed. Today, Cahill Street Depot (now Diridon Station) is the primary terminus for the Transcontinental Zephyr, as well as the mid-way point for the Western Star and Pacific Bullet. Most regional trains stop at Market Street Station to avoid crowding the finite track space at Diridon Station, though roughly 25% of them stop at Diridon.

In 1936, Johnson Cartoon Studios introduced the current star of the Johnsontoons series, Chocodile, as well as his girlfriend Cherridile. The cartoon shorts revolve around Chocodile, an everyman crocodile, spreading joy to the people of the world, while dodging his rival Larry J. Crock, a green-skinned crocodile who thinks he should be eating humans, not fraternizing with them, and Solomon, an Australian hunter who wants his skin because its pigmentation is one-of-a-kind, with his little daughter June trying to stop him. During World War II, however, Chocodile became a propaganda tool, and by the 50s and 60s, he was an anti-communist symbol, and was also used to essentially advertise Continental Rail's passenger and freight services. As his name suggests, Chocodile is a huge fan of chocolate, but he remains thin and surprisingly athletic. Chocodile was originally voiced by Mel Blanc from 1936 until his death in 1989. After Blanc's death, his son Noel assumed the role full-time until 1995; Dana Snyder has voiced the character since then.

World War II (1941—1945)

At the outbreak of World War II, Johnson Industries shifted into war mode. WBC created pre-recorded attack warnings, specifically against Japanese invasions on the West Coast. Johnson Studios used their signature miniatures effects to create propaganda films, utilizing vehicles with individual motors that had to be turned on and off by hand (there was talk of using radio-control, but the technology was considered rudimentary at the time), boats pulled on strings, aircraft held aloft on wires and then inserted into scenes using the then-new chroma key technique, or sent down a wire, and live pyrotechnics. Over the years, the techniques have been refined and improved, and are still used today, a far cry from the CGI-filled films of the modern era.

Continental Rail and CSL were instrumental in the American war effort. GIs were moved by both companies to both the Pacific and European theatres, and also affixed anti-air guns and depth charge launchers to their liners. Large, rail-based artillery guns were also constructed to defend against foreign invasion, but ultimately, were never used.

The Johnson family found great glory in the war itself, most notably Robert Johnson's brother Mike being one of, if not the most-prolific submarine ace of the Pacific War, with more tonnage than any other captain to his name. The submarine he accomplished most of these victories with, the Balao-class submarine USS Pampanito, is preserved in San Francisco as a museum alongisde a Liberty ship that the Pampanito saved from a Japanese destroyer with nothing but its deck gun.

RMS Majestic Sinking

RMS Majestic, the ship mistaken by a U-Boat crew for the RMS Queen Mary

On June 14, 1941, U-438 launched two torpedoes at what the crew believed was the RMS Queen Mary. They would later learn that the ship was actually the RMS Majestic, another three-funnel liner that, in what was considered “a cruel twist of irony”, was herself a German-built liner (SS Bismarck) handed over to White Star as war reparation following World War I. The Majestic suffered a chain reaction of explosions of the fuel and ammunition she was carrying, as well as the boilers. During the sinking, the #2 funnel exploded when boilers below decks detonated, while the #3 funnel toppled over and crashed through the superstructure; the #1 funnel remained standing during the entire sinking, but was noted by a survivor to be rather scorched.

An SOS signal was sent twice before the radio room was engulfed in flame; the bridge was also engulfed in flame, killing all staff on the bridge including the captain; it was because of the captain's death that no abandon ship order was ever given. Despite no order being given, passengers and crew still scrambled for the lifeboats, but many were unable to evacuate because they were either below decks and trapped by fires, killed in the explosions, or were unable to find a lifeboat (CSL did not have the "women and children first" policy), as explosions had hurled half of the lifeboats into the Atlantic waters.

U-438 managed to get a closer look, but were disappointed to find the ship was not the Queen Mary. One of the crew members of the U-Boat, though, later testified to being horrified when he realized the liner was the former SS Bismarck.

Another CSL ship, the Mauretania (which, like the Majestic, is an ex-Cunarder), was nearby going in the opposite direction, and responded to the SOS signal. Survivors clinging to driftwood and metal chunks from the #2 funnel and superstructure were plucked from the water using Mauretania's own lifeboats, while the Majestic's lifeboats were reeled up one-by-one. News cameras were aboard the Mauretania, and caught the final minutes of the Majestic.

Ten minutes after the initial torpedo hit, the Majestic suffered a massive explosion when her fuel oil reserves detonated, as did fuel and ammunition that were placed nearby (a move that later brought the surviving crew under investigation). The explosion buckled the hull, and tore it apart, causing the ship to break her back and splash back down, crushing a lifeboat that had blundered under her. The remaining passengers and crew aboard the liner perished when the last of the fuel and ammunition aboard the ship exploded and destroyed the stern, debris flying at the Mauretania (fortunately, none hit the ship). Seconds after the last of the flaming hulk that was the stern sank below the water, several explosions came from underwater, indicating ammunition that hadn't exploded during the initial chain reaction on the bow.

U-438 was caught by the news cameras, and retreated. The U-Boat was later found by British destroyers and forced to surrender.

The destruction of the RMS Majestic, as seen in the Johnson Studios newsreel

Survivors plucked by the Mauretania were brought back to New York, and salvage ships were sent to collect debris and bodies. The search revealed that the sinking had happened 30 miles southeast of Halifax, and was resting in unusually shallow waters, aiding salvage teams. The bow had severe scorching, and the bridge was blasted out. Several barrels of fuel that remained undetonated were recovered and delivered to Britain, having not suffered any leakage. The stern was in even worse shape. 95% of the superstructure and 60% of the hull had been destroyed, and was scattered around the debris field. Very few bodies were recovered from the area around the stern, as most of the fatalities of the stern explosion were most likely vaporized or blasted apart (eyewitnesses did report seeing a few flying body parts after the explosion, and a blasted-apart ribcage landed on the Mauretania). There was talk of possibly raising the bow so it could be sold for scrap, but this was considered cost-prohibitive, especially due to the threat of further U-Boat attacks.

The sinking marked the largest loss of civilian life at sea in World War II, and remains a major footnote in maritime history. Following the sinking, it was decided that carrying fuel and ammunition aboard a liner with civilian passengers was too dangerous, as a majority of the fatalities were passengers. Thus, ocean liners stopped carrying war materials, and stuck to being exclusively passenger liners and troop transports.

Post-War Era (1945—1960)

An idea of Continental Rail's diesel, electric, and modern passenger car paint scheme since 1947.

Following the war, the surviving CSL ships re-entered service on their normal routes, while the fleet grew as Cunard retired ships. Continental Rail benefited from new electric locomotive designs for the Northwest Corridor, while Johnson Studios began refining the use of scale models in their productions. Continental Rail also began funding the preservation movement in the United Kingdom, as well as buying up steam locomotives from scrapyards and British Railways itself, and storing them at various secluded sites around the United States and Canada.

