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Today is World Hamster Day, which, if you like hamsters is pretty special.
I do like many rodents. Well, maybe not rats so much. I don’t tend to socialize much with rats. Mice I get along with a little better. Provided we can come to an understanding that they live outside the house. There was one mouse who would show up every now and then, sit on the back deck and watch the sunset with me. At least that’s what he seemed to be doing. A little weird, but cute at the same time.
And, of course, we have chipmunks and squirrels and a few others that are fun to have around. Again, as long as we have our boundaries clear. We won’t get into beavers. I like them, but we have big differences as to which trees should be left standing.
But I do like hamsters. I’ve never owned one. I did have a gerbil for a while, which is pretty much a hamster with a tail.
Why April 12 as World Hamster Day? April 12, 1930 was the day zoologist Israel Aharoni went into a cornfield to look for Syrian hamsters. He caught thirteen. And that is where almost all of our current pet hamsters in the world come from. Today in the wild, Syrian hamsters are considered endangered. Although there are plenty of them rolling their balls around our houses.
As a bit of a hamster fan, I started looking up hamster information. I was a bit disappointed with the famous hamsters in pop culture. Most seemed to start out with the Hamster Dance in the 90s. Then there was the development of hamster racing in the U.K. There were a couple movies mentioned, but in my mind, they had missed the most famous hamster of all. Hammy. Then I realized most of the sites I was looking at were American. They probably had no idea about Hammy. Although his show was on in the U.S.
For those who may not remember Hammy, he starred in the show Tales of the Riverbank. The show was developed in Canada where a pilot was shot in 1959. The producers were turned down in Canada, so they ended up in Britain, where the show was picked up by BBC. There was Hammy and his friends Roderick the Water Rat, G. P. the Guinea Pig, Turtle, Wise Old Frog and others. They were real animals. They would put the animals along a little brook, let them run around, then make up stories about them. The show was repackaged later as Hammy the Hamster, but it ran for many years in reruns.
Hammy had quite a career. A TV star in Britain, then Canada and the United States. But he doesn’t seem to get the recognition he deserves. Really, Hammy should probably be right up there with the Friendly Giant, Mr. Dressup and Howard the Turtle. I know he was certainly a big part of my childhood. Although, honestly, I found the idea of small animals wandering around speaking in human voices a bit disturbing.
Hammy deserves more recognition. Maybe even a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame. Today, I can at least give him a salute on World Hamster Day.
