They're cute, but behind their innocent faces are creatures of pure terror.

Chris Whitmore was kind enough to give us a rundown of these Zhu Zhu Pets earlier this year. You might have read that. But what Whitmore did not do is ask me for my opinion, which is usually a mistake as I have a very loud, very correct opinion on everything (and it never gets annoying or pompous or anything like that, clearly). Maybe I want to talk about the hottest toy of 2009. Why can’t I? I’m going to. Here we go.

The Zhu Zhu Pet Craze

What is a Zhu Zhu Pet? It’s a robot hamster as far as I can figure them out. And, if I may speak frankly for a second, that makes them vastly superior to regular hamsters. Robo hamsters don’t stink, they don’t bite, they don’t need to be fed, they don’t need constant attention or love, and they don’t get little flaky chips of wood everywhere. I’m pretty sure a Zhu Zhu hamster would eat a regular hamster if put into the same cage with one.

Your kids have probably decided they want one of these things for Christmas or equally great gift-giving time (there are many, so make sure you have a gift for each one ready to go), but you can’t just get them one Zhu Zhu Pet and be done with it. These things are like a flowerpot. Sure, you can buy a nice flowerpot, but you should probably put a pretty flower in there and add some good soil, maybe put it in a place other people can see it. Also, buy it a car. Yeah, Zhu Zhu Pets are just like flowerpots, except not.

See? Just like a flower pot. Oh, but you'll be expected to buy everything on this chart by the way.

Fun With Zhu

See, there are numerous Zhu Zhu’s (Zhu Zhi?), to pick from, and you darn well get them all. Currently there are four, but expect these to act like real hamsters and create exponentially more hamsters. And these Zhu Zhi must live somewhere, so you buy them a little area for them to run around in on their robo paws (which zoologists have dubbed “wheels”). But you can’t just get a little circle for them to run around. No, you’ve been instructed to purchase an interlocking city of Zhu for these Zhu Zhi so that they may worship their Zhu god named Zhuzhabar (all speculation of course).

There are all sorts of things you can purchase for your happy Zhu Zhu Pet. Everything from a bed to a hamster wheel to a car to a- Wait, a car? Why would a robo hamster need a car? O...