Baby Yoda and The Mandalorian merch were held back to avoid premature delivery of spoilers

Baby Yoda (or, as Star Wars fans know, an infant of his mysterious species) has already made a splash online after his debut in Disney+’s The Mandalorian, but the cuteness — unlike seemingly every other cute thing under the Disney umbrella — isn’t yet available as, say, a stuffed plushie. What gives? Why isn’t snuggling up on that adorable green Gremlin a reality? Well, to hear it from some of the creative team behind the first live-action Star Wars show, it’s all in service of preserving the show’s secrets.

Creator/writer Jon Favreau and director Dave Filoni recently spoke on the adorable critter and the rest of The Mandalorian’s early reveals, saying that the merchandise team has been surprisingly lenient on letting the show itself break the news on new characters.

Take a look:

Yes, baby Yoda won’t be stuffing any stockings this year because his reveal as The Mandalorian’s first bounty was a secret that Favreau and team desperately wanted to keep. “I have to thank Disney and Lucasfilm,” the creator said, “because the way the cat usually gets out of the bag with that stuff is merchandising and toy catalogs and things like that. So they really backed us up.”

In order to keep the cutie’s plot importance close to the vest, they also needed Disney to forego plenty of easy cash in the merch department. “That requires a lot of restraint from the people who are footing the bill, saying they’re gonna hold back on certain things so that the public doesn’t know ahead of time,” Favreau said. “Part of that was holding back on some of the merchandise and holding back on some of the characters.”

That “holding back” now seems to have gone the way of Mace Windu: out the window. The official Star Wars Twitter account revealed the creature to the world — no Disney+ subscription required:

The cat (or Yoda) is completely out of the bag now...and not everyone is happy about the decision to spoil it after a seemingly arbitrary waiting period:

As for the rest of the internet? They just love that little guy:

The Mandalorian will have a new episode on Disney+ this Friday, Nov. 22.