A new subsidiary of Johnson Studios, Johnson Television, was formed in 1950. Its first series was an anthology series called The Little Orphan Annie Show, which was a compilation of classic Little Orphan Annie shorts framed with newly-made segments starring Kathryn Beaumont as the title character from 1950 to 1951, Sharon Baird from 1951 to 1958, and Mimi Gibson from 1958 to 1961. The series aired on CBS until 1961, continuing in reruns until 1972, and was extremely popular.

The 1950s were an era of prosperity for the company. Continental Rail began reaping the fruits of suburbanization, mainly through commuter rail traffic. All the same, though, even with diesels becoming prevalent on other Class I railroads, Continental Rail resisted full-dieselization and continued operating steam locomotives in large numbers, even buying steam locomotives from other railroads, due to their "if it ain't broke, don't replace it" philosophy. Indeed, Continental Rail had perfected the art of steam locomotive maintenance to the point where maintenance and labor costs were the lowest they had ever been, and easily outweighed by profits. The travelling public could not comprehend why Continental Rail was still using such "outdated machines", but children and railfans were enamoured. By 1959, Continental Rail proved that steam, diesel, and electric locomotives could co-exist in harmony and be profitable, a combination that survives to this day.

Continental Rail had a brief fling with bus feeders, but the experiment was considered a failure due to the amount of traffic in suburban areas. Instead, the railroad added passenger trains to previously freight-only branchlines. And to areas with no branchlines, Continental Rail constructed interurban lines using cars from recently-defunct streetcar systems in other systems. Continental Rail was also heavily involved in the General Motors streetcar conspiracy, actively opposing National City Lines at every step of the way and saving many streetcar lines from demolition; National City Lines eventually sued Continental Rail under the frivolous charge of "conspiracy to commit corporate espionage", a case that was quickly dismissed and caused the case against General Motors dismissed in 1949 to reopen, eventually uncovering a conspiracy to demolish America's streetcar networks and replace them with buses to create a monopoly, eventually resulting in the Supreme Court finding General Motors guilty of attempting to monopolize mass transit with what was described as "inferior bus substitutes" in a “desperate attempt to make money”. Continental Rail proceeded to purchase National City Lines and reconstruct all streetcar systems that had fallen victim to the conspiracy, rescuing any remaining streetcars from the scrapyards, ordering new ones from PCC, and using any means necessary to get the systems rebuilt, even getting court orders to have businesses built atop street car ROWs relocated.

The Second Golden Age (1960—1981)

The period between 1960 and 1981 is often considered to be the company's second golden age. It was a time of growth and success, as well as of experimentation. Between 1963 and 1965, Johnson operated a small-scale airline, Johnson Airlines, using DC-3 aircraft, but shut it down after two years due to flagging ridership numbers, often attributed to Continental Rail's superior legroom and CSL's amenities. Also, that same year, a theme park in Gilroy, California called Johnson World was announced. It opened on February 1, 1962.

Johnson acquired McDonald's Corporation in 1961 after beating out franchisee Ray Kroc. With the acquisition, Johnson formed its new subsidiary, Johnson Foods. On December 10, 1961, to celebrate its 100th anniversary, Johnson introduced a new logo known as the "Blue J", which was officially adopted on January 1, 1962, with all Johnson-branded subsidiaries adopting the logo; Continental-branded subsidiaries and WBC retained the "Blue Globe", albeit a stylized version.

1963 saw the release of the film adaptation of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. The film was praised for its faithfulness to the book, as well as accurately reflecting how dangerous meatpacking was in 1906.

That same year, Continental Rail took full control of British Railways. The failures of the British Transport Commission (BTC) to return the railways to profitability with the 1955 Modernisation Plan saw the British government faced with two options: form an independent British Railways Board, or what was considered by most Tories to be the nuclear option: handing BR over to a foreign company. Ultimately, the decision was made to give Continental Rail full control over BR, effectively privatising the network under a single company. CR was chosen specifically due to their successes in creating a viable rail network in North America, and wanted Johnson to repeat it. By 1966, Johnson had successfully restored BR to profitability, and what was meant to be a temporary operation was made permanent. They hired Dr. Richard Beeching to prune the network, but not all of his closure recommendations were accepted, most notably the Great Central Main Line (which had been built to the continental loading gauge in anticipation of a Channel Tunnel connecting Britain to Franc) and the Varsity Line (as Johnson correctly foresaw its future use as an important passenger link); in addition, most of the closed lines, rather than being torn up, were either kept in place under an American-style railbanking scheme, or were sold to preservationists with the option for future reactivation as a common carrier line in both cases. All pre-nationalisation steam locomotives were retired by 1968, with most being donated to heritage lines, while all steam locomotives built post-nationalisation (mainly the BR Standards) remained in service; locomotives built to pre-nationalisation designs served until the 1980s, while over 45% of the BR Standards remain in service today.

In January 1964, Johnson announced a new subsidiary called Johnson Motor Company, and started selling its first car, the 1965 Buffalo Hawk, in December. 1965 saw Johnson acquire the Coca-Cola Company.

Throughout the 1960s, Continental Rail passenger services, both long-distance, regional, and commuter, remained profitable mainly due to an advertising campaign promoting advantages over cars, buses, and planes; CR also managed to rescue many passenger trains that other Class I railroads were discontinuing. The same type of advertising campaign kept Continental Shipping Lines in the ocean liner industry, and remained as such even after Cunard began focusing on cruises. The last of the old Cunard ocean liners, the RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth, both came under CSL ownership. The Queen Mary was not put into service by CSL due to its historical significance, and instead became a hotel/museum ship in Long Beach, CA, where it remained for years. There was a provision in the bill of sale, though, that the ship could and would be rebuilt back into an ocean liner at any point, something that often put employees on edge, knowing that CSL could requisition the ship any day. It was confirmed on June 16, 2018 that CSL would requisition the Queen Mary in July 2018 and rebuild it back into an ocean liner. The conversion was started on June 21, and ended on July 10, 2019, putting the Queen Mary back into service for the first time in fifty years. The Queen Elizabeth, meanwhile, was put into service and remains on the Southampton-New York route to this day. In June 1966, Johnson acquired Holiday Inn. With the acquisition, Johnson formed Continental Hotels as a holding company for its lodging subsidiaries.

On December 19, 1967, Johnson acquired the Howard Johnson's lodging and restaurant chains, and its frozen food line. With the acquisition, Johnson formed Johnson Foods, for the purpose of controlling the restaurants.

1968 marked the release of Hot Cuba, a film exploring a scenario of what could have happened had the Cuban Missile Crisis gone hot. The film starred Kirk Douglas, Charlton Heston, and Ronald Reagan, with narration by Rod Serling, and was a critical and commercial success. Among the film's merits were its pioneering special effects (which would later be perfected in the original Star Wars film in 1977), powerful imagery, and realistic depiction of nuclear war.

1969 brought a film along the same lines as Hot Cubacalled 1957: Civil War. Using the Little Rock stand-off as a jumping-off point, the film's alternate universe is created when the governor of Alabama orders the Little Rock National Guard to kill the Little Rock Nine, leading the reformation of the Confederate States and the start of a second civil war. 1969 also had WBC broadcasting a NASCAR race, the Rebel 500 at Darlington, flag-to-flag (though it is often overshadowed by WBC's later broadcast of the 1979 Daytona 500), with Tom Stephenson as the host, Ken Squier as the play-by-play announcer, color commentators Ned Jarrett and Chris Economaki, and pit reporter Brock Yates. On December 29, 1970, Johnson was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the name JON.

