DreamWorks Animation (DWA) continues to post evidence that its business model of building animated franchises should be a robust driver of solid shareholder value. It isn't without risk, of course; when you're dealing with Hollywood, failure scenarios are a constant threat. For now, though, the company's fourth-quarter results, released Tuesday after the bell, show a studio with future promise.

It's true that the quarter itself didn't show growth. Revenues took a modest dip, and earnings per share dropped 14% to 50 cents. However, estimates indicated a much more pessimistic outlook at 37 cents per share. And for the twelve-month period, growth actually was produced, as net income rose 10% to $1.73 per share.

DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA), whose cartoons compete with similar products from Disney (NYSE: DIS), News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), and Sony (NYSE: SNE), issued its Q1 stats after the bell on Tuesday afternoon.

Now, I'm just about 100% certain that I've used this goofy pun before, so let me apologize upfront for dragging it out yet again (you'll soon see that I had no choice): DreamWorks Animation had a quarter that dreams are made of!

The long-awaited Transformers movie premieres tonight. If you're in your late-20s or early 30s, and watched the Transformers cartoons as a kid, you probably have a desire to see this "PG-13" action extravaganza.

But beware: According to Susan Linn, a psychologist who co-founded the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Transformers is being marketed towards children. Brooks Barnes of the New York Times said in an article this morning that the live-action film is packed with cars and planes that turn into "blood-thirsty alien robots." In a PG-13 fight between good and evil, do you expect anything less?

The problem, according to Linn, is that Dreamworks and Hasbro, Inc (NYSE: HAS) are going after preschoolers with their "widespread and irresponsible" marketing of the movie. "Movie studios have been using toys to market movies in unfair ways for a long time," says Linn. "But this is a movie that was designed from the beginning to sell toys and that makes this case particularly egregious."