Baby Yoda Merchandise to Debut Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season

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Purchase Baby Yoda toys, you will.

Fans of the breakout character from the Disney Plus series “The Mandalorian” have been surprised that there was no merchandise pegged to the character available upon the launch of the show, given that the Christmas shopping season is rapidly approaching.

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But according to an individual with knowledge of the situation, that is about to change. Disney is preparing to release a number of products all tied to the character, who is officially referred to simply as The Child at this point. Those products include apparel and accessories and will be available within days, with two T-shirts (see below) already for sale on Amazon. Amazon, Kohls, Target, Macys, Hot Topic, BoxLunch, and Zazzle will all carry the upcoming merch, as will Disney Stores, shopDisney, and Disney theme parks. In addition, fans will be able to pre-order toys and a plush toy sometime in the next few weeks. More products are expected to debut within months.

The initial lack of merchandise is said to have been a creative decision, with “Mandalorian” creator Jon Favreau saying that he asked Disney to hold off marketing the character in order to preserve the surprise at the end of the show’s first episode.

“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,” Favreau said in a red carpet interview with Entertainment Tonight. “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.”

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