I got shoe

If you have kids, or just are hyper-sensitive to being overwhelmed by trends, it's time to head to your nearest bunker because the next major kid trend is coming down the pipe from Japan...and it's a hamster.

Meet Hamtaro, the latest Japanese creation that has been built from what I only imagine as hours of painstaking research by top Japanese cuteologists. Hamtaro is a sweet hamster who is loved by his owner, the painfully precious fifth-grader Laura, and who is part of a secret hamster circle, known as the Ham-Hams.

The Ham-Hams, all a diverse bunch (one's a tough guy, one's a beat poet, one's a psychotic criminal picked to take part in a suicide run on a Nazi castle...oh, wait, that's Telly Savalas from "The Dirty Dozen"), have adventures, learn life lessons and have just a smashing time the only way hamsters can. There's even a map on the official U.S. Web site that explains all the complex relationships between the hamsters...as far as hamsters can have complex relationships.

Hamtaro's a huge hit in Japan, knocking off Pikachu as the top licensed character in Japan. It's the top-rated children's show in Tokyo and a movie based on the show came out last year and was a tremendous hit. And the now, the little rodent is invading the U.S. Payback, I suppose, for Hiroshima.

The beauty of the show, now being aired on the Cartoon Network, is you don't have to "catch them all," the marketing demand forced by the Pokemon P.R. troopers to kids who needed a complete set of Pokemon cards to keep up. Instead, it's a more viral approach. The show comes with a pseudo-language that the first set of viewers will instantly pick up and use on the playground. Other kids, eager not to be on the outside, will pick up on the hip lingo and take it with them to infect the next batch of unsuspecting kids. It'll spread like wildfire, just in time for all the products to be put on shelves only to be snatched up by hamster-crazed kids. (Apparently, you'll also need to know the words when the Game Boy version of the TV show appears soon.)

The one disturbing drawback: I can't find anything on the U.S. site that talks about how to care for a real-life hamster. Look, anything this cute and any fad with the potential to grow to enormous sizes will cause a run on hamsters at pet shops. The problem is hamsters, real-life ones, don't talk or do anything as animated as Hamtaro or his buddies. (Of course, they don't, you ninny. They wait until you're back is turned, like on the TV show). A lot of kids are going to be set up for disappointment and my heart cringes at the thought of frustrated kids taking it out on the poor fuzzy creatures by hurting them or letting them loose in a few weeks, akin to what kids do with their baby bunnies they get every Easter. Kids need to know that pets aren't toys, and I hope Hamtaro fosters some kind of responsibility for rodents-turned-pets.

Yes, I know that something like a cartoon hamster isn't as weighty as, say, the upcoming and blindingly stupid U.S. invasion of Iraq, but I'm just warning you all.

Hamtaro is coming. And he's too damn cute to ignore.