Zhu Zhu Pets are manufactured by the toy company called Cepia LLC, which was founded in 2002 with the intent on designing and manufacturing fun kids’ toys that utilize advanced toy technology. Although the company has produced several recognizable and successful toy models in the past, including Glo-e, Hydro Max, Sky Raptors to name but a few, the recent addition to their model lineup of the Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters is certainly looking to be on track to be their most successful launch to date. Zhu Zhu Pets toys currently focus on toy hamsters, but there is no reason why the model line cannot be expanded into several different pets in the future, the possibilities are endless.

Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters are cute furry interactive pet toys that are built upon the foundations of artificial intelligence. With their two distinct modes, they are able to make reactive sounds as well as reactive movements. The hamsters’ affectionate mode places the toy hamster into a calmer mood where it loves the attention and affection that kids of all ages love to bestow upon them and the hamsters respond with purrs and coos. Place the hamsters in explore mode and the fun really picks up speed as they zip around scurrying and as they encounter different obstacles in their path, they instinctively re-adjust their movements and make all sorts of funny sounds.

Zhu Zhu Pet hamsters were originally launched in four varieties, Mr Squiggles, Pipsqueak, Num Nums and Chunk. As of very recently, however, kid’s are now able to buy an additional more exclusive hamster called Patches, which currently is only available as part of the special hamster Funhouse bundled package. Each of the hamsters has different personalities and characters as well of course as different colors. Mr Squiggles and Pipsqueak are the hamsters that love exploring and are best suited to all the fast paced actions and activities. Num Nums is the lady of the hamster pack and is particularly fond of the loving care and attention that children love to give her. Chunk is the laid back surfer dude of the bunch and loves to take things easy and enjoy taking hamster life in his stride. The different colors and personalities of each hamster means that they each appeal to different children in different ways and kids just have their favorites.

The wide range of hamster accessories makes extending the fun that kids can have with these Zhu Zhu toys endless in possibilities. However, the main reason why adding one or more accessory is such a great idea, is that it really does start to push these smart interactive pet toys to their fuller capabilities. Each hamster reacts with each add-on in a slightly different way, in terms of the cute noises that they make as well as the cool moves that they can make. Kids love to gradually build up a gigantic hamster habitat for their Zhu Zhu pet toys and the beauty of these accessories is that they are fully compatible with each other and over time can be simply connected in a modular fashion. The different hamster personalities make some of the more specific accessories, such as the hamster surfboard and the hamster car, more appropriate and fun with particular hamsters, but all of the hamsters can of course utilize and enjoy any of the accessories. The ideal ‘hamster world’ that your child may be intending to construct over time, is really centered around the core hamster Funhouse, so it is not surprising that this is currently the bestselling accessory item.

Zhu Zhu Pets hamsters got off to perhaps the best start that any toy manufacturer could dream off, the ingenious mass marketing campaign ensured that the words ‘I want one’ was on every kid’s lips. Come launch, stores just simply sold out of stock over and over again, which in the tradition of limited supply hot toys, meant that resale prices shot up to incredible levels. Zhu Zhu Pets hamster toys have now been officially added to the Toys R Us Christmas 2009 hot toy list and so all expectations are that demand will only continue to rise for some time to come.