Another major blockbuster, known as Invasion of the Empire, depicts the Japanese invading San Francisco in 1942 during the Second World War, the subsequent American pushback, and the Battle of Los Angeles being an actual battle, culminating in Japan being defeated in early 1943, and as a result, the atomic bomb being dropped on Berlin instead, killing Adolf Hitler and causing the Soviet Union to back off, which in turn sees Germany remain unified under a democratic government (and a NATO member); other than that, the epilogue states that the Cold War has gone pretty much the same as our timeline (as the film was released in 1970).

The Des Plaines, IL location, the first McDonald's opened by Ray Kroc.

When Amtrak was formed in 1971, Continental Rail was one of seven railroads who opted not to join (the other six being the Rock Island, D&RGW, Southern, South Shore Line, Georgia Railroad, and Reading Railroad). This led to Amtrak and Continental Rail often butting heads throughout the 1970s, as Amtrak eyed Continental Rail's vast passenger network as a potential money-maker. But Continental Rail refused, mainly because Amtrak was underfunded and could be shuttered at any time. Despite Amtrak's survival, Continental Rail held firm and refused to hand over its passenger rail operations, knowing that many of their trains would be discontinued and others rerouted and/or reduced in frequency (as most of Continental Rail's long-distance trains have eight departures daily, four in each direction). Plus, Continental Rail still had a large amount of steam-powered passenger trains with heavyweight coaches, which they knew Amtrak would sell off due to switching from steam-heating to head-end power with the new F40PH locomotives (of which Continental Rail was the largest customer, with the entire fleet still in service to this day as Continental Rail's chief passenger locomotive). Eventually, though, by 1977, Amtrak was content with Continental Rail's existence, as most of the routes it discontinued were picked up by the latter, and remain in service to this day; despite this, they maintained an uneasy coexistence due to Continental Rail giving its own passenger trains priority over Amtrak's, and in turn, Amtrak denied Continental Rail trackage rights on the Northeast Corridor, which CR skirted by building its own tracks on the corridor directly adjacent to Amtrak's. In 1979, Johnson purchased the United States Auto Club (USAC), and formed a new subsidiary, Johnson Sports.

The Bonwit Teller Building at Fifth Avenue in New York in 2019; prior to its acquisition, it housed the flagship location of the now-defunct Bonwit Teller chain of department stores. It was acquired by Johnson in 1977 (notably beating out future United States president Donald Trump's offer) and is now an administrative building, with all its Art Deco details and sculptures kept intact.

1980 saw the release of a second film adaptation of Animal Farm, which was praised for its animatronics and special effects, John Williams' musical score, fast-paced editing, an all-star cast, including Patrick Stewart as Napoleon and Peter Ustinov as Snowball, and its close adherence to the original book, as well as correctly predicting the Soviet Union's downfall with a new ending showing that Animal Farm collapsed due to the pigs' despotic rule.

The Stacker era (1981—1991)

On June 1, 1981, a financial company known as Stacker & Associates bought out Johnson Industries in a hostile takeover, a move considered unthinkable at the time. S&A CEO Phil Stacker, henceforth, became CEO of Johnson Industries, deposing Sheldon Johnson and the entire Johnson family from the company bearing their name. Immediately, sweeping revisions were made. Stacker was clearly interested more in money than catering to the masses, and this showed during his tenure. Under Stacker, Johnson purchased Subway in 1982, Pacific-Telsis and US West in 1983 (which were made a part of new subsidiary Johnson Bell), Anheuser-Busch in 1985, Mark Goodson Productions and Merv Griffin Enterprises in 1986, and the Rankin/Bass Productions and Filmation animation studios in 1987.

Surprisingly, Continental Rail and Continental Shipping Lines were allowed to remain autonomous, as Stacker was aware they were the company's main moneymakers, aside from the restaurants, and any drastic alterations could cause them to go under (not to mention his personal interest in trains and ocean liners). As a result, both companies suffered the least during the Dark Times, and with the advent of the Staggers Act in 1980 that deregulated the railroads, Continental Rail shifted into maximum overdrive, actively competing with roads in both the West and the East, snapping up rail lines abandoned by other railroads and successfully opposing the SPSF merger (as it would have booted CR from many of the joint railways established between 1892 and 1912). Continental Shipping Lines, meanwhile, entered the cruising industry with the launch of two cruise ships (the MS Mauna Loa and MS Kilauea) on itineraries out of San Francisco to Hawaii. Also created was Johnson Games in 1982, which developed video games based on Johnson's animated films for the Atari 2600 and later the NES. However, the Great Video Game Crash of 1983 led to low sales until the company's first NES game, Colt’s Crushin’ (a launch title credited with popularizing the beat-'em-up genre), was released in 1985.

WBC began to suffer under Phil Stacker's regime, making many changes, most of which hurt the network dramatically (see the WBC page for more).

Johnson Studios suffered greatly, with new blood brought in. The resulting movies were a string of flops, the nadir being 1983’s Chocodile's Cool Movie, with the only bright spot being some animated films that provided serious competition for Disney (films such as The Wizards of Elderitch, American Eagles, Dinosaur Rising, and the Toei co-production Future War 198X) and were mature in content, tone, and production values, as well as the ongoing alternate history movies. In addition, while several movies experimented with CGI (often with mixed results), practical effects such as models, pyrotechnics, chroma key, stop motion, and the new go-motion techniques developed by Lucasfilm remained the rule, and if anything, improved during this era, and the effects were often seen as the best part of even the worst of the movies, since Johnson Optical Studios remained independent of other units at Johnson Studios. WBC Radio didn't do much better, due to transitioning to a news/talk format, completely abandoning scripted programming, a move that was rather unpopular.

Bayshore Roundhouse, Continental Rail's main shops, as seen in 1978; the shops were shared with Southern Pacific until the SP was bought out by Union Pacific in 1996

All these changes, as well as Phil Stacker publicly calling his employees "drones" by accident in a radio interview, along with a best-selling novel released in 1985 called Stacker Sabotage, written by a then-young Sheldon Johnson, Jr., as well as an infamous parody of WBC’s "We're Cool!" campaign created by some disgruntled WBC personalities, caused Johnson Industries to decline. WBC viewership, box office returns, Johnson Parks (mainly Johnson World) attendance, and even advertising revenues declined. Continental Rail, Continental Shipping Lines, Continental Hotels, Johnson Foods, and to a lesser degree, Johnson Signal were the divisions keeping the company afloat (apart from a disastrous attempt at reformulating Coca-Cola in the mid-1980s dubbed "New Coke"), with CR and CSL's passenger and freight revenues, mainly due to retaining their high service values stemming from Stacker's hands-off approach towards the railroad and line, the hotels being improved, and the restaurants' continuing stream of revenue. Johnson also acquired Mark Goodson Productions and Merv Griffin Enterprises in 1986 to bolster their library of game shows. Stacker's handling of WBC was considered so bad, that Johnny Carson (as Carnac the Magnificent) famously declared that he had "vindicated Fred Silverman" in a 1986 episode of The Tonight Show.

