PETA Targets Millennials with Nostalgic ‘90s-Style ‘My First Lab Animal’ Ad

“It’s the toy that toys with life!” A new commercial for 'My First Lab Animal,' PETA’s satirical take lampooning the cruelty of experiments on animals and the millions of taxpayers’ dollars wasted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on these experiments, debuts today on FOX News, TV Land, MTV, and Adult Swim.

The commercial, complete with a cheerful jingle, follows a child as she discovers the complete 'My First Lab Animal' kit, performing procedures actually funded and conducted by the NIH on her stuffed toy mouse: injecting chemicals, delivering electric shocks, and dropping the mouse in an inescapable beaker of water.

With the Day-Glo and plasticine glee of ‘90s toy commercials, the new ad should strike a chord with Millennial viewers, many of whom are now toy-shopping parents themselves - and its message against wasting tax dollars (the girl hands hush money to her concerned parents and a narrator notes, “paid for by the government…the NIH is not liable if your child becomes a psychopath”) should resonate with viewers who are cheering on efforts to cut government spending.

“It’s fun spoof with a serious message: American taxpayers are bankrolling the torture of tens of millions of animals in tests that aren’t leading to cures,” says PETA senior vice president Kathy Guillermo. “PETA hopes this throwback-type ad will encourage viewers of all ages and political stripes to consider the plight of animals in laboratories and demand non-animal research reform from feds.”

'My First Lab Animal' was produced by Golden LA and creative director/writer Christian Carl with Fons Schiedon directing.

“The key to the humour and tension with this film was that we were playing it earnestly,” says Fons. “Leaning into the cheesy, sincere '90s toy commercial elements of it - including practical toys—let us bring some of the truly harsher realities of animal testing to life with this important film for PETA. This will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for consumers and the NIH alike.”

NIH squanders nearly half its annual budget on projects involving animal experiments, despite that 90% of basic research, most of which involves animals, fails to lead to effective treatments for humans, and 95% of new drugs that test safe and effective in animals fail in human trials. PETA scientists’ Research Modernisation Now provides evidence of the failure of studies on animals and lays out a strategy for transitioning to cutting-edge science.

Pointless studies funded by NIH include forcing monkeys to stare at photos of candidates to see if they can predict winners, ripping infant monkeys from their mothers and forcing them to wear strobe-effect goggles for 12 hours a day, and relentlessly shocking the feet of mice, supposedly to cause panic attacks.

PETA - whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on” - points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kitsfor people who need a lesson in kindness.