PETA releases its own top-10 list of its wackiest stunts

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PETA’s sometimes hilarious, sometimes crass, always headline-grabbing stunts: Everyone has a favorite (or, depending upon one’s feelings about the controversial animal rights group, a least-favorite).

In a move that may convince some critics that, rather than being the joke, the group is actually in on the joke, PETA itself has named its choices for the Top 10 Wackiest PETA Stunts.

Their picks? We won’t give them all away, but they include an episode in which a PETA supporter in a pig costume tried to commandeer Oscar Mayer’s Wienermobile; a 1991 ad comparing the mass slaughter of animals for food to the crimes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer; a sexually charged commercial advocating the, erm, benefits of vegetarianism that was deemed too racy for the Super Bowl by NBC; an incident in which PETA’s European wing dumped a metric tonne of horse manure outside a London restaurant owned by chef Gordon Ramsey in response to his use of horse meat on a television cooking show; an ad comparing the American Kennel Club’s emphasis on purebreds to the ideals of white supremacists (PETA later protested outside the Westminster Kennel Club dog show dressed in the white hoods of KKK members); and a controversial request that ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s substitute human breast milk for cow’s milk in its products.

We have to admit, we were a bit surprised that the group left a few of our favorite moments off its list. What happened to the time it argued that Michael Jackson’s hit song, ‘Ben,’ should be used to draw attention to the plight of laboratory rats -- despite the fact that the song in question was about a murderous, evil rat? Why not the episode wherein it asked the band Pet Shop Boys to change its name to ‘Rescue Shelter Boys’? Or, perhaps our personal favorite PETA antic, how about the time the group wrote to (indisputably delicious) George Clooney, asking him for permission to use his sweat as a flavoring for tofu and call the resulting product ‘CloFu’?

There are just so many moments to choose from -- we suppose they should have just made a longer list. Oh, PETA. Oh, you.

-- Lindsay Barnett