• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 15, 2024

The nation’s best known animal advocates’ group thinks a Fox sitcom is exercising too much animal control over peoples’ pet preferences.

The group, PETA -- Norfolk, Virginia-based People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- fired off a letter on Thursday to Michael Thorn, Fox president of scripted programming, about Wednesday night’s episode of “Animal Control.”

That’s the workplace comedy about animal-control officers in Seattle starring Joel McHale. 

Episodes of “Animal Control” are titled for the animals the officers will be interacting with on each show. Wednesday’s was titled “Cats and Monkeys.” 

PETA’s letter decried the show’s use of a sloth and a capuchin monkey (above photo, right, with series regular Michael Rowland). 

PETA says involving the animals in the production of a TV show does them harm. “Unlike Joel McHale, monkeys and sloths aren’t desperate to be on TV,” said the letter from PETA, which was apparently in no frame of mind to treat the star of the show ethically.

“[The creatures] simply want to be left alone in nature, instead of being torn away from their mothers, confined, abusively trained, and forced in front of cameras,” PETA said, although the group provided no evidence to suggest that the show’s sloth and monkey were treated in any of these ways by the show.

PETA assigns a great deal of persuasive power to this one-camera, animal-control sitcom when it accuses the show of promoting these wild animals as domesticated pets.

“Sloths are nocturnal and extremely shy animals who normally shun contact with humans,” PETA said.

“Studies have shown that depictions in the media of primates alongside humans can increase the demand to acquire these animals as ‘pets’ [quotation marks theirs], which can fuel unscrupulous primate dealers.

“Furthermore, PETA and law-enforcement investigations have documented that animals used for film and TV, including monkeys who were kept in waste-strewn enclosures, are often whipped, deprived of food during training, and housed in deplorable conditions.”

Again, there was no evidence provided that these animals were subject to any of these harsh conditions during the production of “Animal Control.”

PETA's letter urged viewers to shun “Animal Control” while also urging Fox to use the sitcom to promote the welfare of animals.

“PETA urges the public to skip this outdated spectacle of exploitation and encourages Fox to help -- not hinder -- the work that animal control agencies do by promoting spaying/neutering and the adoption of animals at local shelters,” the group said.

Now in its second season (and already renewed for a third), “Animal Control” has featured a great number of exotic animals in its storylines about the wacky situations the show's animal control officers find themselves in.

The list includes weasels, ostriches, pythons, cougars, kangaroos, minks, skunks, llamas, peacocks, pumas, tortoises and mountain lions.

This week's sloth and monkey letter is only the latest shot PETA has fired at the show since its premiere in February 2023.

A statement the group issued back then cast blame on Joel McHale for the show's “sickening” treatment of animals.

“ ‘Animal Control’ is a a sickening soup [italics theirs] of animal exploitation that has PETA questioning whether Joel McHale's been living under a rock,” said the statement, which even nicknamed the actor Joel McFail (again, italics theirs).

“He either doesn't know or doesn't care that it's 2023 and that CGI, VFX, and other humane forms of technology should be used, instead of dragging abused animals onto TV and film sets,” said the statement, which provided no evidence that the show “dragged abused animals” onto its sets.

There was no immediate reaction or statement from Fox about this latest salvo from PETA about “Animal Control.”