Catchy PETA ‘90s Nostalgia Commercial for ‘My First Lab Animal’ Kit Has Message for Millennials

For Immediate Release:
March 17, 2025

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

Gear up and get ready to get your “science” on because today, PETA releases a commercial for “My First Lab Animal,” PETA’s satirical take lampooning the cruelty of experiments on animals done in the Day-Glo and plasticine glee of ‘90s toy commercials. The new spot is now running on MTV, TV Land, Adult Swim, and more.

As the cheerful jingle plays “It’s the toy that toys with life!”, the commercial follows a child as she discovers the complete “My First Lab Animal” kit, performing procedures actually funded and conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on her stuffed toy mouse: injecting chemicals, delivering electric shocks, and dropping the mouse in an inescapable beaker of water.

In the end, the girl decapitates the mouse and pays out hush money to her concerned parents as a narrator quickly spouts disclaimers (“the NIH is not liable if your child becomes a psychopath.”).

“It’s a 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 Millennials, many of whom are now toy-shopping parents themselves, to consider the plight of animals in laboratories and demand non-animal research reform from feds.”

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 Modernization 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 Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.