Meerkat Toys

Unless you've been living on Mars for the past year, you will have experienced Meerkat mania sweeping the nation...

These little critters have been popping up all over the TV, from the Compare the Meerkat advert (simples!) to the BBC's Meerkat Manor... we can't get enough of them.

Well now you can own your very own Aleksandr complete with cheeky face and soft fluffy fur.

He is handmade, stands 12 inches tall, and is on the look out for a new loving owner.

Now you can compare your very own Meerkat, simples!

Suitable for big kids over 12 months old.

We can deliver "meerkat" to the UK, Europe, North America.

Buy Meerkat Toys

Meerkat £9.99 - Simples!

WITH their adorable furry faces and their quizzical demeanour it is not surprising the world is in the grip of meerkat mania. These upstanding citizens of the Kalahari desert have burrowed their way into the public's affections with their inquisitive charm and charisma. Everywhere you look these little guys with the big hearts and comical expressions are staring back at us from billboards, cinema screens and adverts. Shops are crammed full of furry meerkat toys, ornaments and calendars - there is even a series of Christmas cards featuring the cute critters in Santa hats. But when did this madness begin? The meerkats' star has reached new heights but the animals first peered into our lives 20 years ago when David Attenborough introduced us to them in Meerkats United.

Buy Meerkat Toys Meerkat £9.99- Seemples! Cheap Meerkat toys

And four years ago film makers revisited the furry phenomenon in Meerkat Manor, the story of the Whiskers, one of more than a dozen families of meerkats in the Kalahari.

But there is one personality that has done more to propel the meerkat into the celebrity stratosphere than any wildlife documentary.

You will probably know him by the one-word catchphrase: "Seemples!" Aleksandr Orlov, the computergenerated Russian aristocrat with a thick accent and a smoking jacket, appears in a series of TV ads for comparethemarket.com The fluffy creature with the raised eyebrow has mastered the impossible - he's made car insurance interesting.

The advert features the upper-class meerkat, complaining that people are swamping comparethemeerkat. com, by typing the wrong address into their internet browser. The use of a meerkat in the adverts, which have nothing to do with car insurance, has seen the animals rocket in popularity.

.Visitor numbers to the site have shot up by80 per cent since the first advert premiered in Januaryand fans arenow anxious to know where they eat can buy a toy version of the Russian mammal.

Aleksandr now has nearly as many followers on Twitter as Kylie and more than half a million fans have befriended him on Facebook.

In the latest ads, Orlov is joined by his web technician, Sergei, a veteran of the Soviet space programme. As well as having fleas and making tea for Aleksandr, the former "Mir-kat space station" technician is in charge of putting bubbles in his Jacuzzi.

One of Scotland's top advertising agency bosses insists it is the use of the heartwarming meerkats that makes the ads so special.

Gerry Farrell, creative director at The Leith Agency in Edinburgh, said: "The advert is a roaring success because it ticks a lot of boxes.

"Aleksandr is a meerkat and everyone loves a meerkat.

And he's not cute and cuddly, like a Disney character.

of or The other thing that makes it memorable is that Aleksandr has a funny accent people will imitate down the pub. Look at Churchill the talking dog.

millipedes.

Buy Meerkat Toys Meerkat £9.99- Seemples! Cheap Meerkat toys

Buy Meerkat Toys Meerkat £9.99- Seemples! Cheap Meerkat toys

There's a catchphrase in the ad and people love catchphrases."

Aleksandr has proved so popular that the agency behind the campaign have been asked by a record company about making a single.

There are also rumours the Russian marvel is to be given a Jonathan Rossstyle chat show, with his first guest being James Bond star Daniel Craig.

Keepers at Blair Drummond Safari Park near Stirling admit their meerkats are drawing big crowds at their sanctuary.

Warden Gavin Hughes said: "The meerkats are quickly becoming the most popular animals in the park.We had to build a new enclosure to satisfy demand and all the kids are spending more time watching the meerkats than the lions or tigers.

"We are convinced it has something to do with Aleksandr Orlov as often, when I'm wandering past, I hear visitors doing impressions and muttering seemples."

Blair Drummond, Calderglen Country Park, Lanarkshire, and the Five Sisters Zoo Park,West Lothian, all have meerkat exhibits.

And, thanks to cuddly Timon in Disney's The Lion King, meerkats have already had exposure on the silver screen. That is set to continue this year with the release of two bigbudget Hollywood films.

Meerkats - The Movie, narrated by the late Paul Newman, will go head to head with Meerkat Manor, narrated byWhoopi Goldberg and featuring theWhiskers colony that starred in the television series of the same name. The adorable creatures, it seems, are now bound to tickle our imaginations for a long time to come.

MEER FACTS

PART of the mongoose family, meerkats inhabit the rusty sands of the Kalahari in southern Africa. .They live in highly social clans or gangs of about 20 animals. .They eat insects, lizards and snakes by day and sleep in huddles by night. .Sometimes they will eat millipedes.

MEER FACTS

Fictional meerkats include Timon from The Lion King and Aleksander Seemples Orlov .Alpha females can give birth to up to 70 pups, usually producing litters of three. Other females are forbidden from reproducing for the good of the clan.

MEER FACTS meerkat toys can't be made quick enough to satisfy the Xmas demand

Standing on their hind legs, they use their tails for support as they take it in turns to scan the horizon for predators. .They live in burrows, which they use for sleeping, breeding and protection