Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian has enjoyed a place as a bastion of hope among Disney’s much more divisive Star Wars films, thanks to solid yet subtle character writing, impactful, yet restrained visual direction and most of all: Baby Yoda. This adorable infant of the famous Jedi Master’s unnamed race has been one of the strongest characters in the show given his unprecedented force power to melt viewers’ hearts thanks to his adorable design and memorable moments.
This jolly green not-so-giant has escaped the confines of The Mandalorian and invaded the popular consciousness through memes, reaction images and fan groups. But the world’s most adorable future Jedi has been curiously absent from the Star Wars franchise’s famously enormous catalog of licensed toys. Until now.
Custom stuffed-animal design store Build-A-Bear Workshop has announced a new partnership with Lucasfilm to adapt The Child, as he’ll be officially dubbed, into one of their famous cuddly friends.
“I’m excited to share we will be one of the first companies to provide the digital and internet phenomenon, who is trending higher than all the presidential candidates combined,” announced Build-A-Bear CEO Sharon Price John during the ICR Conference in Orlando Florida. “We now will have The Child, also known as Baby Yoda.”
A passionately positive response has followed the announcement, most apparent when looking at Build-A-Bear Workshop’s stock prices, which have risen over 15% at the time of writing. This revelation comes after several successful partnerships between Build-A-Bear Workshop and Disney. Most humorously a plush of multi-murdering Marvel supervillain Thanos to tie into the release of Avengers: Endgame last year, which has most likely further boosted the anticipation for The Child’s release.
Speaking of which, the stuffed alien will be hitting Build-A-Bear Workshop stores at a presently unannounced time in 2020. As for Baby Yoda himself, fans can look forward to seeing him again in The Mandalorian season 2, which has already entered production and will see a release this fall.
