Yesterday, Sony finally announced that the Rolly, a 2GB digital music robot that “dances” to the music it plays, will be available in the U.S. later this spring. The Sony booth at CES has been absolutely crowded with people waiting to have a close look at this cross between R2-D2 and Ozone (from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo).

According to Sony, Rolly users will be able to program their own custom dance routines and then transfer them to the device via USB. The company anticipates that users will want to upload and share their routines online.

While lots of people have been waiting for this product, I can’t help but think that the Rolly is nothing more than a latter-day dancing Coke can or Big Mouth Billy Bass. Those earlier products “danced” to music and the Bass even “sang.”

Call me scrooge, but this video of the Rolly makes it seem so sickeningly cute that I want to drop it off a tall building just to see what happens.