Getting toys to market isn’t child’s play, but Jakks Pacific Inc. (Nasdaq:JAKK) is one company that is winning this game.

Shares of the Malibu, Calif.-based company are closing in on the 52-week high of $31.42 seen last July, following a blowout holiday quarter. For investors, the question is whether they should add Jakks Pacific to their toy chest.

The toy industry has had its share of issues to deal with in the past year: a foundering economy, waning interest in non-tech wares, and safety concerns mostly over foreign-made items. Like most toymakers, most of Jakks Pacific’s goods are produced in Asia.

The gaggle of Wall Street analysts who follow Jakks Pacific have issued generally favorable opinions, with four of the nine polled by Thomson Financial having a “buy” or “strong buy” rating. The other five have it at “hold.” The median price target for Jakks is $31.50, and the current quarter is expected to yield $0.19 earnings per share, up 59% from a year earlier. Shares closed Friday at $28.14.

The top toy players are Mattel Inc. (NYSE:MAT), with $6 billion in 2007 revenue, and Hasbro Inc. (NYSE:HAS), at $3.8 billion in revenue. Jakks Pacific ranks third, with 2007 revenue of $857.1 million, a 12% increase from the year before. The company relies on three big customers: Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE:WMT), Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) and privately held Toys “R” Us, accounting for a respective 19.3%, 14.5% and 14.1% of 2007 net sales.

Jakks be nimble, and Jakks be quick in locking up licensing deals with the hottest prospects to produce a related game, doll or toy.

Hannah Montana? Sure. NASCAR? Certainly. Toss in World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. (NYSE:WWE), SpongeBob SquarePants, old stars like Rocky, Barney and Pokemon, and the company seems to have a winning line-up. Jakks Pacific has also parlayed such names as Dirt Devil, Pizza Hut and McDonald’s into pretend-play products, while up-and-coming country star Taylor Swift, a Grammy nominee who just turned 18, recently signed a contract with the company for dolls that will debut this fall.

Founded in 1995, Jakks Pacific quickly jumped on the wrestling craze at the time and signed up WWE for wrestling-related toys. Jakks went public the following year, and is still guided by its co-founders — Jack Friedman, who serves as chairman and chief executive, and Stephen Berman, the president and  chief operating officer.

Jakks is still trying to put behind it a dispute over its long-running WWE license and with its video-game joint-venture partner THQ Inc. (Nasdaq:THQI). WWE wanted out of the deal, and the trio’s legal smack down began in 2004. A federal judge in December threw out a WWE lawsuit alleging the toymakers paid kickbacks to former WWE executives. WWE vowed to press on in state courts.

Jakks Pacific’s license with WWE ends in 2009, but it’s prepared for future body slams by announcing in February a five-year licensing deal with TNA that commences in 2010. In turn, Mattel has a WWE licensing deal that begins in 2010.

Jakks Pacific has its eye on EyeClops Bionic Eye, one of its recent launches. The $50 hand-held microscope hooks up to TVs and is a top seller at Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq:AMZN). It gives curious little ones the opportunity to blow up images of bugs, dog snot and other objects at 200-times magnification.

This fall, the lineup grows with the portable $60 EyeClops BioniCam that zooms in to 400x magnification. It’s also bringing out $80 EyeClops Night Vision goggles recently featured in The Wall Street Journal. The goggles use infrared to give youngsters a monochrome image that cuts through the inky-black darkness.

On Feb. 20, Jakks Pacific reported year-end results, and the quarter ended Dec. 31 beat expectations as net sales rose 19.6% to $285.1 million, and net income grew 48.3% to $34.4 million. Quarterly earnings per share rose to $1.06 from $0.73 the year before. Full-year net income increased 24.3% to $90 million and earnings per share rose to $2.80 from $2.30 at the end of 2006.

Analyst Anthony Gikas at PiperJaffray kept a “neutral” rating on Jakks Pacific, but raised his price target to $29 from $27. After eyeing the lineup at the New York toy fair in February, Gikas concluded that Jakks’ product line “looks the best we’ve seen in several years and we expect solid performance.”

Another neutralist, Jeffrey Thomison of Hilliard Lyons, raised his 2008 earnings estimate by $0.40 to $3 per share, writing to clients that the fourth quarter was “well above expectations” and referring to the wrestling license transition an “important” development.

Calling it “a Hannah Montana of a quarter,” Morgan Joseph analyst Jeffrey Blaeser raised his price target last month to $33 from $29, while continuing a “buy” rating.

On Tuesday, Zacks.com listed Jakks as its top value play, noting that “it has surprised on estimates three out of the last four quarters by an average of 14.47%. Jakks is also cheap. It has a 2008 P/E of only 9.40.”

Concocting that magic mix that triggers the buy signal in parents — and their nagging kids — is not easy. The success of Jakks Pacific in keeping its toys and games fresh and challenging is likely to bring it new waves of investors in the years ahead.