MOOOVING DEBATE HAPPY COW ADS HAD PETA CRYING FOUL.

Byline: CHRIS WEINKOPF

``THIS is a different situation than, say, elves baking cookies in trees,'' says Matthew Penzer, counsel for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, about his group's efforts to ban the California Milk Advisory Board's ``Happy Cows'' campaign.

After all, everyone knows that there's no such thing as elves, and even if there were, they certainly wouldn't bake. Talking cows, on the other hand, especially talking cows that sing songs from the ``Brady Bunch'' and take advantage of earthquakes to massage their hoofs - well, that could easily fool and deceive the public.

Or something like that.

For the last year and a half, the state's dairy industry has run its massively successful radio and TV campaign featuring blissful bovines and the tagline, ``Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California.'' The depiction has made PETA's herd of activists, who insist that ``the vast majority of California's dairy cows live anything but easy lives,'' madder than bulls.

So PETA has done what any busybody outfit does when it comes across something it dislikes: seek an injunction from the federal government. The organization has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on behalf of its sacred cows, charging the CMAB with false advertising and demanding that the government bar the farmers from airing any more of the commercials.

It's a tricky strategy. For an ad to be deceptive, it must make a claim that's demonstrably false or misleading. But there are only two claims made in the CMAB spots - California has great cheese and content cows - and both would be hard to disprove. Human tastes are subjective, and cows' sensibilities are notoriously difficult to poll. (Moo once for yes, twice for no.)

Thus the focus of PETA's complaint is on the scenery of the commercials, which depict the beasts roaming around in lush, wide-open fields and rolling green hills. Reality, PETA says, is less idyllic: Golden State dairy cows usually live in crowded pens, where they walk on dirt contaminated with their own excrement.

Fair enough; the life of a California dairy cow isn't all it's cracked up to be. Most TV viewers, though, assuming they're at least as bright as the cows being depicted, ought to be able to figure that out on their own.

When we see a talking bull ogling an approaching heifer, then asking his friend how his horns look, it's an indication that the presentation isn't meant to be taken as an accurate portrayal of reality. No, California cows don't actually mock their Wisconsin counterparts, consider kicking the rooster the equivalent of hitting the ``snooze'' button on an alarm clock or spend their days wandering hillsides straight out of ``The Sound of Music.'' The average viewer recognizes a joke when he sees one, and adjusts his expectations accordingly.

But it's not the average viewer whom PETA aims to protect.

``The consumers most likely to be affected by the ads,'' according to its complaint, ``are those conscientious and compassionate people who would reasonably be concerned that cows might suffer to produce dairy products.'' The suggestion is that it's animal-rights activists ``who are misled by the ads.'' So, by PETA's own admission, its adherents are working with less than a full set of mental capabilities - the result, no doubt, of a diet lacking in protein.

The rest of us are discriminating enough to spot an obvious parody. As for PETA supporters, they're more easily duped. They might just be tricked into believing that buying a pound of Monterey Jack is a good way to subsidize resort living for a few million of the nation's most privileged cattle.

But no conditions, no matter how opulent, could ever change PETA's opposition to dairy farming, let alone persuade one of its members to take up a diet of grilled-cheese sandwiches. The group regards cows as beings entitled to a wide range of basic rights, including the right not to be confined or used for food. As Penzer puts it, ``there's misery in every glass of milk'' (emphasis added).

It doesn't matter whether Bossy lives atop a dung heap or in a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel. So extreme is PETA's lactose intolerance that any favorable depiction of dairy products could probably qualify as ``misleading.''

While the text of PETA's legally worded complaint against the CMAB uses lofty language about protecting consumers, the group's real intentions are plainly spelled out in its accompanying press release, which bears the title ``PETA ASKS FTC TO CENSOR CHEESE COMMERCIALS.'' This isn't about fair advertising or the accurate portrayals of pastoral conditions, but PETA's brazen use of government powers to silence its opponents.

The PETAphiles are stampeding for censorship.

So enamored are they with a cow's right not to be used to make milkshakes that they've forgotten about the human right to free speech.

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2 photos

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(1 -- color) no caption (Cows)

David Crane/Staff Photographer

(2 -- color) PETA has taken exception to the California Milk Advisory Board's ad campaign about happy cows and seeks an injunction from the federal government.