Pamela Anderson Video Latest in PETA/KFC War

What is it about chickens? Or is it the colonel? A stampede of high-, mid- and outrageous-profile protesters continue to bang on Kentucky Fried Chicken's doors in efforts to stem the fast food chain's alleged cruelty to animals.

Highest of the high-profile was Pamela Anderson. In what is likely to go down as her most controversial video not co-starring Tommy Lee, Anderson narrates the originally-titled "Boycott KFC" DVD, a DVD with a hilarious cover featuring what appears to be Anderson attending the Oscar awards ceremony and showing typical décolletage. (Hey, this may a war against Kentucky Fried Chicken, but Pamela Anderson knows what sells.)

The soon-to-be Mrs. Kid Rock levies a heavy list of charges against Kentucky Fried Chicken, detailing abuse such as debeaking and scalding throughout the rearing process. Anderson is backed by animal rights organization PETA, who was been after Kentucky Fried Chicken to change a number of their policies for some time.

The main snag to real change at Kentucky Fried Chicken as PETA sees it is the Human Methods of Slaughter Act. The federally-mandated act prescribes punishment for abuse of almost all farmed animals but does not offer any protection for chickens. PETA maintains that, if Kentucky Fried Chicken's methods were applied to other domesticated animals, felony charges could be brought against the company.

Anderson's salvo is merely the latest in her and PETA's years-long campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken. The full-on campaign kicked into overdrive back in 2003. At that time, PETA was backing a list of eight changes that Kentucky Fried Chicken would have to make to get a cease fire. The A-bomb of the war was a threat to disrupt then-Kentucky Fried Chicken pitchman Jason "George Constanza" Alexander's debut performance in The Producers. The Kentucky Fried response was for none other than Kentucky Fried Chicken president Cheryl Bachedler herself to meet with PETA leader Ingrid Newkirk at the Norfolk, Va. PETA HQ to hammer out an agreement.

Bachelder acquiesced on five of the eight demands, most important of which in PETA policy was the installation of video cameras in all 29 Kentucky Fried Chicken slaughterhouses and regular auditing of the tapes. In return, PETA backed off the "Kentucky Fried Cruelty" campaign for sixty days.

After this compromise, clearly the PETA brain trust smelled blood (so to speak) and has since been relentless with the anti-Kentucky Fried Chicken barrage. Indeed, just about one year after the peace summit, PETA was able to release video from a Kentucky Fried Chicken supplier that had Kentucky Fried Chicken firing eleven employees and publicly apologizing profusely. Earlier this year, Anderson took on Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher for allowing Kentucky Fried Chicken sponsorship of the Kentucky Derby and the mounting of a Colonel Sanders statue in the Kentucky state courthouse. Fletcher did not back down, though, and Anderson was left to limply state she wouldn't attend the race in future.

Lately, PETA's anti-Kentucky Fried Chicken campaign has been about Anderson-style titillation to spread the word. Playboy Playmate Lauren Anderson and other beauties have been swimsuited and standing on corners in western Canadian and Anchorage winters in protest, and Lindsay Rajt is spending her summer vacation bikini-clad across Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets in places like Sarasota, Wilmington, and Fayetteville.

And folks in Myrtle Beach, S.C. who saw a huge wheelchaired chicken cross the road repeatedly (get it?) weren't seeing things. Though stranger than the more human-played protests, this PETA stand seems to have been mostly bypassed by local media.