Meanwhile, the Johnson family was disgruntled at having the company they had built over a hundred years ripped away from them. An antitrust case from March 1, 1982 to March 20, 1983 ruled in Stacker's favor. Left with no choice, the Johnson family began buying up stock in large lots, owning 35% by November 1983.

On January 16, 1987, during a progress report meeting, Phil Stacker was informed of the decline of the company. Rather than brushing off these concerns, Phil was reported to have buried his face in his hands, muttering various obscenities and saying "Oh, God" repeatedly. He soon began seeking ways to reverse the trend, and started by making a public apology for calling his employees "drones". He also began restructuring WBC, and most notably, had production of The Transformers moved from Sunbow to WBC; they began making a full fourth season, as well as eight more seasons from 1988—1989, and then 1993—1999 (1990—1992 were marked by three primetime specials: Zone, The Decepticons Strike Back, and Operation Combination; seasons seven through nine carried the subtitle Generation 2, while the remaining seasons carried the subtitle Machine Wars; the series remains one of the longest-running American cartoons in history, capping off with a primetime special).

Stacker also reportedly became physically sick when he saw experimental CGI being used in a sci-fi movie in production at the time and ordered it to be completely remade using more practical effects (the film in question, Star Pirates, ended up being the company's first non-animated blockbuster hit since 1980), and even created Johnson Aerospace, a division promising to create its own spacecraft and launch vehicles. The division was created after WBC planned to start a satellite television service (scrapped with Johnson's 1992 PrimeStar buyout), and initially planned to use the Space Shuttle, though this changed after the Challenger disaster.

Also, Stacker acquired the Rankin/Bass Productions and Filmation animation studios on September 1, 1987 in an effort to expand Johnson Television Animation, and as a result, Rankin/Bass and Filmation (which were otherwise allowed to remain autonomous, and continued to be led by their respective founders, Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass, as well as Lou Scheimer until his retirement in the mid—2000s, respectively) received substantially higher budgets, with better animation for their shows, as well as a substantial animation library. Most notably, Stacker spearheaded the acquisition of NASCAR and International Speedway Corporation, and began broadcasting races on WBC in 1988. That same year, his Stacker's Bistro restaurant chain was purchased by the Johnson family.

In 1989, Stacker successfully rallied against a proposed redevelopment of Block 37 in Chicago, Illinois, calling it "a disgrace to Chicago history", as he had been born in Chicago and spent his early childhood there. Meanwhile, Johnson Foods partnered up with Aaron Fechter and his company, Creative Engineering, to create the Looney Bird's franchise in 1990, which only opened twelve locations in California, before future expansion was halted due to royalties disputes between Stacker and Fechter; the disputes were settled in early 1992, allowing expansion to once again take place, and the name was retired once Johnson acquired CEC Entertainment, with the final location in Jackson, Tennessee closing on August 18, 2012 to be converted into a ShowBiz Pizza Place.

Also in 1990, Johnson purchased Jim Henson Productions, including the Muppets; the Sesame Street Muppets were sold to Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop).

Things seemed to be improving, but on February 12, 1991, during a news broadcast during Desert Storm, Tom Stephenson (filling in for Don George), a longtime critic of Stacker's business practices, directly called him out. This led to Stephenson being fired and all of his retirement benefits being refused. However, Stacker was becoming paranoid that he was losing his grip on the company, as the Johnson family kept buying up large amounts of its undervalued stock, eventually owning 85% by September.

It all came to a head when, on October 7, Stacker sold the original Johnson Comics to Marvel in an effort to divest the company of "fat", unaware that it had been one of Johnson's most profitable entertainment subsidiaries. Done without Johnson's permission, and with Marvel refusing to sell it back, the board of directors voted to oust Stacker on October 9. During this meeting, they discovered that the 1982-1983 antitrust lawsuit had ruled in Stacker's favor because Stacker had bribed the jury, giving each member $5 million in exchange for ruling in his favor, as he didn't want to forfeit the profits several subsidiaries were providing him. He had seen it coming, though, and was reportedly already packing his desk when the board was meeting.

The next day, he announced his resignation, stating he "screwed up" and should have never bought out a company that was doing fine on its own. Stacker had made his final public appearance as Johnson CEO on October 5 at the first home game for the Johnson-owned San Jose Sharks. As a gesture of goodwill, though, the Johnson family named a brand-new GP60 after him, but regardless, he was arrested for jury tampering and served a two-year prison sentence, during which his wife Helga ran Stacker & Associates. During the Stacker-Johnson transition, WBC was mostly dead-air, only showing the WBC test card from 1968 to 1982, and added text at the bottom saying, "The Stacker Era is over. Stay tuned." In addition, episodes of The Transformers from the first two seasons, and episodes of The Chipmunks from the first season, were shown throughout the day, the test card being shown when commercials would normally be shown. As this was the era before the "Emergency Tapes", and the dead-air situation was short-notice, the Transformers episodes used the pre-broadcast masters later made infamous by the Kid Rhino home video releases between 1999—2004.

The Third Golden Age (1991—present)

Picking up the Pieces and Return to Prominence (1991—2009)

The Johnson Building, opened in 1994 as an administrative building. The light rail in the foreground was a car tested by VTA in 2001 as a potential replacement for the UTDC cars, before ultimately purchasing the Kinki Sharyo cars instead; the car was retained as a training car.

Full control of the company by the Johnson family was restored on October 11, 1991, exactly 23 years after WBC’s inception, starting an era dubbed the Third Golden Age. Sheldon Johnson, Jr. was announced as the new CEO, WBC Radio reintroduced scripted programming, the Johnson Philharmonic Orchestra was fully restored after operating on a skeletal basis throughout the 80s, only composing the animated films and Star Pirates, WBC saw many changes, such as the removal of the Radicals, and all synth music was excised from network bumpers. In fact, in a live event shortly after the network had signed on for the day, Chocodile brutally and unceremoniously killed his cohorts from the infamous series The Cool Adventures of Chocodile, Vanillagator and Caracaiman, by shooting them dead offscreen in a P-51 Mustang privately owned by Don George (it was no secret that Chocodile utterly hated them, as he was always leading them into deadly situations that they got out of thanks to sheer luck and/or stupidity, and the Johnson family regaining control, according to him, compelled him to finally get rid of them), much to the relief of longtime viewers, with critics stating that it was an assurance that Johnson "was back to its roots". Stacker & Associates was allowed to retain one share in the company.

On January 1, 1992, Johnson announced that they purchased the satellite TV service PrimeStar. Later that year, it co-founded Cartoon Network with Turner Broadcasting and MGM/UA Communications; by 2007 it had taken full control. 1994 saw PrimeStar and WBC switch to widescreen, and HD the following year (broadcasts in analog would be stretched, so that widescreen TVs would re-stretch the image). The switch to widescreen coincided with the premiere of Detective Jenny, WBC's first high-profile original series since 1980. In 1996, Johnson formed a new division, Johnson Environment. Initially focused solely on green energy projects, it became the parent company of Waste Management upon its buyout by Johnson in 2017. In January 1997, Johnson Technologies started selling its first PC, the Johnson Mandatum. Johnson Technologies proved to be a viable competitor alongside Microsoft and Apple.

