‘In Vitro’ Meat Goes Prime Time With ‘Better Off Ted’
We predict a hit with ABC’s new sitcom Better Off Ted, which premieres tonight (check local listings for times). I mean, with a story line that revolves around in vitro meat, as it does in the first episode, how could the show fail?
The premise of Ted, which sounds sort of like a cross between The Office and Big Bang Theory, is that smart and successful, if somewhat nerdy, employees are forced to use their powers for bizarre, if not downright unethical, endeavors by a soulless corporation. They are asked to weaponize pumpkins (which doesn’t sound all bad, really) and to create uncomfortable, scratchy office chairs (some chairs do seem to have gone missing from the PETA office). They even cryogenically freeze a company scientist for a year as part of an experiment (now that’s the kind of animal testing we can get behind—just kidding, c’mon).
But back to that in vitro meat. We can’t help but think that the show’s creators were inspired by PETA’s call to scientists to develop a commercially viable lab-grown meat by 2012. As an incentive, we’re dangling a big, juicy carrot in the form of a $1 million prize. Hey, we already have lab-grown candy—how big of a leap is from it Pop Rocks to test-tube T-bones?
Written by Alisa Mullins
