Something to help show that 2020 was not a complete disaster.

With the year we have endured being a complete tire fire in a rolling dumpster pushed into a ravine and crashing into a polluted chemical pond filled with sceptic needles and radioactive murder hornets, people have saught solace in media and culture where they could. Streaming exploded and Disney became one of the bigger players, by design. Their platform now boasts nearly 90 million subscribers, much of that boosted by its excellent series with a breakout character.

Grogu.

The Star Wars series ‘’The Mandalorian’’ has become more than just a hit – it has resuscitated a flagging franchise. The last 3 entries in the Star Wars canon have been deeply divisive with fans and, while still being money making entries, they fell short of the success of the prior films. Add in the dismal failure of ‘’Solo’’ and many felt a disturbance in The Force. Jon Favreau has been the driving creative mind behind ‘’The Mandalorian’’ and he has hit all the right notes, to such an extent that Disney has reinvigorated talks of expansion.

 At the site WeGotThisCovered they cite one source who states there is the plan in the works to make a stand alone Baby Yoda series on Disney Plus. That show will likely not surface however until about 2022. This is a seemingly inevitable decision, given the wild popularity of the character and Disney’s propensity to monetize as much of the series as they can. But this also underscores exactly how much faith they have placed in Favreau and how much control he wields.

 WGTC mistakenly declares that Disney was caught off guard last year by the popularity of Baby Yoda/The Child/Grogu once ‘’The Mandalorian’’ debuted. This was based on the fact that there had been so few products available last Christmas featuring the character. In truth this was by design. Favreau intentionally kept a lid on revealing the character before the show debuted in November 2019. 

His desire to reveal Grogu on his own terms meant that licensing had to be tamped down, because advance production on product lines would have inevitably led to leaks. So this holiday you have seen the character fully exploited on new items — and its delayed announcement of a series. It is backlogged slightly behind the prior announced series, with ‘’Obi Wan’’ a long in the works entry, and the culmination of season 2 leading into the next iteration, ‘’The Book of Boba Fett’’.

In the interim though The Child should be featured prominently before its own backstory series is rolled out. Meanwhile, look under your tree; there is a likelihood you’ll have received an item that will tide you over in the meantime.

Merry Christmas to all, or- if you are if the persuasion – Merry Life Day! pic.twitter.com/RxX5o75KM9

— Brad Slager Mail-splaining and Voter Resignation (@MartiniShark) December 25, 2020