Throughout the 90s, Johnson productions experienced a massive increase in production values, writing, acting quality, and popularity. But it all came to a head in 1997, when a movie adaptation of the SNES game EarthBound was released, as a sequel to the 1991 film adaptation of Mother. The film shattered box office records and, at the time, was the highest-grossing film of all time, and was followed up by the sequels Revenge of the Sontarans (2002), Mother 3 (2008), and EarthBound 2: Invasion (2011), as well as a TV series that ran from 1997 to 2015, all of which have been hits; an anime reboot began airing in November 2018. The following year, WBC premiered Monster World, a TV series combining Japanese anime and suitmation. The series, a crossover between the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, the works of HP Lovecraft (mainly the Cthulhu Mythos), and the long-running Godzilla franchise, and combining hand-drawn animation with practical effects such as model sets, suits, pyrotechnics, stop motion, go motion, and compositing animated characters onto physical setpieces, was a massive hit, introducing Evangelion to a wide audience and putting Godzilla into the American mainstream, running until 2004, yet still having movies and television specials. The television series was revived in the fall of 2015 to much fanfare, and continues to this day, with no end in sight and with movies coming out annually, starting with the revival movie in June 2015, and followed by Shin Godzilla in 2016, The Ultra Kaiju in 2017, Godzilla: Civil War in 2018, Invadors: Wave 2 in July 2019, and NERV v. Godzilla in November 2020.

Godzilla in the Monster World episode "Oiled Up"

2000 was another banner year for the company, as it launched its first manned spacecraft, Antares, a six-man spacecraft loosely derived from Apollo that primarily serves the International Space Station, but has also carried out long-term orbital missions with a crew module, and several lunar flights. Johnson Aerospace also developed three launch vehicle, these being Neptune-1 (a rocket using a solid-fueled first stage that later inspired the canceled Ares-I rocket) Jarvis (a heavy-lift family available in a wide range of configurations to fit any mission profile), and Quasar (a super-heavy rocket available in several configurations), a resupply craft called Verrezzano, and two space shutles named Eridanus and Esperia (these shuttles are a third of the size of the NASA Space Shuttle, and have less payload capacity, but they are much safer due to using a more conventional launch escape system and being launched on the Quasar 220, which lacks any external foam or solid rocket boosters; in addition, both shuttles have a more clearly-defined role of space station resupply and crew rotation), with plans for a lunar lander called Arcturus and a space station called Gaia (Gaia was later canceled and replaced by Starlab). The first overall launch for Johnson Aerospace was a Quasar 220 carrying PrimeStar-1, the first Johnson-made satellite for the service after Tempo 1 and Tempo 2 were deactivated and retrieved by Esperia to be preserved at the Tech Museum of Innovation. That year also saw Johnson acquire Archie Comics.

The Antares spacecraft in Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

On the morning of September 11, 2001, WBC immediately canceled all programming indefinitely shortly after the first plane hit, as Tom Stephenson believed the crash to be an act of terrorism, a belief that was proven correct. WBC did not resume normal programming for four days, as all operations had been moved to the War Room, an armored underground bunker used by WBC News during major emergencies, featuring numerous features that allow Stephenson to effectively demonstrate to the audience what is happening. Afterwards, major revisions to its shows and movies were made, such as an ad-hoc change to Monster World (which was in the midst of its famous German Civil War arc) to bring the action back to the outskirts of Tokyo, as well as an episode depicting German rebels hijacking a fully-loaded American KC-135 and crashing it into TV Tower followed by Shinji and Asuka brutally massacring a village in rebel territory being pulled (the episode itself, though, was complete, and would later be released on home video in 2005 as a “lost episode”, complete with an introduction by Sheldon Johnson, Jr., airing on television in 2007). Other changes included the cancellation of multiple Jarvis launches contracted by the Department of Defense (these payloads were later launched by the Delta IV) over security concerns, the Transcontinental Zephyr was briefly truncated to Syracuse due to the closure of Grand Central Terminal, as the train runs nearly non-stop between Chicago and New York (the Miami-bound Orange Star was outright suspended) and large, pneumatic barriers capable of stopping large trucks carrying explosives being erected at all road entrances to Johnson HQ, essentially turning it into a fortress. Before the attack, Johnson Real Estate acquired the lease to the World Trade Center site for 99 years, and the site was reconstructed from a five-year period between 2003 and 2008. This included rebuilding the Twin Towers, in an initiative sponsored by future President Donald Trump, who the company has openly spoken out against.

Johnson purchased Sega in 2002.

One of the pneumatic barriers installed at Johnson HQ in San Jose, CA after 9/11

On January 10, 2004, Johnson acquired the rising DVD-by-mail service Netflix for $1.9 billion. All PrimeStar receivers now came with 20% off Netflix subscriptions. In April 2005, Continental Rail announced Project: Zoom, a five-year project to upgrade the Northwest Corridor to handle 150 MPH high-speed trains. This included strengthening all trackage, expanding San Jose Diridon station with new platforms, increasing speeds on local trains (the max speed for local trains is currently 110 MPH), and adding equipment for in-cab signaling; the quad track sections dating back to the Northwest Corridor's construction play a key role in operations. The project was completed in 2010 with the inauguration of the Pacific Bullet service, using TGV-derived trains The project aimed to create a blended system, not eliminating any grade crossings (almost all crossings along the Northwest Corridor now have lineside electronic horns that activate for the Pacific Bullet; they are not present at crossings where the train is going slow enough for the horn to be heard well enough). Project: Zoom actually dates back to 1979, directly inspired by the British InterCity 125. The project was slated to begin in 1981, with a projected completion date of 1986, but Phil Stacker canceled it days before construction was to start, reasoning that it was "too expensive" (in a 2013 interview, though, he admitted that the real reason was to protect his interests in the airline industry; had he known how successful it was going to be, he said, he'd have let it go forward). The original project called for diesel-powered high speed trains, mainly Rohr Turboliners (CR still uses Turboliners and LRCs in express service on non-electrified routes).

On November 13, 2006, Johnson finalized a deal to buy the rising video-sharing website YouTube for $2.6 billion, beating out Google. At the time, it was considered one of the biggest buyouts in Internet history.

In September 2009, Johnson acquired the Pontiac, Saturn, and Hummer marquees from General Motors. Pontiac was brought back to NASCAR in 2015, with Stewart-Haas Racing as Pontiac's flagship team.

The Tim Johnson Era and Johnson Renaissance (2009—present)

Current Johnson CEO Tim Johnson took the helm of the company at the age of 14 on September 1, 2009, at his father's request (due to him pursuing a political career), as the youngest corporate CEO in history. Immediately, change started coming to the entire company, in an era also known as the Johnson Renaissance after 2012, extending the Third Golden Age.

Tim was referred to as a "21st-century Walt Disney", mainly due to his creativity, shrewdness, and perfectionism. If something isn't to his liking, he makes it known. Tim mainly focuses on the creative and operational side of the company, leaving Johnson Financing to handle the financial side so his plans can go forward. Tim is also the youngest corporate CEO in human history, which sparked widespread criticism that he was too young to run the company. They, however, ended up "eating their words".

