Road Apples
Jan. 19, 2009


Not catfish, SEA KITTENS!

By Tim Sanders

There was a time when humorists relied heavily on PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) for material. Not that there’s anything all that funny about treating animals ethically. Most rational people are dead set against bathing cats who don’t want to be bathed, and few of us would ever think of using some bogus investment scheme to swindle a squirrel out of all the nuts stashed in his 401K hole, after all. But the PETA people have always tended to be, in their own very special way, loons. And this made poking fun at them an easy task.

In 2002, for example, PETA launched a “Got Beer” billboard campaign to encourage the consumption of beer rather than cows’ milk. Children loved it. In 2003 they sponsored an exhibit entitled “Holocaust on Your Plate,” which juxtaposed photos of emaciated cows and chickens with photos of Nazi holocaust victims. Later in 2003 PETA placed billboards in Providence and Boston which pictured the Virgin Mary cradling a chicken carcass. It read, “Go Vegetarian - It’s an Immaculate Conception.”

And PETA didn’t just do billboards and exhibits. No, they had a series of pamphlets aimed at gently encouraging children to be kind to animals. Subtlety was the key here. One, the “Your Daddy Kills Animals” pamphlet, showed a cartoon daddy gutting a fish, and warned children to keep their puppies and kitties away from him until he learned better. Another said “Your Mommy Kills Animals” and depicted a homicidal cartoon mommy plunging a kitchen knife into a rabbit, obviously intent on making herself some rabbit stew and a pair of mittens.

And who could forget the letter sent to Ben and Jerry’s Inc. by PETA’s Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman on September 23, 2008, encouraging them to make their ice cream products using only human breast milk, not cows’ milk? You can’t make this stuff up!

In 2008 PETA succeeded in prompting Spain’s parliament to pass a bill awarding legal rights to great apes. I’m not sure, but I think Spanish chimps can vote and initiate libel suits, now. But despite their annual “Running of the Nudes,” where hundreds of naked PETA activists run through the streets of Pamplona, Spain, so far PETA has failed to put an end to the yearly running of the bulls in that city.

There’s been material in all of those things for humorists, and even more when one considers the group’s aversion to certain names. In 1996, PETA was almost apoplectic over the name of Fishkill, New York. Their attempt to force the city to change its name failed because, as the city fathers pointed out, “kill” was only the original Dutch word for “creek.” Likewise, in 2003 PETA requested that Hamburg, New York change its name to Veggieburg, but to no avail. And yes, both stories are absolutely true.

In 2003 Karin Robertson, PETA Fish Empathy campaign worker (that’s right, I said Fish Empathy campaign) legally changed her name to GoVeg.com. And in 2005 Chris Garnett, PETA youth outreach coordinator, changed his name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com. Both of those names were also the names of PETA-sponsored websites. And in that same year activist Rachel Feather changed her name to Rachel Fishinghurts. These are real people, bless their hearts.

And all of this inevitably leads us to the current PETA “Save the Sea Kittens” campaign. The huge brains that obviously pulsate with awesome new ideas at PETA have given their anti-fishing campaign a lot of thought, and finally decided that the problem with all of us criminal types who like fishing stems from the name “fish,” which conjures up mental pictures of ... well, fish. So the PETA geniuses, on their “Save the Sea Kittens” website, say “When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it’s time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?” There it is: If you’re hell-bent on putting an end to fishing once and for all, you call fishing “sea kitten hunting.” And according to the PETA website, “Given the drastic situation for this country’s sea kittens–who are often the victims of many major threats to their welfare and ways of life–it’s high time that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stop allowing our little sea kittens to be tortured and killed.”

You’d think it couldn’t get any better, but it does. For the kiddies, that website has a few Sea Kitten stories about loveable little finny rascals like Tara the Tuna, Tony the Trout, and Fred the Flounder. Sadly, none of the stories ends well. Tara winds up all glum and sullen in the Sea Kitten factory farm, looking forward to the end; Tony, the brightest trout in his school, is eaten by a child who finally falls prey to mercury poisoning; and Fred who’s left morose and alone due to overfishing, spends his final hours chasing his own tail and dreaming of better times. And there is Sally, who is not identified as any particular species of fi ... er, sea kitten, but resembles a yellow perch. According to the book (and I quote, verbatim), “years of watching her friends and family being hooked through the mouth and dragged into a harsh, alien world above have driven her mad with grief. Bitter and insane, she spends her days plotting revenge against the Land Kittens who live such happy lives in comfortable homes, free from the terror of being eaten.”

So there’s the problem with PETA nowadays; they’ve ruined things for humorists. It’s impossible to lampoon people who so expertly lampoon themselves. Or maybe I should say “harpoon.” I’d considered writing a column about poor old Bob, who couldn’t figure out why his pet sea kitten, Garfield the Gar, was so feisty and active when he first brought him home, but now only lies in his box, all hard and stinky and covered with litter, staring at nothing in particular. I’d considered it, but then I realized I couldn’t top the image of Sally the Perch, mad with grief, waiting with her band of piranha playmates for some hapless land kitten to fall into the water from that slippery pier.

I know when I’m beat.