Ewoks (TV series)

Star Wars: Ewoks is an animated television series set in the Star Wars galaxy. It features the Ewok characters introduced in the sixth Star Wars film, Return of the Jedi. The series is set, beginning in the year 3.5 ABY, on the forest moon of Endor, mainly in an Ewok village. On the final episode, however, some scenes were set briefly in a Star Destroyer in space.

Produced by Nelvana on behalf of Lucasfilm, the series focuses on the adventures of Wicket W. Warrick and his friends on the forest moon of Endor shortly (3.5 ABY) before the Battle of Endor&mdash;and thus&mdash;before Return of the Jedi. The primary recurring villains are Morag the Tulgah Witch who had a personal grudge against the tribe's shaman, Master Logray, and the Duloks, a rival species that is related to the Ewoks.. Throughout its entire run, the series was broadcast on ABC, both by itself and later, as part of the Ewoks and Star Wars Droids Adventure Hour. The first season was advertised as simply Ewoks, but the second season was advertised as The All New Ewoks. The series lasted 35 episodes, divided into two seasons.

Characters
NB: Some of these individuals are actually Ewok deities rather than corporeal beings.
 * 3PO protocol droid
 * Arrows
 * Asha
 * Baga
 * Balloon vendor
 * Batcheela
 * Big Bert
 * Bobog
 * Bondo
 * Boogutt
 * Boogutt's brother
 * Boogutt's sister
 * Bothel
 * Bozzie
 * Brute
 * Chirita
 * Chief Chirpa
 * Chituhr
 * Chukha-Trok
 * Dancing Dibbles
 * Darling
 * Prince Delby
 * Dobah
 * Dragon Riders of Poolok
 * Dudes
 * King Elbo
 * Flower Queen
 * Giant insect friend of the Gupins
 * King Gorneesh
 * Gorphs
 * Gracca
 * Hoom
 * Hoona
 * Horville
 * Imperial droids
 * Queen Izrina
 * Jadru
 * Jinda (tribe)
 * Jinda Dancers
 * Kagles
 * Kaink
 * Admiral Kazz
 * Princess Kneesaa
 * Larry
 * Latara
 * Leaf Queen
 * Leeni
 * Life of the Party
 * Light Spirit
 * Logray
 * Lumat
 * Malani
 * Melmar the mystic
 * Messek
 * Mookiee
 * Mooth
 * Mooth's helpers
 * Morag
 * Mouse droid
 * King Mring-Mring
 * Murgoob, Dulok oracle
 * Nahkee
 * Night Spirit
 * Nippet
 * Norky
 * Norky's father
 * Norky's mother
 * O
 * Odra, Duchess of Sleet
 * Oobel
 * Orbo
 * Emperor Palpatine
 * Paploo
 * PD-28
 * Pilot droid
 * Poob
 * Princess of the Mudgub tribe
 * Princess of the Tinderbonks
 * The Pugs
 * King Punt
 * Dr. Raygar
 * The Raich
 * Ra-Lee
 * Rock Wizard
 * Ropna
 * Silky
 * Queen Slugga
 * Smasher
 * The Snake Eater
 * Snow King
 * Stormtroopers
 * The Stranger
 * Sun King
 * Tak
 * The Tambles
 * Teebo
 * Teebo's fish friend
 * The Totem Master
 * Totem Slaves
 * The Amazing Trebla
 * Trud
 * Tumblebunny trainer
 * The Two-headed Gonster
 * Umwak, the Dulok shaman
 * Umwak's nephew
 * Queen Urgah
 * Prince Vork
 * Vorshak
 * Deej Warrick
 * Erpham Warrick
 * Shodu Warrick
 * Weechee Warrick
 * Wicket W. Warrick
 * Willy Warrick
 * Winda Warrick
 * Wiley
 * Wizards of the Night Spirit
 * X
 * Yuzzum Warriors
 * Zarrak
 * Zephee
 * Zut

