|
black cow press
a free-rangin' publication |
|
~The Archives~
Back to BCP Home
|
Spliced Genes... Bitter Chocolate Bunnies
This week in Bournville, England, a long time employee of Cadbury blew the whistle on decades of genetic modification at Britain’s largest confectioner. B.C.P. was there with an animal translator to get his side of it. Our interview follows.
BCP: First off. What do we call you? Are you still going by ‘the rabbit?’
Rabbit: Yeah, that’ll work, I guess.
How are you coping with the attention you’ve had in the past few days since you broke ranks?
I’m OK with it. I knew I had to go public before another generation of us gets buggered with. It’s like, in my mind, I’d already gone through the whole thing, and so I’d prepared myself mentally for the publicity.
Explain for us what you mean by another generation?
Sure. I’m not the only one Cadbury used for the genetic stunts. I think I’m number 70 or something. They had almost a dozen of us over the years in the commercials, and I think at least 30 or 40 of the experiments (hesitates) failed before they got something they could work with.
Do you mean 30 or 40 rabbits died before they got the gene splicing right?
I mean at least 30 died, and those were the lucky ones. I’ve seen things at the lab that would make your
blood run cold.
Can you touch a little on the experiments?
Right. In the mid 80's, Cadbury needed a rabbit that could cluck like a hen for their Creme Egg television ad campaign. They’d tried dubbing the chicken sound, but apparently the rabbits couldn’t lip-synch and so it looked like a kung fu film or something. -- I’ve never seen those tapes. -- They had a chemist at the time, someone they’d recruited from Germany at the end of the war, and this bloke assured them he could splice genes from bantam hens into rabbit fetuses, to get something that would resemble me and sound like a hen. They couldn’t resist.
Could you make that sound? I really loved those adds as a kid?
. . . (Silence, Deep Rage). . .
I apologize. That came out wrong...
Okay, YOU don’t get it, man! I’ve got PTSD up the YANG! The chocolate people fucked my shit up BIG time!
"I mean at least 30 died...
I’ve seen things at the lab that
would make your blood run cold.''
Let’s just say, family reunions are pretty rough. Most of my siblings didn’t make it. I’m an orphan, and a
few of my cousins lay eggs, or have little vestigial winglets, 'flappers.' Basically, we’re freaks, or we’re dead.
If you don’t mind, can you tell us how the experiments affected you personally?
Well it’s in the lawsuit, so I’m okay talking about it. I have headaches, perpetually blurred vision. I can’t hold a normal job. I can barely communicate verbally with my own species. I also have problems with women rabbits. When you’re a buck rabbit, there’s this expectation that you’re a stud or something. You
know, ’going at it like rabbits,’ and with me that just isn’t the case. My plumbing’s all busted since
Cadbury.
Would medication help?
If you think I’d trust another human who wanted to give me a pill!? Nah, keep your medication.
One of the first papers to cover the story suggested that your decision to go public was really about Cadbury swapping you out for a newer, younger rabbit in the commercials. Is that an issue here?
Jealousy? No. Look, you'll believe whatever you want, but don't think for a second that I actually liked
seeing myself on the television -- my freakshow broadcast to the world -- It's a shame I've born for years. You never outgrow the horror of opening your mouth and having another animal's voice come out. It's not too different from being possessed.
So what’s next? What do you see in your future?
Well, we’re seeking 100 million in the lawsuit. That’s for cruelty to animals, pain and suffering, royalty
payments, as well as loss of consortium and punitive. It looks like it’ll go class action. I can’t really do
much with money, but it’ll send the right message to the company. After that, I don’t know. There’s so few
places I’d fit in. I plan to ramble around for a bit, but I’ve also toyed with the idea of becoming an activist or something. Who knows? I may want to move to the states, get a motorcycle, just ride. -bcp
|
