Hamster Ball
I ran into a rather unexpected bit of culture shock this weekend
while watching TV with Mutsumi. Disney’s latest 3D animal flick “Bolt”
has hit Tokyo and primetime television is loaded with commercials for
the new movie. The lead cast of the film is made up of TV superstar dog
Bolt, cat Mittens, and sidekick hamster Rhino, pictured below:
Perpetually cheerful hamster seemingly unfazed by his being trapped in a hamster ball. Not a bad setup for a comedic foil. Or so I thought until Mutsumi asked: “I wonder why he’s in that ball?” It hadn’t even occurred to me that Mutsumi had no idea what a hamster ball was. A quick survey among our Japanese friends came up with a variety of answers as to what they thought the mystery ball was: from a balloon to some sort of energy barrier to a medical bubble like the one used by that kid in Seinfeld. No one we asked thought that this was the sort of thing that someone would, or even should, willfully insert a living hamster.
It was time for a quick bit of internet education. A brief search on Google turned up several images like the one below (along with more than a few mentions of animal cruelty):
So, there it was. The hamster ball as a plastic toy into which hamster owners place their pets so they can run around the living room, but not get lost under the couch.
Mutsumi’s first reaction: “Oh, that’s awful!”
Mutsumi’s second reaction: “Can you play soccer with it?”
I also had to assure her that no sane person keeps their hamster in a ball all the time.
With the perpetual nature of Hollywood’s big releases, it’s funny the things you take for granted as common cultural knowledge. I wonder what Disney’s Japanese PR offices thought of Rhino’s hamster ball. Did they decide it was too hard to explain or did they just take it in stride? Who knows, maybe it’s all part of a larger marketing plan and I’m going to start seeing rodents running around in Bolt-branded hamster balls all over Tokyo.
Perpetually cheerful hamster seemingly unfazed by his being trapped in a hamster ball. Not a bad setup for a comedic foil. Or so I thought until Mutsumi asked: “I wonder why he’s in that ball?” It hadn’t even occurred to me that Mutsumi had no idea what a hamster ball was. A quick survey among our Japanese friends came up with a variety of answers as to what they thought the mystery ball was: from a balloon to some sort of energy barrier to a medical bubble like the one used by that kid in Seinfeld. No one we asked thought that this was the sort of thing that someone would, or even should, willfully insert a living hamster.
It was time for a quick bit of internet education. A brief search on Google turned up several images like the one below (along with more than a few mentions of animal cruelty):
So, there it was. The hamster ball as a plastic toy into which hamster owners place their pets so they can run around the living room, but not get lost under the couch.
Mutsumi’s first reaction: “Oh, that’s awful!”
Mutsumi’s second reaction: “Can you play soccer with it?”
I also had to assure her that no sane person keeps their hamster in a ball all the time.
With the perpetual nature of Hollywood’s big releases, it’s funny the things you take for granted as common cultural knowledge. I wonder what Disney’s Japanese PR offices thought of Rhino’s hamster ball. Did they decide it was too hard to explain or did they just take it in stride? Who knows, maybe it’s all part of a larger marketing plan and I’m going to start seeing rodents running around in Bolt-branded hamster balls all over Tokyo.
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