Disney Animator, ‘The Muppet Show’ Performer Teams Up With PETA for Baby-Animal Merch

For Immediate Release:
December 1, 2022

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Creative artist Betsy Baytos has animated for Disney, performed in The Muppet Show, and designed for Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville brand. Now she’s dreamed up a new line of colorfully illustrated T-shirts, tote bags, and mugs for the PETA Shop, on sale just in time for the holiday season. The designs feature mother cows, chickens, and orcas with their babies, and all profits from merchandise sales go directly toward supporting PETA’s vital work for animals.

“These Betsy Baytos designs are a must-have for kind people everywhere who care about helping baby animals and their mothers,” says PETA Associate Director of Merchandise Tanner Hatfield. “With this collection, PETA is encouraging everyone to spread a message of peace and compassion for all animals during the holidays and every day.”

Baytos’ collection increases awareness of the plight of animals who are denied the opportunity to raise their young or do anything that’s natural and important to them. In the dairy industry, calves are torn away from their loving mothers so that the milk meant for them can be sold to humans. Once their bodies wear out after repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter. In the egg industry, portions of hens’ beaks are cut off, and they spend their entire lives in reeking sheds, used as egg-producing machines until they’re sent to slaughter. And at marine abusement parks such as SeaWorld, baby orcas have been snatched away from their mothers, confined to cramped tanks, and forced to perform meaningless tricks for screaming crowds.

Known for her iconic, whimsical character and product designs, Baytos has delighted audiences as a choreographer and feature animator for Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, The Rescuers, and The Emperor’s New Groove; performed in The Muppet Show in London; and consulted with Cirque du Soleil and Universal Studios Japan. Currently, she’s at work on a children’s book series focused on the climate catastrophe and African wildlife.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.