Locations

 * Aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer
 * Command center
 * Docking bay
 * Raygar's quarters
 * Recycling center
 * Arbo Maze
 * The blog's dam
 * The Bobog's lair
 * Bordok stables
 * Bright Tree Village
 * Bright Tree Village observatory
 * Cavern of Broken Dreams
 * Caves
 * Caves of Thunder
 * Cliffs
 * Coral Castle
 * Corrinas' cave
 * Dead Forest
 * Desert
 * Dulok village
 * Endorian Grasslands
 * Floating Mountain
 * Forest Moon of Endor
 * Froschs' den
 * Glop Pits
 * Gorphs' grotto
 * Grass Trekkers' shrine
 * Gupin stronghold
 * Happy Grove
 * Hive of the insect creatures
 * Horville's Hut of Horrors
 * Imperial Star Destroyer
 * Jadru's lair
 * Larry's tree
 * Lightning Forest
 * Lost temple
 * Mimph village
 * Molten Mountains
 * Moon to which the Wizards of the Night Spirit were banished
 * Moot's trading post
 * Mount Thunderstone
 * Mountain of Light
 * Obstacle course
 * Outer space
 * Palace of the insect creatures
 * The Raich's cave
 * Royal Hut
 * Snow Palace
 * Strutter village
 * Sun Palace
 * Swamp
 * Thorn Forest
 * Tree fort
 * Twin Hills
 * Vacant Valley
 * Valley of Floating Trees
 * Valley of the Lizard Warriors
 * Waterfall
 * Zarrak's lair

Organizations and titles

 * Council of Elders

Sentient species
''NB: Some of these species may actually be spirits from Ewok belief. For example, the Iceheads serve an Ewok deity known as the Snow King and thus may be figures of Ewok mythology themselves.''
 * Alligator-like creature
 * Armadillo-like creature
 * Bagpipe creature
 * Bantha
 * Bat-like creatures
 * Bee-like creature
 * Various birds
 * Birds with horns for bills
 * Blase tree goats
 * Blog
 * Bobber bird
 * Bordoks
 * Butterfly-like creatures
 * Chicken-like creatures
 * Corrinas
 * Dandelion Warriors
 * Dark fly
 * Dragon-like creatures
 * Duloks
 * Eodons
 * Ewoks
 * Ferret-like creatures
 * Fircle
 * Firefolk
 * Fish
 * Flower-like creature
 * Flying flowers
 * Fox-like creatures
 * Frog-like creatures
 * Froschs
 * Frost Sprites
 * Giant spider-like creature
 * Glop monster
 * Gonma
 * Gorphs
 * Grass Trekkers
 * Gubas
 * Gupins
 * Hanadaks
 * Hippopotamus-like creatures
 * Humans
 * Humming beavers
 * Hummingbird-like creatures
 * Iceheads
 * Various insect creatures
 * Jinda beasts of burden
 * Jinda menagerie creatures
 * Jitterbugs
 * Keets
 * Lantern birds
 * Lizard-like creatures
 * Lizard Warriors
 * Long-necked grasslands beasts
 * Luck Sprite
 * Makants
 * Mantigrue
 * Maramus
 * Marimals
 * Mimphs
 * Mole-like creature
 * Moosha
 * Morag's spider
 * Moss monster
 * Mudgubs
 * Munyips
 * Octopus-like creature
 * Phlogs
 * Porcupine-like creatures
 * Rakazzak beasts
 * Raichlings
 * Rat-like creatures
 * Ray-like creature
 * Reek worm
 * Reeps
 * Scuss
 * Shellfish-like creature
 * Shriek
 * Six-limbed creature
 * Skandits
 * Skibs
 * Slug-like creature
 * Snake-like creature
 * Snow monster
 * Sponge creature
 * Squid-like creature
 * Squirrel-like creatures
 * Strutters
 * Talking Tree
 * Tambles
 * Three-eared rabbit-like creature
 * Three-headed snake-like creature
 * Tinderbonk
 * Thunderbats
 * Tromes
 * Tulgah
 * Tumblebunnies
 * Turtle-like creature
 * Two-headed bird
 * Two-headed rat-like creatures
 * Umbrella-like creatures
 * Vrooms
 * Water creature
 * Whale-like creature
 * Wild grounder
 * Winged serpent creature
 * Woodpecker-like creature
 * Worms
 * Yuzzums
 * Zakool

