Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!
Team Mandalorian were ready for a Baby Yoda/Gremlins smackdown: ‘Okay, bye Gizmo’
Are you Team Baby Yoda or Team Gizmo? A battle between the cute and cuddly characters found in The Mandalorian and Gremlins was brewing from the day that Star Wars maven Jon Favreau cooked up the meme-worthy concept of the Child.
Speaking with Empire for the magazine's newly released April issue, Pedro Pascal (who plays the titular Mandalorian, aka Din Djarin) recalled how he was one of the first people to see Baby Yoda in sketch form.
"I saw Baby Yoda in those pictures and I remember thinking, 'Okay, bye, Gizmo.' [I thought,] 'People are going to lose their minds over that,'" admitted the actor.
While Disney CEO Bob Iger claims to have been reprimanded by Favreau for using the term "BY" in an email, the series creator really doesn't mind the title fans have given the Force-using toddler, whose true name and species are still a mystery.
"It's completely understandable that people refer to it as Baby Yoda," Favreau said, not referring to the character by a specific genre. "If I was making Scott tissues and you were calling them Kleenex, what are you gonna do? Baby Yoda belongs to the public now."
He's right. The phrase is so popular that Dictionary.com recently made it an official addition to the canon of American slang. We're in so deep that it'll be hard to accept what the baby (it's actually 50 years old when we first meet it in the pilot episode) is actually called.
"It'll be interesting to see how his actual name is adopted because I think he'll always be Baby Yoda," added Favreau, who also shed some light on that viral photo of George Lucas swaddling the Baby Yoda puppet on set.
"It was really cool because I hadn't seen [George] since the show's been out," explained Favreau, who serves as writer, showrunner, and executive producer. "He was watching and giving notes and clarifying things. I love him, hearing him talk. He definitely let us know what he's thinking."
The complete first season of The Mandalorian (eight episodes in total) is currently streaming on Disney+. Already in active production, Season 2 of the hit show debuts this fall.
Gizmo will have a chance to wrest his cuteness title back from Baby Yoda when Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai premieres on HBO Max.
