History Main / AnimalTesting

[[folder: Live-Action TV]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Whiplash}}''.You play as two animals attempting to escape a lab.Note the sheer ridiculousness of the experiments being performed

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'': A Golden Age story touched on this, with Gerta von Gunther experimenting on sharks, but then everything quickly shifts away from a more grounded example since she turns the sharks into winged mermaids with human level intelligence somehow and when they break out of their tanks to get revenge on her for keeping them in tanks and experimenting on them they're the ones treated as the villains.

* In ''Film/AntMan'', CorruptCorporateExecutive Darren Cross tests his reproduction of Pym particles on lambs. Hope thought they were going to use mice, Cross doesn't see what the big difference is. FridgeLogic kicks in when you consider how much cheaper mice are to raise and store... maybe he needed a bigger subject so when it got shrunk down it'd be easier to see?

* ''Literature/WordOfMouse'': [[TheProtagonist Isaiah]] and his family live in cages in an animal testing lab, and all they want to do is escape.

->'''Co-Worker''': I suppose you'd rather we tested the lipsticks on people. Would you like your wife's lips to be like that poor moggy's mouth in there?

* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'': ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' shows that Eggman's father, Doctor Gerald Robotnik, was a scientist who tested on animals, anthropomorphic or otherwise. Shadow the Hedgehog is an [[ArtificialHuman Artificial Hedgehog]] created to help his terminally ill granddaughter, as well as society as a whole.

* In ''Literature/SurvivorDogs'', a group of dogs evacuate into the local wilderness after earthquakes hit their city. The main humans they meet are people testing the environment. The dogs don't trust them and their trust is a good thing: the humans capture animals, keep them in cages, and force them to drink tainted river water. The humans are presented as jerks who laugh at [[spoiler:Fiery]] being caught in their net. They later get drunk on "fire-juice", as the dogs call it, and seem unprofessional.

* Discussed and parodied in ''VideoGame/NightTrap'': In the second part of the bathroom, Megan criticizes Lisa for trying to prime herself with her makeup, telling her that scientists should use cosmetic testing with her makeup on rats "before they let people like [her] play with it". Megan then demonstrates by pretending her hand is a rat facing torture by cosmetic testing, all the while using her squeaky mouse voice, as a way to mock Lisa. [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments It's pretty hilarious.]]

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn' has Izuka's experiments turning laguz into rabid warriors, though made worse (and blurring the line of this trope) by the fact that laguz are [[FantasticRacism a race of people]] who can transform into animals.

* The ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius'' games have Izuka's experiments turning laguz into rabid warriors, though made worse (and blurring the line of this trope) by the fact that laguz are [[FantasticRacism a race of people]] who can transform into animals.

See also AnimalWrongsGroup and ScienceIsBad for in-universe negative connotations towards this. See TestedOnHumans for the ''much maligned'' [[TakeAThirdOption third option]].

* ''Film/IAmLegend'' with Will Smith featured large scale animal testing on rats. The experiments are for the sake of humanity, so it's good. The fact that they were ''infected vampiric'' rats probably helps justify his work, too.

[[folder:Comic
Strips]]

* ''Stray'', a book by A.N. Wilson. Pufftail is captured and sent to a laboratory, used to test shampoo. That's unpleasant enough, but his record of a cat screaming "My eyes! I cannot close my eyes!" because [[EyeScream his eyelids had been cut off]] to test the effects of sleeplessness was horrifying.
* On that note... quite a few animal care books will warn you against thieves who kidnap pets in order to sell them to laboratories. Given that even people who support animal testing in principle would baulk at the idea of that happening to Tiddles or Fido... ParanoiaFuel, anyone? It is difficult to get a fix on the reality of this situation - pet care manuals and sites, and certainly the Animal Rights supporters, will definitely warn you against it; scientific sources will maintain it's an urban myth. What ''is'' true is that ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_animal_sources animal shelters]]'' in certain US states are ''obliged'' to hand over animals to any "Class B" dealer (selling to laboratories) who asks for them.
** Happens sometimes in the present, and happened often in the past, but not entirely realistic--the vast majority of lab animals are bred in the labs, so that their genetics and upbringing are fully known. Using animals with unknown histories is a great way to mess up your research.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Felidae}}'', based on the book of the same name. Dear Lord. Like the murders weren't horrible fuel enough. Francis comes across a tape of a perfectly healthy cat, shown meowing and struggling, [[StrappedToAnOperatingTable being bolted to a table]] and having its head cut open to test a new "glue" for wounds. Said glue ''eats through its skull into its brain while it is conscious'' as the scientist impartially narrates and observes its dying twitches. Enough to give anyone nightmares (and check that your own pets are where you left them). As if that wasn't enough, most of the cats in Francis' neighborhood are mangled by the lab's experiments - Felicity is blinded, Bluebeard has a withered paw, and Claudandus goes insane.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSecretOfNimh'': The animation in the laboratory, and the effects of the concoction given to the rats and mice, are pretty nightmarish. Notably, the injections to which the animals are subjected are of a ''much'' larger volume than could ever be given to such rodents without killing them in RealLife, suggesting that the lab-flashbacks are subjective memory, not objective fact.
** Weirdly enough, everything good about the rats is owed to these experiments.

* ''WesternAnimation/FernGullyTheLastRainforest'' doesn't just pack in enviromental issues - it shoves in the anti-animal-testing ones too, with the brutally-treated Batty Koda entering the "Batty Rap" which actually had some of the gorier imagery cut from it. Examples used in the song were mostly cosmetic, but the plot-affecting device was the radio antennae implanted in his head which sent him insane.

* ''Anime/PetShopOfHorrors'' throws a huge surprise the readers' way when it turns out that Count D -- who would seem to be the first person that would start lecturing a scientist -- is actually fairly laid-back on the animal testing issue.

* Lisa in TheSimpsons is for animal rights. One episode involved her and Homer being framed for releasing a bunch of experimental animals by a private investigator, which included pigs slathered with makeup and monkeys addicted to cigarettes. Weirdly enough, in an earlier episode, Lisa had to do a science project, and conducted an experiment called ''is my brother dumber than a hamster?'', which involved a hamster being forced to undergo some very psychologically damaging experiments.

* In ''Literature/AStudyInScarlet'', Sherlock Holmes tests what he believes to be poison by feeding it to a dog. [[spoiler:He's right, and the dog dies]]. However, it's pointed out in detail that the dog is very old, is suffering, is nearly about to die of natural causes anyway, and the landlady had asked Watson yesterday to put it out of its misery.