The problem, however, was that Bonsai Kitten was too realistic for some, who demanded it be closed for seeming to advocate cruelty to animals.
Closer to home, several Kiwi parody sites exist, although some of the people behind them were reluctant to reveal their identity to your net - with good reason after the court case last year involving Hamilton DJ Ian Stables.
Stables wrote about his fictional life as sports presenter April Ieremia's husband on radio station The Edge's website and was hit with civil proceedings by Ieremia, who alleged that his comments caused her emotional stress and might damage her career.
At Spinner, a site featuring joke news stories, they have had a "friendly" letter from Cliff Richard's lawyers, in response to their story "Cliff Richard Wired for Stake Out."
The Spinner team insists on anonymity and believes advertising compromises members' "journalistic integrity" (they carry ad banners anyway), but they did reveal in an e-mail that contributions are written by four people spread around the world who have been friends for about 10 years.
The friends are in it for fun, although they have been considering tasteful merchandising opportunities: "We are currently in negotiations with a Taiwanese company, for example, with an eye to gaining a foothold in the lucrative novelty barbecue apron market."
This is not as farfetched as it sounds. A similar, though much bigger, parody news site in the US called The Onion sells T-shirts, caps and cups. It has also taken the unusual step, for a web business, of launching into print - and has found publishing success with its book collections of spoof newspaper articles.
Fairsuckofthesav.com is the result of three writers with too much time on their hands, according to site designer Rick Coleman.
They chose the name to distinguish themselves from the many other parody sites on the net. "We are fairsuckofthesav.com, which is a distinctly Australasian term that compliments our antipodean content," says Mr Coleman.
"I feel it gives us an identity and the humour is obviously geared towards this neck of the woods. I mean, someone in Guatemala may not find it amusing to know that Josef Stalin is alive and working for the LTSA, or that old-age pensioners in Tauranga have been beating up hedgehogs, but who knows, they might like to buy a T-shirt anyway."
Mr Coleman says the site has not really been marketed.
Instead he hopes people will find it funny enough to pass on jokes to friends so its popularity will spread via e-mail.
One of the writers, Marton-based Patrick Boyle, says humour can change things simply by pointing out the madness around us.
"The idea was to create a place where we, and others, could spout what I call nonsense with a conscience.
"There's humour all around us, but most people can't even see it. Fairsuckofthesav says: 'Hey look at this, isn't this just ridiculous'."
Mr Boyle says the most criticism they have received is during the Olympics, when some of their stories contrasted the complaints about money for athletes with lack of food for poor children. He realised then that some New Zealanders have no sense of humour when it comes to the holy of holies - sport.
Frustration at trying to use the University of Auckland enrolment website nDeva resulted in student and web designer Anthony Trenwith taking the web into his own hands - to create the spoof site nDeviant, where users can click on buttons marked For Students, For Staff, For God's Sake!
University of Auckland nDeva web project manager John Holley admits there were a few teething problems with the online enrolment system, the first of its kind in Australia or New Zealand.
But he says steps have been taken to simplify and improve the site for semester two enrolment.
He is philosophical about the parody site: "That's basically the nature of the web. As Oscar Wilde said, 'It's better to be talked about than not at all'."
Mr Trenwith believes parody performs a social role, in this case pointing out that all was not going well with an important computer system.
"The university has a legislated role to act as the critic and conscience of society," he says, "and I think that students have an unofficial role to act as the critic and conscience of the university!"
One of Auckland comedian Jaq Tweedie's favourite parody websites is TheSpark.com.
She says simple parody on its own isn't very funny unless it has a satirical or absurdist edge. "Parody makes people think about what they think and anything that makes people think about what they think is, I think, a good idea!"
Tweedie says parody helps us to stop and think about the absurdities of life: "There's plenty of absurdity, but sometimes we just need to put a frame around it to see what's actually there."
Parody websites
Warning - language and spelling may offend at many of these sites. If you don't mind that, then wrap your laughing gear around these ...
MC Hawking: where the secret rap star life of famous physicist Stephen Hawking is revealed. Comes complete with songs to download.
Despair.com: a site which sells demotivation calendars and posters and which actually managed to trademark the emoticon :-( and then as a joke threatened to sue everyone who uses it in their e-mail.
The Spark: bogus news stories, personality tests and an essay generator.
The Onion: more bogus news stories, now also available in a best-selling book called Our Dumb Century.
Greenpeace KFC parody: protesting at the use of chickens raised on genetically engineered soy.
WTO/Gatt parody site: which links to www.theyesmen.org/wto/ where a lengthy exchange of correspondence between Mike Moore's representative and organisers of a conference who didn't realise he wasn't the real thing is recorded.
Webspoofs: a collection of spoof pages such as Boohoo! (instead of Yahoo!) and Un-excite instead of Excite.
Links
Bonsai Kitten
The Edge
Spinner
The Onion
Fairsuckofthesav.com
nDeva
nDeviant
The Spark
MC Hawking