February 2010 saw the acquisition of CEC Entertainment Inc., the owners of Chuck E. Cheese's. Sweeping revisions came to the company, including the return of ShowBiz Pizza Place and the Rock-afire Explosion, a broadened age appeal, and severe changes to company business practices, including better pizza, a redesigned animatronic stage for Chuck E. Cheese's, and reorganization of Department 18 Productions; CEC Entertainment was renamed back to ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. ShowBiz locations were also opened in the Japanese states beginning in 2016, utilizing the main cast of K-On! on center stage (with both side stages unchanged until late 2016).

On January 4, 2011, Johnson acquired the Mercury marquee from Ford Motor Company.

On August 12, 2011, reports emerged that Johnson would acquire the Walt Disney Company for $215.3 billion, one of the largest acquisitions in history, which Johnson confirmed in a press conference two days later. Everyone, from the internet to the general public and even world leaders were shocked, and needless to say, the world remained shellshocked for several days, as Disney had long been thought invincible. Said acquisition officially closed on July 1, 2013 after nearly two years of clearing various regulatory hurdles.

In 2012, a massive addition was made the company. During a live stream on New Year's Day, Johnson officially announced the Johnson Aligned Universe, a new, unified body-of-work mainly featuring anime series (certain elements of the JAU, including the Godzilla franchise, were pre-existing and incorporated into the JAU). Among the series were a Vocaloid anime, as well as Johnson-ized versions of Sgt. Frog, Lucky Star, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, and Azumanga Daioh (subbed), all of which intertwine with each other to create one big universe. Later additions included Attack on Titan, Nichijou, K-On!, and CLANNAD. The Johnson-ized anime were either remade from the ground up (as was the case with Sgt. Frog, which was even renamed WBC's Sgt. Frog to distance it from the original anime), redubbed (Lucky Star was completely redubbed to eliminate all Japanese honorifics as well as fix the "issue" of Patricia Martin's voice, and episodes were lengthened by removing the "Lucky Channel" segment, as well as producing over 60 brand-new episodes), or given minor edits (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya received minor edits to tie it in with the rest of the JAU, but was mainly left intact).

Azumanga Daioh was aired with subtitles and the original audio, due to the amount of disdain for the ADV dub. This was in addition to Kiyohiko Azuma writing new stories which, when put together, create 80 additional episodes beyond the original 26. This was at the behest of Tim Johnson, who even managed to get the original Japanese voice cast back together for the new episodes.

The first piece of JAU material was a theatrical movie, Vocaloid & Godzilla, released in June 2012. The movie stars the current "Johnson Golden Four" themselves: Tim Johnson himself as Len, as well as his twin sister, Chloe Johnson, as Rin, his girlfriend (later wife) Belle Armstrong as Meiko, and Chloe's best friend (later wife) Jenny Smith as Luka. Other actors include Kristen Schaal as Miku, Seth Green as Kaito, Olivia Olson as Neru, Kelly Hu as Teto, Tara Strong as Haku, and Tim Curry as main antagonist Dr. Shinji Mustafa. As the title suggests, the movie brings together the Vocaloid and Godzilla franchises. Though Miku appears in the movie, and was the one who brought the Vocaloids to prominence, she is a secondary character, with the Kagamine twins taking center stage, along with Godzilla himself. Many, many Vocaloid characters make cameo appearances as high schoolers, and there are also references to the many Vocaloid songs. On the Godzilla front, the movie can be considered a Destroy All Monsters-type feature as, in addition to Godzilla, the movie also features many of his allies and enemies, including Anguirus, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Gigan, Megalon, Mothra, Battra, MOGUERA, Kiryu, MechaGodzilla, Mecha-King Ghidorah, Zilla, and Krystalak, as well as two new monsters who are, respectively, a clone of Godzilla, and an "evil" Godzilla controlled by Dr. Mustafa. The film was a massive hit, ushering in a new era for Johnson Industries.

A sequel to the film, Vocaloid & Godzilla II, was released the same year in November. The film was considered better than the first, and featured the death of Luka, as well as the beginning of a romantic relationship between Len and Meiko. Between the two films, the Vocaloid TV series had premiered on Labor Day.

The third Vocaloid & Godzilla film was released in June 2013, and was also a big hit, with three additional films released since then. Earlier in April 2013, several of the other JAU series had premiered on WBC (these were WBC's Sgt. Frog, Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, and Azumanga Daioh).

During a live stream on July 1, 2013, Johnson Industries made an announcement that took the world by surprise. At 12:00 noon PDT, the company formally announced its acquisition of Disney had closed. The acquisition was celebrated with an event that, for the next six months, saw Disneyland Park transformed into "Johnsonland", in which Johnson's own characters "took over" the park with the Disney characters "taking a much-needed vacation" after years of doing many projects, resulting in a "Johnsonized" Disneyland.

The company became a subsidiary of Johnson Industries, bringing with it ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel (which meant Johnson Comics characters came back under the Johnson fold), Lucasfilm, Touchstone Pictures, and of course, Walt Disney Pictures, Walt Disney Animation Studios, and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Most parts of Disney were allowed to retain their autonomy, and release media under the Disney banner, except that the Walt Disney Pictures name was restored in the opening logo starting with Frozen; the practice of plastering over old logos in Disney films ended.

In addition, then-Lucasfilm CEO Kathleen Kennedy was terminated from the company sixty days into the acquisition and Tim took control of the studio (he spoke out against Kennedy in a 2014 interview, calling her a "failure" and "unfit to lead a film studio"). The Disney-ABC Television Distribution arm was renamed back to Buena Vista Television. Finally, the Disney Vault was retired due to being seen as a "cheap way to artificially raise the price of Disney home video releases".

The sole exception was the theme parks and cruise ships, which Tim Johnson took personal control of. Immediately, he set out making sweeping changes to the parks, mainly focusing on Disneyland, in an initiative known as "Save Disney's Parks". Having a large amount of respect for Walt Disney and harboring contempt for Michael Eisner and Paul Pressler, he rolled back many Eisner-era business practices, such as a focus on merchandise. The focus went back to attractions over all else, with a mission statement to "bring back the magic" and "restore Walt's legacy".

The biggest changes came to Walt Disney World and Disneyland Park, but all other parks around the world similarly received major changes. Bob Chapek was removed from Disney for being "the Paul Pressler to Bob Iger's Michael Eisner", while Beijing Disney Resort, under construction at the time of the acquisition, was outright canceled and sold back to the government; Johnson stated in a press release "we cannot ignore North China's continued human rights abuses, as well as the government's refusal to put a stop to knockoffs", referencing a 2014 Chinese knockoff of Detective Jenny known as Tújí duì Méi (突擊隊梅), or Commando Mei, a propaganda series demonizing women's rights as terrorism; Johnson's attempts to take the series' creators to court were allegedly derailed when the North Chinese government threatened to deny CSL ships access to its ports, revealing that the series was commissioned by the North Chinese government to suppress women's rights (Johnson also announced that it would completely pull out of the North Chinese market until a "regime change" happens, with any future companies acquired by Johnson doing the same). As a result of this, plus a general disdain for communism on Johnson's part, Beijing Disney Resort was unceremoniously canceled, the construction and development budget instead diverted to projects at existing parks. Johnson also built a new Disney park in the United Kingdom known as Disneyland London (Disneyland Paris and Walt Disney Studios Park were rebuilt into an European Johnson World park), and has also announced Disneylands in Sydney and Rio de Janeiro, which were set to open in 2021, though both were pushed back to 2023 due to the COVID—19 pandemic. Many of the already-built assets for Beijing Disneyland were later reused for a park in South China known as Shanghai Disneyland, which opened in 2016.

