The latest round in the knockdown, drag-out fight between the makers of the iconic teenage fashion doll Barbie and of her upstart catwalk competitors the Bratz has been resolved by a judge in California – and it's the former who has her tights in a twist and her hair in a tangle.

Peppa Pig, the cartoon that has taken Britain by storm, is hoping for a similar impact in the US after its owner, Entertainment One (E1), sealed a deal with Fisher-Price for a range of toys.

After a seven-year legal battle, giant American toy manufacturer Mattel suffered a surprise defeat when a jury decided that the tiny Californian company MGA is the rightful owner of the once-billion dollar line of Bratz dolls.

With legs weirdly long and lips oddly bloated, the spindly figures at the heart of a legal row are in the dock tomorrow

The Zingzillas ... Peppa Pig ... Ben & Holly ... did you really think they were just cuddly TV characters loved by your two-year-old? Gerard Gilbert investigates the ruthless – and fearsomely lucrative – world of brand licensing

He first made his name as the nonchalant, fast-talking rabbit from Brooklyn, in sharp animated "shorts" of the 1940s.

It comes as an anticlimax that M Night Shyamalan's much reviled fantasy epic isn't quite as bad as the more bilious US reviewers had suggested.

The billion-dollar Bratz dolls franchise should never have been handed over to arch-rival Mattel, owner of Barbie, an appeals court ruled, adding yet another twist to the longest-running legal drama in toyland.

The American television sitcom Diff'rent Strokes turned the 10-year-old Gary Coleman into a worldwide star, but he proved to be right at the top of that league of child actors who experience a much-troubled life after such early fame.

Snoopy is back in familiar hands. A decade after Charles M Schulz drew Charlie Brown's legendary pet beagle for the last time, the family of the late cartoonist has reclaimed a stake in the Peanuts brand.

Betty Thomas (88 mins), voices of Justin Long, Anna Faris, Jason Lee, Christina Applegate

Their traditional stomping grounds are the bully pulpits of Fox News and AM radio but two of conservative America's heros, Karl Rove (pictured below right) and Rush Limbaugh, are about to star in Family Guy, the cartoon famed for its liberal take on suburban life.

Steve Martin: the dream is over. The dream being that one day he might be funny again.

A US federal jury awarded Mattel $100m in damages in a copyright lawsuit that pitted the house of Barbie against MGA Entertainment, the maker of the saucy Bratz dolls.