End Credit Evolution

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  Before Jack Nicholson had made it big, before Meryl Streep had acted in a single movie, before Natalie Portman was even born — American Humane Association was looking out for animals on movie sets. Our commitment to ensuring that "No Animals Were Harmed"^® goes way back.
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  Be the first of your friends to find out if the latest box office hits align with your humane values and your love for animals. Come here before you head to the theater, so you won’t be kicking yourself later for giving your hard-earned dollars to filmmakers who didn’t care enough to have us on set, protecting animals.
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  American Humane Association has been protecting animals in films since 1940, and over the years we’ve developed tried and true methods of ensuring “No Animals Were Harmed”® on movie sets. Our Los Angeles-based Film & TV Unit is the film and television industry’s only officially sanctioned animal monitoring program.
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Keeping Viewers Informed

The first end credit ever issued to a movie went to “The Doberman Gang” in 1972, with American Humane Association’s oversight organization responsible for monitoring animal actors during production. American Humane Association’s Western Regional Office in Hollywood — as the Film & TV Unit was then known — covered as many productions as it could in the 1960s and 1970s, but achieving wide-scale compliance was complicated even then by the number of films shot overseas.

In 1996, American Humane Association began the process of standardizing the language of the end-credit disclaimer and provided producers with step-by-step information on how to earn it. Also, American Humane Association made it known to consumers that supporting films which treated animal actors humanely made an important statement to studios and filmmakers.

Prior to implementation of more stringent rules governing our funding on international productions, American Humane Association worked jointly in Canada with the British Columbia SPCA and the Calgary Humane Society. For productions filmed in those regions, American Humane Association issued end-credit Certification that stated which foreign humane group co-monitored with us; in addition to the tagline of “No animal was harmed in the making of this film.” Another edit-credit option popular with filmmakers at the time stated, “Scenes appearing to place animals in jeopardy were simulated.”

In 2000, American Humane Association filed a trademark application for — and was ultimately granted — exclusive use of the phrase “No Animal Was Harmed”® and “No Animals Were Harmed”® to accompany our Film & TV Unit logo in movie end credits. We’ve streamlined the end credit in recent years to read, “American Humane Association monitored the animal action. ‘No Animals Were Harmed’ in the making of this film.”
Now that our ratings and reviews are housed on the Film & TV Unit website, people are able to make informed decisions about the movies they want to see. American Humane Association can insure the public is better informed about how animal actors were treated in their favorite films. And, most importantly, our ratings have given the public a chance to “vote at the box office” by supporting films which have received our end-credit Certification. After all, animal actors depend on us…and we know you do, too.