The GP60 named after Phil Stacker, later repainted in Cotton Belt colors in tribute to Stacker's hometown of St. Louis.

Continental Rail has also taken to acquiring tourist lines in the United States starting in 2012. Thus far, the railroad has acquired the Valley Railroad in Connecticut (renaming it the Connecticut Valley Railroad and sending the Becky Thatcher riverboat to Walt Disney World), California Western Railroad (a.k.a. Skunk Train), Virginia and Truckee Railroad, Roaring Camp Railroads (Continental Rail had rebuilt the South Pacific Coast line from Felton to Los Gatos between 2002—2008), and the Sandy River and Rangely Lakes Railroad (rebuilding the entire network). The railroad also rebuilt the former Milwaukee Road St. Paul's Pass rail line from Avery to Drexel, Idaho, complete with electrification to operate the railroad's EP-4 Little Joe.

Another major Continental Rail-related event took place in 2015, when then-President Barack Obama announced that, effective immediately, Amtrak would be folded into Continental Rail. The latter ended up inheriting a myriad of routes and aging equipment. Almost all of the Genesis locomotives were transferred to Mexican passenger services, retired AEM-7 and HHP-8 locomotives were transferred to the Northwest Corridor, NPCUs were re-engined and put back into service as F40PHs with Continental Rail colors and numbers, any other F40s still on Amtrak property were reactivated and put back into service, Superliners were retained for intermediate and boat train services, Amfleets and Horizons became staples for Mexican services, and Heritage Fleet cars still on Amtrak property were repainted into either Continental Rail colors, or historic colors. As Amtrak routes tended to duplicate Continental Rail routes, many Amtrak routes were either re-routed (the California Zephyr returned to its historical routing over Altamont Pass and through the Feather River Canyon to avoid duplicating the Transcontinental Zephyr), eliminated (the Pacific Surfliner, and Cascades were eliminated as Continental Rail's Northwest Regional running from Tijuana to Vancouver rendered them redundant; the Capitol Corridor was on the chopping block, before it was decided to instead extend the train to Reno and have it serve as a local feeder for the Transcontinental Zephyr, which only stops at Sacramento and Oakland between Reno and San Jose), reassigned (the Coast Starlight was turned into the Coast Daylight, now running from Los Angeles to San Francisco; the Coast Starlight completely duplicated the route of the Western Star with lower service levels and frequencies and terminating at Los Angeles instead of San Diego), restored (the Desert Wind, Pioneer, and North Coast Hiawatha were among the notable names to return), or renamed (the Southwest Chief was renamed back to the Super Chief). Trains such as the California Zephyr, Super Chief, and City of New Orleans were fully re-equipped with equipment in historic lettering/paint; as an added touch, locomotives swaps for the CZ take place at Salt Lake City and Denver, pulled by Western Pacific-painted F-units from Oakland to Salt Lake City, D&RGW-painted F-units from Salt Lake City to Denver, and CB&Q E-units the rest of the way to Chicago.

In December 2015, Tim Johnson made his directorial debut with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars saga film since 2005. The film received acclaim from both critics and audiences, who hailed it as a return to form after the mixed-to-negative reception of the prequels.

The next year, the State of California delegated passenger services on the San Francisco Pensinsula to Continental Rail, bringing an end to Caltrain and restoring the Peninsula Commute name. All Caltrain equipment was inherited by Continental Rail, who repainted all equipment (some cars still bear Caltrain colors, though), and upgraded all of the P2 horns to P3s (cab cars) and P5s (locomotives). To help alleviate crowding on trains, starting in June 2016, Continental Rail began running rush-hour trains in sections, usually with the normal five-car bilevel set as the first section, and an up to four-car set made up of ex-Amtrak Horizon cars (some of the Horizon cars in this pool still bear Amtrak's Phase IVb colors). Electrification will still be carried out, and Caltrain's F40s will be reassigned to other parts of the CR network, but the EMU orders were canceled, and trains on the Peninsula will instead be loco-hauled using AEM-7 and ACS-64 locomotives, and refurbished Nippon Sharyo gallery cars, though steam and diesels will still be prevalent on the Peninsula

On October 1, 2017, Tim Johnson debuted a highly-ambitious project. A 125-episode sci-fi epic divided into five 25-episode chapters (each episode being 45 minutes each) known as Hyperdimension Neptunia: The Space War, the series serves as a direct sequel to the 2015 Hyperdimension Neptunia anime. The series is a rather blatant rip-off of Star Wars, using the logo, opening crawl, ships, weapons, and the Death Star; however, this is the entire joke: that the Star Wars movies are repeating themselves with different characters, in a different universe, just in different ways. Starting in Episode 33, the cast of RWBY was added, with the Imperials intervening in the Battle of Beacon and starting a three-episode arc known as the "Remnant Civil War" arc. The series utilizes a rather novel approach of putting animated characters on scale model sets, with various objects being manipulated either by pushing them over with a blast of air, hydraulics, or stop motion (if a character has to pick up or manipulate a live-action object, a close-up of a live-action hand is shown doing so, and in the next shot, the object will be animated; occassionally, an animated character is shown holding up an object using a live hand; these hands belong to Johnson employees, though Tim, Chloe, and Belle's hands have all been seen at various points). In fact, everything is either animated or a practical effect, such as stop motion, go motion, suitmation, puppetry, live pyrotechnics, remote-controlled vehicles, and matte paintings; even the missiles are real, usually being small white smoke flares; the only CG effects are lasers and the occasional nebula. The series airs on Cartoon Network on Saturdays at 11:00 PM during Toonami's Midnight Run block. November 6 saw Johnson announce a purchase of 20th Century Fox, including the Fox film and television studios, FX Networks, stakes in National Geographics Partners, Fox Networks Group, Indian satellite TV group Star India, UK-based satellite TV group Sky plc, and other key assets. The buyout further cemented Tim Johnson's status as the "Business King", despite criticism over antitrust concerns.

On November 10, 2017, Redbox offered a new service called Redbox On Demand. Like Redbox Instant, it is a streaming service, but based on a different model. It does not require any membership, and the list will contain new releases as well as several titles that it is claimed will never be available on services like Netflix.

On January 13, 2018, Johnson acquired the rights to the XFL. The first season was held in 2020; however, due to the COVID—19 pandemic, the season was canceled, though XFL announced that it would still hold the 2021 season.

