Society for Indecency to Naked Animals

The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, or SINA [pronounced "sinna"], was a satiric hoax perpetrated by comedian Alan Abel from 1959 to 1962. In 1959 Abel wrote a satirical story about this imaginary organization for The Saturday Evening Post but the editors rejected it. Abel then transformed his story into a series of press releases from the organization that garnered media attention. The group used the language and rhetoric of conservative moralists for the aim of clothing naked animals, including pets, barnyard animals, and large wildlife. An alleged debate within SINA was how large an animal had to be to require clothing. Slogans such as "Decency today means morality tomorrow" and "A nude horse is a rude horse" were offered. Abel persuaded the actor Buck Henry to play the group president, G. Clifford Prout, in public appearances, and Abel played the group vice president.

SINA actually acquired ardent supporters, some of whom attempted to contribute a great deal of money. That aided SINA's (false) claims of gaining momentum - at one time they claimed tens of thousands of members. They also published a newsletter, in an issue of which is this anthem:

The hoax was exposed when staff on Walter Cronkite's CBS television news show recognized Buck Henry while broadcasting an interview. A 1963 Time magazine article exposed the hoax. Alan Abel managed to keep the newsletter going for several more years, hoaxing members who had not seen or heard of that Cronkite episode. The hoax appears in a recording of the short-lived television series One Man Show in an episode hosted by Groucho Marx.

The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals hoax was chronicled in Alan Abel's book, The Great American Hoax, published in 1966.

...
Wikipedia