

I don’t think there is any question that it was obvious to everyone. I was a kid in a conservative household and got it. And I distinctly recall there being a mad magazine bit about Colbert before I was even in high school. So that implies the joke was widely understood by the child aimed reading audience of Mad Magazine.






So the story here is that Tyson hired factory workers to man the factory and obstensivlt to care for the animals. The workers hired were undercover agents who then filmed things.
Imagine it was just McDonald’s and someone had photos of it being dirty and McDonald’s went “we hired you to clean it though.” That’s essentially the arguments here.
There’s two added levels of interest. One is a set of laws dubbed Ag Gag which makes it hardened to run these undercover ops. The other is that the people filming are not unbiased observers but instead real zealots for the cause when they enter. It generally creates a real incentive to get a good shot at any cost.