In the 1990s, that flush and flighty decade, celebrities and other idiots with too much money bought potbellied piglets to take home. Shockingly, they (the animals, that is) grew into enormous-bellied adults, some of which eventually weighed as much as 300 lb. At least 300,000 potbellies ended up crammed into pig sanctuaries after they got too big even for the bloated McMansions that had taken them in as babies. But pig breeders kept trying to engineer smaller and smaller swine, and in 2009 demand soared for so-called teacup pigs, which were advertised to grow to just 60 lb. in adulthood. In November, London's Daily Mail reported that David and Victoria Beckham paid approximately $2,300 for a pair of micro-porkers, which Posh was said to want to name Elton and David, after her friend Elton John and his partner David Furnish. But some animal experts said the whole idea of a minipig was a zoological contradiction, warning that if a pig stopped growing at 60 lb., it was probably sickly and, by definition, unpigly which is to say, underfed.
The Top 10 Everything of 2009
- Top 10 Albums
- Top 10 Animal Stories
- Top 10 Apologies
- Top 10 Art Exhibitions
- Top 10 Awkward Moments
- Top 10 Best Business Deals
- Top 10 Breakups
- Top 10 Buzzwords
- Top 10 Children's Books
- Top 10 Crime Stories
- Top 10 Editorial Cartoons
- Top 10 Facebook Stories
- Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas
- Top 10 Fashion Moments
- Top 10 Feuds
- Top 10 Fiction Books
- Top 10 Fleeting Celebrities
- Top 10 Gadgets
- Top 10 Green Ideas
- Top 10 Heroes
- Top 10 iPhone Apps
- Top 10 Late-Night Jokes
- Top 10 Magazine Covers
- Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs
- Top 10 Movie Performances
- Top 10 Movies
- Top 10 New Species
- Top 10 News Stories
- Top 10 Nonfiction Books
- Top 10 Oddball News Stories
- Top 10 Pariahs
- Top 10 Pictures of the Year
- Top 10 Plays and Musicals
- Top 10 Political Gaffes
- Top 10 Quotes
- Top 10 Religion Stories
- Top 10 Scandals
- Top 10 Scientific Discoveries
- Top 10 Songs
- Top 10 Sports Moments
- Top 10 T-Shirt-Worthy Slogans
- Top 10 TV Ads
- Top 10 TV Episodes
- Top 10 TV Series
- Top 10 Tweets
- Top 10 Underreported Stories
- Top 10 Untruths
- Top 10 Video Games
- Top 10 Viral Videos
- Top 10 Worst Biz Deals
TIME charts the highs and lows of the past year in 50 wide-ranging lists