So here's one of those fist-shaking, tsk-tsking stories that makes it
easy to hate the big bad corporation doing the big bad stuff. But
this one differs in that it gets kinda weird, pretty quickly. The
long and short of it is that there is the Little House on the Prairie
museum in rural Kansas, around the same location that Laura Ingalls
Wilder wrote the original series of books. The museum is owned by, strangely, documentary producer turned AT&T pitchman Bill Kurtis who is now defending the museum against the deceptively-named company, Family Friendly Productions, producers of the TV show "Little House on the Prairie," who is suing Kurtis' museum for "trademark infringement, trademark dilution and unfair competition." Here's a bit:

"We've got two trademarks, and we're very secure in it, so we're going to fight them," Kurtis, whose sister is president of the non-profit group, said Wednesday. "We'll move for dismissal immediately."

The TV company says in its suit that it acquired rights to "Little House on the Prairie" for TV, movies, theme parks and merchandise from the author's heirs in 1974.

Of course, all of this makes perfect sense to be happening now, given that the museum has been functioning since 1977 and the "Little House" show went off the air in the early 1980s? And we don't claim to know from law, but who doesn't love suing a non-profit that was apparently built to encourage reading?