Save Toby

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Save Toby is a humor website, which involves a rabbit named Toby that is being held "hostage".

1 Summary
2 Extension and book
3 Public response
4 Status
5 External links

[edit] Summary

The site's proprietor ("James Mceahly") claims that he found Toby wounded outside his home and has since nursed the rabbit back to health. According to the website, he claimed that, if US$50,000 is not donated to him (the owner) through his website, he would have Toby killed and prepared as a meal. The website raised money through donations and "Save Toby" merchandise.

[edit] Extension and book

The original deadline was June 30th 2005, but when that deadline passed, the deadline was extended to November 6th, 2006. At that time, the proprietor changed the demand to 100,000 copies of his forthcoming "Save Toby" book.

The book was released on September 1st, 2005. The authors of the book were listed with no last names, but simply as "James and Brian". The book also credited several comedy writers from The Phat Phree.

[edit] Public response

The website has been swamped with hatemail of all sorts. PETA also has an auto-response email system to anyone who contacts them about the site. Many others have found the website to be humorous. It was featured on collegehumor.com in February 2005 which may have contributed to the site gaining much recognition. The website also appeared on NBC Nightly News.

[edit] Status

The owner of bored.com has bought the website and Toby has been saved.

The website has reported over $28,000 USD in donations as of 27 June 2005.

Urban legend website Snopes.com indicates that the website is a hoax. According to Snopes.com, this is a fixed graphic that is changed periodically to make it appear that people are actually donating money. This would appear to be the case, since clicking on the "donate" button reveals that the "Save Toby" account can not receive money since PayPal froze it. The link could also be updated to reflect merchandise sales but this has yet to be fully clarified.