• Business Week, Forbes, Detroit Free Press, Thursday, December 10, 2009 1:19 PM

When a Web site claimed that Cepia's hot-selling Zhu Zhu Pets contained high levels of antimony, CEO Russell Hornsby immediately did all the right things to contain the potentially crippling news, Christopher Palmeri reports. He signed a crisis communications firm, published the company's own product test results, "and even asked his 23-year-old daughter, Natalie, to go on television and radio defending the hamsters."

When the Consumer Product Safety Commission quickly said that the product was safe, the day was saved with hardly a ruffled hair on Mr. Squiggles' fur. "We are not experiencing product returns," says Toy "R" Us spokesperson Kathleen Waugh. One reason may be , of course, that Zhu Zhu Pets were already in short supply, Palmeri points out.

Writing in Forbes, Medialand columnist Trevor Butterworth blames a lazy and gullible press corps. "All it would have taken is a phone call or an e-mail to a toxicologist to confirm that Good Guides' (the Website that issued the report) warning was groundless."

Meanwhile, Free Press columnist Susan Tompor is reading a lot more into the Zhu Zhu phenomenon than many others: "I've got a hunch," she says, "that Zhu Zhu is one tiny sign that some recession-torn consumers are scurrying back to doing what consumers do best -- running down those aisles to spend money and not always on things that they absolutely need."

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