Continue petting it assiduously.

April 29, 2014 6:41 AM

How to Make Thin Hamster (SLYT)
posted by overeducated_alligator (46 comments total)

Alternate method.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:46 AM on April 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

I won't lie, I was expecting something more along the lines of this.
posted by Hermione Granger at 6:48 AM on April 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

Where do its bones go??
posted by Mizu at 6:54 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Adding to the List of Things That Apparently Calm Me Down: watching someone pet a hamster until it's thin.

I was glad to see it was still breathing at the end - I was concerned that the "one minute later" frame glossed over "petting" it with a rolling pin.

(Also Evil Owl is amazing!)
posted by billiebee at 6:54 AM on April 29, 2014

He is alive. Please watch his body carefully 1:48~.
　His body goes up and down by breathing.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:55 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've always heard that rodents can fit themselves through all kinds of spaces. Rats can wriggle themselves through a hole the size of a quarter.

But I had no idea hamsters could turn to goo like Alex Mack and seep under doors.
posted by phunniemee at 6:58 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

So, they bred boneless hamster? Perfect for satay!
posted by Thorzdad at 6:59 AM on April 29, 2014

what did i just watch
posted by Kitteh at 7:03 AM on April 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

How do you titillate an ocelot?
posted by jwhite1979 at 7:06 AM on April 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

The fuck?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:07 AM on April 29, 2014

It melted? How is hammster formed?
posted by Iosephus at 7:11 AM on April 29, 2014 [5 favorites]

Thin sure, but now the width is a problem.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:18 AM on April 29, 2014 [11 favorites]

That's why you store them on end.
posted by jquinby at 7:31 AM on April 29, 2014

Alternate method.
posted by Slap*Happy

Not sure I want to open that link. I'm really hoping it's not eponytragical.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 7:33 AM on April 29, 2014 [6 favorites]

"Thin sure, but now the width is a problem."

And surface area. Good thing the hamster is in good warm hands.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 7:39 AM on April 29, 2014

Anyone who's thought about it for more than a moment has surely realized that any satisfactory theory of hamsters requires exactly 26 spacetime dimensions.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:50 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Such thin, very hamster. Wow.
posted by Chutzler at 7:54 AM on April 29, 2014 [8 favorites]

Not sure I want to open that link. I'm really hoping it's not eponytragical.

If you must know, this was a segment that originally featured on the BBC, and probably appeared on your local PBS affiliate. The demonstrator is a former movie actor who has had several critically acclaimed documentaries air on the BBC in the UK, and the Travel Channel and History Channel in the US.

You can trussssssssst me.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:55 AM on April 29, 2014 [13 favorites]

I use the same method to make long dog, but I don't make videos.
posted by Mittenz at 8:05 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would try this on my hamster, but right now he is sleeping in his little hut, and disturbing that is a good way to make Hissing Angry Hamster.

All hamsters are grumpy old men in tiny cute rodent bodies. HARRUMPH. GOOD DAY TO YOU, HUMAN.

Maybe I can coax him out with a bran flake.
posted by cmyk at 8:11 AM on April 29, 2014 [8 favorites]

It's a cookbook!
posted by univac at 8:25 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

That doesn't work as well on creatures with a higher melting point. Here's a record of one of my attempts.
posted by moonmilk at 8:37 AM on April 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

I admit I imagined failed/alternate methods, and that all those attempts had tragic results, except for "extra time on tiny treadmill", which made for scrawny hamster, rather than flat hamster.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 8:39 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

its just a hocktical illusion
posted by fistynuts at 9:07 AM on April 29, 2014

It helps that the person doing the petting seems to have very delicate hands. A video of me and my clumsy mitts trying this would probably end with an equally flat hamster but a much sadder ending.

I use the same method to make long dog, but I don't make videos.

I read this as "long dong", which would have been disturbingly appropriate.
posted by Room 641-A at 9:14 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

Perfect for skipping hamsters on the lake.
posted by Kabanos at 9:30 AM on April 29, 2014 [7 favorites]

Sorta off topic, but "Evil Owl" looks a lot to me like "Sickly Owl". Like, "You REALLY Don't Want To Eat Me, I'll Probably Give You Some Disease Owl", which makes a lot of sense, evolutionally.
posted by Imperfect at 9:35 AM on April 29, 2014

and that all those attempts had tragic results, except for "extra time on tiny treadmill"

Actually, extra time on the hamster wheel might do it, if sufficient g-forces are achieved.
posted by Kabanos at 9:40 AM on April 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

Aw. Cute!
posted by zarq at 9:47 AM on April 29, 2014

"Perfect for skipping hamsters on the lake."

Precisely! It's because they deform so easily from roughly spherical to that nearly flat oblate spheroid, while also being relatively close to the density of water.

I bet that hamster would bounce three or four times across thirty yards of open water. Providing it remained so deeply mellow throughout the experience.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 10:02 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

You can do something similar with the right variety of cat.
posted by kafziel at 10:04 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

what did i just watch
posted by Kitteh

i thought this was "the devourer and the devoured" post

but i am also a kitty

sometimes i get this flat to go under the bed when i want to hide from humans who try to pet me like that *shudder*
posted by Susu pitchounette at 10:06 AM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

I tried this but, instead of thin hamster, I gained four pounds.
posted by Foam Pants at 12:15 PM on April 29, 2014

I have not forgotten the Rule Of Cute Animals: here is Myshka the Mousebear.
posted by cmyk at 12:52 PM on April 29, 2014

Hamtaro pancake!
posted by divabat at 2:47 PM on April 29, 2014

Hamcake!! This method also work on guinea pigs, though they get less flat and more blobbular.
posted by sarcasticah at 5:46 PM on April 29, 2014 [1 favorite]

That is not thin it is flat. Completely different.
posted by tinkletown at 6:44 PM on April 29, 2014

Not to be fat-shaming rodents or anything, but that hamster still looks kinda pudgy to me.
posted by drlith at 7:09 PM on April 29, 2014

It is so, so thin.
posted by Drexen at 7:12 PM on April 29, 2014

Thin hamster is thin.

(Has the ____ is ____ meme been done to death yet?)
posted by BlueHorse at 7:33 PM on April 29, 2014

Our last hamster was of the Black Bear variety, his name was Taz. He loved playing Flat Hamster, to the point of fluffing himself back up again and staring pointedly if the pettinz ceased for too long.
posted by MissySedai at 11:04 PM on April 29, 2014 [2 favorites]

I really liked the triumphal music. It really increased how epic the thinness of the hamster seemed.
posted by NoraReed at 12:18 AM on April 30, 2014 [2 favorites]

Seems like it's not as much "thin" as it's "resting mostly in the petter's cupped hand leaving the top mostly flat".
posted by ymgve at 4:39 AM on April 30, 2014

How to make fat hamster.
posted by rory at 5:27 AM on April 30, 2014

Fat hamster makes self thin, with bonus ESPN color commentary.
posted by drlith at 6:36 AM on April 30, 2014

All hamsters are grumpy old men in tiny cute rodent bodies. HARRUMPH. GOOD DAY TO YOU, HUMAN.

Maybe I can coax him out with a bran flake.

Maybe the hamster's grumpy from too much fiber in the diet?
posted by radwolf76 at 1:31 PM on May 3, 2014