A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

THEY GOT THE GOLDEN ARCHES; MINE IS THE GOLDEN ARCS. THEY GOT THE BIG MAC; I GOT THE BIG MICK: The WSJ today reports on why you can't invite "Explorer Girl with Backpack" or "Squishy Guy" to appear at your kid's birthday party without running afoul of an anti-fiesta trio of intellectual property lawyers:

Miriam Sorkin, an office manager in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., threw a fourth-birthday party for her daughter in May and arranged for a costumed impersonator of Dora the Explorer. Though the walk-about "Dora" had the expected pageboy haircut and backpack, her expression was blank and her legs appeared out of proportion to the rest of her body. "When Dora came out," Mrs. Sorkin says, "none of the kids would go to Dora, including my daughter, and a few of the kids started crying."

Elvira Grau, who owns Space Odyssey USA, where Mrs. Sorkin held her daughter's party, says the costume companies that service her parties try to make their costumes look sufficiently different from the trademarked characters to avoid lawsuits. When Mrs. Sorkin complained to her that Dora was "hideous," Mrs. Grau gave her a $250 credit. "But I told her, 'You can't have the real Dora. If you want the real Dora, call Nickelodeon.' "