Star Wars: Black Market Develops For Baby Yoda Toys

Despite being a series that was described as going to the dark corners of the galaxy far, far away, The Mandalorian debuted what is arguably one of the cutest things in the entire Star Wars franchise with the fan-favorite “Baby Yoda.” It was confirmed earlier this week that official toys and the like for the character will not be available in time for the 2019 holidays and will be released on story shelves sometime next year (some official merch does exist for the character, but leaves a lot to be desired). As some fans have taken it upon themselves to create their own Baby Yoda merch, the market for the character has exploded with some versions that look better than others.

In a new report from The NY Post, one Etsy user who has created crocheted versions of the character has been selling them for $49.95. They’ve become enough of a best seller for her that she can no longer meet the demand for them ahead of Christmas.

“To be honest, this has gotten bigger than I ever imagined,” Trisha Jopson told The Post. “While my kids are all grown for the most part, I didn’t know how I was going to make Christmas happen this year. This has saved our Christmas.”

Other felt versions have been produced online by fans, one nightmarish version of the character appears to just be a monkey doll with Yoda ears glued to its head and a tiny robe covering it. The asking price for the doll sits at $599, and it appears no one has bitten the bullet and clicked ‘Add to cart’ just yet. Another smaller felt Yoda is also available with a slightly bigger one with a more traditional Yoda face up for grabs too.

The reason behind the lack of “Baby Yoda” merch is simple, albeit surprising from a corporation like The Walt Disney Company, they wanted to preserve the secrecy of the character’s inclusion in the story by making sure it didn’t leak in the worst possible way.

“I have to thank Disney and Lucasfilm, because the way the cat usually gets out of the bag with that stuff is merchandising and toy catalogs and things like that,” series creator Jon Favreau recently explained. “So they really back us up. We really wanted to have it be that you had to watch it yourself, so that every time you watch the show, there are new twists and secrets that come out. 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. Part of that was holding back on some of the merchandise and holding back on some of the characters.”

The Mandalorian‘s first season will debut new episodes weekly on the Disney+ platform, with new episodes typically arriving every Friday on the service, except for episode 6 which will be released on Wednesday, December 18 (ahead of the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). The season one finale for The Mandalorian will debut on Friday, December 27, with season two already officially in the works at Lucasfilm and Disney+.

The Mandalorian‘s first season features episodes directed by Deborah Chow, Rick Famuyiwa, Dave Filoni, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Taika Waititi. The series stars Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian), Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, Werner Herzog, Nick Nolte, Emily Swallow, Taika Waititi, Omid Abtahi, and Giancarlo Esposito.

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