Enjoy a nice can of whale meat with your Friday-night TV viewing

Nothing sets the recessionary dinner table quite like canned whale meat. It's inexpensive, lean, tasty and just perfect for countless casserole dishes. So, how 'bout it, Mom?
  In case your eyes just bugged out a little, that's precisely what the folks at Animal Planet are hoping for. This coming Monday and Friday, the cable network will deploy 23 refrigerated delivery trucks around New York, their panels wrapped with colorful ads for canned whale meat. Given the eco-leaning, animal-loving populous in this town, the move is sure to get a little blood in the water. Fortunately, only the symbolic kind. The whole thing is a guerrilla stunt to promote the network's newest season of Whale Wars, a reality show that ships out with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it attempts to halt Japanese whaling on the open ocean. Guerrilla-marketing maneuvers are nothing new to the streets of Gotham, but the Animal Planet team is really baiting the hook with this one. The South Street Seaport is one of the scheduled stops, and one team will even give out actual cans of "whale meat." (It's only candy.)
  The point, of course, is for the public to discover the Whale Wars series. Show times appear on both the trucks and the cans' startlingly realistic-looking labels. Realistic, at least, until you see the tag that says "Outright Slaughter." Hey, Ma—we'll stick with tuna fish.

—Posted by Robert Klara