On May 13, 2018, Johnson announced that they had acquired WWE. Tim took personal control, and began the "Second Attitude Era" with the critically-acclaimed storyline "WWE Civil War", in which the Raw, SmackDown, and NXT brands were divided between the Johnson and McMahon families. The conflict was sparked when Tim interrupted Vince McMahon to announce the Johnson family has bought out WWE, and he himself had personally re-hired Hulk Hogan, who it turned out had never made racist comments and was framed for doing so because McMahon found him boring. The arc ended with the Johnsons victorious and McMahon killed when he tried to absorb the power of The Undertaker, only for it to overwhelm and disintegrate him (achieved using a realistic-looking dummy). Later that month, Johnson acquired the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), which became a division of NASCAR.

On June 14, 2018, Johnson Studios announced it bought the rights to, and would restore and complete, The Thief and the Cobbler. Richard Williams oversaw the project and had complete control, with no deadlines or budgets. Johnson also stated that, once the movie is completed, it would receive a wide theatrical release. After Williams’ death on August 16, 2019, Tim announced he would oversee the remaining post-production work. The film was released on December 25, 2019 to critical acclaim. More good news for animation buffs came on August 6, 2018, when Tim Johnson announced he and Chloe had found the location of the stolen hard drives for Foodfight!. The thieves (who were ex-Pixar animators trying to snuff out competition) were taken into custody, and Johnson announced it would use the files with more relevant celebrities and a completely redesigned story to create a special edition of Foodfight!, this time as an R-rated film, that was touted as the "Anti-Star Wars". The film was re-released on December 24, 2020 at the TCL Chinese Theatre, and three days later internationally, to widespread acclaim. On October 1, Johnson announced that it acquired and would complete the unfinished 1979 CGI film The Works in conjunction with Pixar Animation Studios and the New York Institute of Technology. It was to be released in theaters on July 1, 2020, before it was released on Netflix due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was the first Netflix original film made by Pixar, as well as its first without the involvement of Walt Disney Pictures.

On October 25, 2018, Johnson Games announced that they would do a second SwordQuest competition in July 2019, with remakes of Earthworld, Waterworld, Fireworld, and the canceled Airworld on the Nintendo Switch, with exact replicas of the chalice, the talisman, the Philosopher's Stone, the crown, and the sword, all made by the Franklin Mint. The move was met with acclaim from gamers, and a third was originally going to be held in July 2020 before it was postponed to November by the COVID-19 pandemic; this competition was going to be pushed to February 2021, before it was decided to hold the contest using social distancing and other COVID-19 guidelines.

On February 22, 2019, Johnson announced that they have secured funding for Don Bluth’s planned Dragon’s Lair movie, which was distributed by Johnson Studios and released in December 2021. On March 14 that year, Johnson's purchase of 21st Century Fox was completed; 21st Century Fox was rebranded to Fox Holdings.

2020 saw the company affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as Johnson announced the temporary closures of all Johnson Stores locations, and all Johnson Foods-owned restaurants being limited to drive-thru or delivery. All theme parks were temporarily closed (though many guests to Downtown Disney in Anaheim after it reopened noticed Tim and Chloe running trains on the Disneyland Railroad, seemingly for fun and to ensure everything is still up to snuff; among the things witnessed were cars off of the Holiday II trainset being switched onto the passing track at Main Street station, as if the twins were treating the attraction as a model railroad, something that couldn't be done during normal operating hours), construction of Disneyland Sydney and Disneyland Rio were put on indefinite hold, several ships belonging to their subsidiaries were quarantined, all production at Johnson Studios was halted, the NASCAR and Monster Jam seasons were put on hold, the XFL's comeback season was canceled, and Continental Rail services were severely curtailed, to the point that many branchlines were reduced to Budd RDCs, railbuses, or even maintenance speeders for passenger services, with some people even constructing their own makeshift railbikes to get to and from the small towns on these branchlines. The first sign of normality appeared on May 17, when the NASCAR season resumed without fans in attendance. That year saw Johnson acquire Myrtle Beach Speedway, which will be added to the Truck Series schedule in 2021, with plans to eventually incorporate it into the Busch Series and Panasonic Cup Series schedules as well. In addition, Johnson also acquired the rights to the 2008 film Delgo. It will be redone as a traditionally-animated film, with almost the entire script being rewritten, and will be released in 2023. The company also donated to many small businesses that were looted during the George Floyd protests throughout the summer as well, and notably refused to rebrand any of its products featuring minorities or cancel any series depicting police officers in a positive light such as WBC's long-running Cops. Tim also personally blacklisted any celebrity supporting the riots as well, and responded in an interview that he saw the celebrities' responses as "one of pure wokeness, and you should know how much I hate that word, which has lost all meaning".

When the COVID—19 vaccine rollout began, it was announced that Disneyland would be the first mass-vaccination site in Southern California. Johnson initially considered having the site be within Disneyland Park proper, specifically Tokyo Plaza, with guests taking the Disneyland Railroad from Main Street (with the spiel turned off and social distancing protocols in effect that would preclude the use of the Retlaw 1 set), get the shot, and then take the train back to Main Street. This was rejected for posing too many risks of spread, so the site was instead moved to the Toy Story parking lot.

In 2021, Johnson acquired Valve Corporation, making it a subsidiary of Johnson Games. In addition to general changes to Steam's policies, Tim personally oversaw two massive updates for Team Fortress 2: the Back to Work Update (which was focused on fixes, balancing, new maps, and other quality-of-life improvements), and the Mann Co. Arsenal Update (which focused on adding a massive amount of new weapons).

The company made headlines later in 2021 when it announced that it would refuse to invest in cryptocurrency or sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with Tim stating that "NFTs are extremely harmful to the environment, and with millions of people every day choosing to waste money on cheap JPEGs or GIFs they could download for free, there really is a sucker born every minute"; former Johnson CEO and current United States President Sheldon Johnson, Jr. also cited this statement when announcing his ban on NFTs in November 2021. 2022 saw Johnson pull out of the Russian market in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, stating that they would not reenter Russia until the overthrow of Russian president Vladimir Putin and the reinstatement of a monarchy.

In the wake of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war, Johnson announced that it would completely pull out of Israel, with Tim being a vocal critic of the "genocide" committed by the Israeli government and the IDF. He stated, "I could've donated to the IDF and partnered up with them, but I chose to go the morally correct route".

Company units

For a more comprehensive list, see List of assets owned by Johnson Industries (Johnsonverse).

Leadership

Current

Board of Directors

Executives

• Tim Johnson, Chief Executive Officer

Past Leadership

Chairmen

Vice chairmen

Presidents

• J. R. Johnson (1862—1902)
• Jack Johnson (1902—1950)
• Robert Johnson (1950—1981)
• Daniel Stacker (1981—1991)
• Tammy Jo Johnson (1991—2009)
• Chloe Johnson (2009—present)

Chief executive officers (CEO)

• Daniel Johnson (1862—1886)
• Jeffrey P. Johnson (1886—1921)
• Vincent Johnson (1921—1944)
• Sheldon Johnson (1944—1981)
• Phil Stacker (1981—1991)
• Sheldon Johnson, Jr. (1991—2009)
• Tim Johnson (2009—present)

See Also

• List of films released by Johnson (Johnsonverse)
• List of Johnson television series (Johnsonverse)
• Johnson University (Johnsonverse)
• List of acquisitions by Johnson (Johnsonverse)
• List of assets owned by Johnson Industries (Johnsonverse)