How Does a Hamster Get to Be So Hot?

Long before Zhu Zhu pet hamsters swept the 2010 Toy of the Year (TOTY) awards last Saturday night, these interactive, battery-operated critters were scurrying off shelves at a dizzying pace. During the most recent holiday season, the Zhu Zhu craze hit such a zenith that some retailers had to actually limit the number of pets to one per family—and this happened during our nation’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Now, here’s the latest from the rapidly expanding Zhu-niverse: On Tuesday morning at Toy Fair 2010, Cepia President Russ Hornsby announced that his company will soon cause quite a stir among its followers with the new “Kung-Zhu” battle hamster series. And yet here’s what I’m curious about: How could it be that a hamster is apparently more desirable than, say, the throngs of chronically unhitched singles who’d do just about anything to ensnare the attention of a would-be sweetheart?

First of all, let me remind everyone that the hamster we’re all crooning about is fake—and, granted, though that means it doesn’t poop or stink, it should also mean that it ranks lower than a human being on the babe-o-meter. Second (and this is the part that really confounds me) we’ve somehow made a cultural cutie-pie out of a rodent that’s a first cousin to the rat—a disgustingly filthy creature that breeds on unfinished candy bars in the subway gutter. In a word, ick. Lastly, the nocturnal hamster can hold half its weight in food inside of its cheek pouches. That’s not exactly what I’d call attractive.

And yet even with all the hamster trash-talking I’ve indulged in lately, I can’t deny that I was fascinated the first time I actually held my very first Zhu Zhu pet. How can anyone resist a toy that's cool enough to drive around in its own little car, swoosh up ramps, and gallop on its hamster wheel? And then there are the grin-inducing sounds it delivers—from the toilet-flushing to the tooth-brushing. For a paltry eight bucks, that ain’t bad entertainment on a lonely Friday night. Maybe our world’s not-quite-hot singles can actually learn something from their little Zhu Zhu counterparts: To garner any real sustained attention, you’ve gotta shake your backside and boogie.