Fox Searchlight's Little Miss Sunshine trumped heavyweights Babel, Dreamgirls, The Queen and The Departed at the Producers Guild of America (PGA) awards in Los Angeles on Saturday [Jan 20].

The comedy won the night's big prize, the Darryl F Zanuck award, in a result that recognised producers Marc Turtletaub, David T Friendly, Peter Saraf, Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa.

The PGA winner is a reasonable indicator of which film will take the best picture Oscar and has got it right 11 times in 17 years. However received wisdom dictates that comedies rarely win the Academy Award.

Cars won the animated award and beat out Happy Feet, Monster House and Ice Age: The Meltdown.

HBO won the best longform television award for Elizabeth I and the variety award for Real Time With Bill Maher. NBC's The Office won best comedy series and ABC's Grey's Anatomy took home the prize for drama series. CBS's 60 Minutes won the reality/non-fiction award.

Previously announced honorary recipients were: Ron Meyer for the Milestone Award; Doug Wick and Lucy Fisher for the David O Selznick Achievement Award in theatrical motion pictures; Jerry Bruckheimer for the Norman Lear Achievement Award in television; An Inconvenient Truth for the Stanley Kramer Award; video game designer Will Wright for the Vanguard Award; and Ken Ehrlich for the Visionary Award.