No yolk: Sanrio’s Gudetama goods include stickers, pens -- and egg cups

Sanrio’s new Gudetama, the lazy egg character -- which our Food section colleague Jenn Harris first told you about last month -- made its stateside debut earlier this week.

Launched April 28 via a dedicated character page at Sanrio’s website, the character appears to be the company’s take on the unmotivated couch potato (the name Gudemata comes from the Japanese word for lazy: gude gude). The merchandise includes the kind of things fans of Hello Kitty’s parent company have come to expect: stickers featuring Gudetama snuggling under a strip of bacon ($1), tote bags depicting the golden glob kicking back in the half shell ($25) and iPhone cases shaped like slices of host toast to a sunny-side-up Gudetama ($26).

But the item that made us chuckle the hardest -- and then immediately feel bad about it -- is a bright yellow ceramic egg cup ($12) covered with cartoons of the cavorting cholesterol character. First of all, talk about sending mixed messages about playing with your food. Second of all, it feels a little bit like egg-on-egg crime. After all, would Disney Consumer Products slap Mickey Mouse on a mouse trap? Or Donald Duck on bottles of duck sauce? We think not.

Nonetheless, we’ve sort of taken a shine to Gudetama and we’re betting plenty of folks will shell out the money for the recently launched products -- and additional ones the company has promised will follow.

In the meantime, you can keep abreast of the basking breakfast food’s every move through Facebook or its Japanese-language Twitter feed.

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