There are few legal battles that can literally be described as laughable, so when a lawsuit as chuckle-worthy as Jeff Koons's battle with a gallery over balloon dogs — essentially claiming that the blue-chip artist owned the rights to the staticky carnival giveaway in toto — looked like it was headed to the courthouse, we hoped that it would linger there as long as possible. But Koons has backed down, and now our fun is ruined.

Last December, when Koons and his ferocious legal team threatened Park Life gallery and a Canadian tchotchke manufacturer with a lawsuit if they did not stop selling and producing, respectively, bookends in the shape of balloon dogs by Christmas Eve of 2010, we happily settled down with some popcorn to await round two of the absurd conflict. Then, when Park Life's rapier-witted attorney (who, according to the New York Times, took on the case pro bono) shot back with a sarcasm-laden legal document, calling for a declaratory judgment on the matter, we readjusted the couch cushions and popped open a beer. But yesterday, the attorneys of Jeff Koons LLC. called off their dastardly intellectual property dispute and their attempt to monopolize the balloon dog, leaving us with nothing to watch but the Super Bowl.

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Koons, whose towering, shiny metal balloon dogs sell for millions, has agreed not to pursue any claims against Park Life or the Toronto-based bookend manufacturer imm Living. The California gallery's bookstore is free to sell and promote the six-pound pups in perpetuity so long as it doesn't use Koons's name to peddle its goods (which, of course, it wasn't doing in the first place). Park Life's lawyer, Jedediah Wakefield of Fenwick & West will file for a dismissal of his declaratory judgment suit, and imm Living can keep cranking out the pooches.

The upshots of this decision are that magicians and trendy underdog (pardon the pun) galleries everywhere are no doubt breathing a sigh of relief, and Park Life is reporting that the bookeneds — which were not all that popular to begin with — are now flying off the shelves. But we'll be a little sad to see the sun set on this headline field day (the San Francisco Chronicle has reported that the case "ends with a whimper" and according to the Times header Koons was "all bark, no bite"). And rumor had it that Wakefield, Park Life's mischievous lawyer, was stockpiling "expert witnesses" for the trial. But sadly blown away are our visions of over-packed tiny cars rolling up to the courthouse to unload a veritable army of aggrieved clowns.