By George & Josh Bate
Over a few since The Mandalorian and Grogu hit theaters and there are still previously undiscovered hidden details and easter eggs to feast on.
As recently confirmed on StarWars.com, Jon Favreau’s film features a hidden cameo appearance from a character who made his first canon appearance in Skeleton Crew.
In Janu’s Salt Bar, various creatures are kept in cages that hang from the ceiling and on the walls. One of these creatures is Fuzzball, a small and orange-haired fluffy creature. Fuzzball appeared in the Skeleton Crew episode “Way, Way Out Past the Barrier” in which he and other members of his species were captured by pirates and caged at a pet store on Borgo Prime. KB shares a cute moment with Fuzzball, after which the little guy is freed from captivity when SM-33 threw a Warthog attacker into the pet shop, inadvertently liberating Fuzzball from his cage.
It appears that freedom was short-lived for Fuzzball as he is one of the many exotic creatures that Imperial warlord Janu Coin has incarcerated on Shakari.
Interestingly, Fuzzball’s history dates all the way back to 1986. The character first appeared in Captain EO, a sci-fi musical short film written by George Lucas that was shown at several Disney Parks from 1986 to 1988. The 17-minute film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starred Michael Jackson, and also featured Fuzzball.
Say what you will about the work of Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni in Star Wars, but we’re huge admirers of their willingness to repurpose obscure, or even disliked, elements from Lucasfilm history into new canon stories. The most glaring example of this comes in the form of Rotta the Hutt, the son of gangster Jabba voiced by Jeremy Allen White in The Mandalorian and Grogu. Rotta was widely ridiculed in the derided 2008 animated film The Clone Wars, and yet 18 years later plays a prominent role in a live-action Star Wars film. You never know who’s going to pop up in a galaxy far, far away.