Vehicles and vessels

 * Canoes
 * Carts
 * Dulok battleship
 * Escape capsule
 * Escape pod
 * Ewok battlewagon
 * Ewok catapult
 * Ewok hang gliders
 * Flying leaf
 * Kazz's Imperial I-class Star Destroyer
 * Palanquin
 * Palpatine's Lambda-class T-4a shuttle
 * Raygar's freighter
 * Raygar's repulsorcraft
 * Rafts
 * TIE Fighters
 * Vending cart
 * Zarrak's hang glider

Miscellanea

 * Acorns
 * Acorn paste
 * Aura blossom
 * Aura leaves
 * Beads of Bravery
 * Beauty potion
 * Belts of Honor
 * Blase trees
 * Blumfruit
 * Blumfruit tart
 * Bows and arrows
 * Bubble potion
 * Clubs
 * Cookies
 * Crocks
 * Crystal Cloak
 * Dangleberries
 * Dangleberry juice
 * Denga fat
 * Do-It-Yourself Warrior Kit
 * Dorg ear
 * Dream flower potion
 * Dried wank's hide
 * Drop the sack
 * Drum
 * Ewok Warrior Games
 * Fall Festival
 * Festival of Hoods
 * Fishing Festival
 * Floating trees
 * Fludge
 * Fungus of the rootna tree
 * Ganga root
 * Giant mushrooms
 * Gin-jang berries
 * Grappling hook
 * Great War between Ewoks and Duloks
 * Hanadak repellant
 * Harvest Festival
 * Hate potion
 * Ice-on-a-stick
 * Imperial trap
 * Itching powder
 * Jadru's crystal ball
 * Juniper Chest
 * Paploo's horn
 * Kagle family cold cure
 * Keet nectar
 * Kneesaa's anklet
 * Kneesaa's magic potion
 * Lantern of Sacred Light
 * Latara's flute
 * Light Dust
 * Light Festival
 * Loca spore
 * Logray's ceremonial wand
 * Logray's crystal ball
 * Logray's globe
 * Logray's magic top
 * Logray's plant-growth formula
 * Love potion
 * Magic cap
 * Magic foam
 * Magic lantern
 * Magic seed
 * Magic shoes
 * Monmon seeds
 * Morag's bug bite cure
 * Pearl of Patience
 * Poisonous mushroom-like plant
 * Prism pebbles
 * Prow carvings
 * Raygar's blaster
 * Ramba melon
 * Renewal Ceremony
 * Rootna tree
 * Ruling staff
 * Season Scepter
 * Shadow Night Festival
 * Shadowroot plant
 * Shadowroot soap
 * Shadowstone
 * Shampoo
 * Shrinkroot potion
 * Shrog bush
 * Silver Feathers of Bravery
 * Skills test
 * Slings
 * Slingshots
 * Soul Trees
 * Sparkle seeds
 * Spears
 * Spirit Tree
 * Staff of Power
 * Star urchin
 * Stranglethorn
 * Sunberries
 * Sunberry dust
 * Sunberry trees
 * Sunstar
 * Swamp pickles
 * Tala oats
 * Telescope
 * Three Lessons
 * Tibbet plant
 * Tree of Light
 * Trome sap
 * Umwak's hunting magic
 * Umwak's special glasses
 * Victoria
 * Warrior Council
 * Wish plant

Notable series details

 * For viewer ease, the dialogue is in English, rather than Ewokese, which was the native language of the Ewoks.
 * The first season of the show aimed for a more sophisticated style, but in the second, the writing style was geared toward a much younger audience, with less sophisticated characters.
 * In the series' final episode, the Imperials had discovered Endor, and several of the Ewoks stowed away on a Star Destroyer, but were returned to Endor safely after an evil Imperial attempted to steal the magical Ewok Sunstar stone and even dared to attack the Emperor with it. This event suggests that this led to the Empire choosing Endor to build the second Death Star around.
 * The series is a follow up to the two Ewok films: Caravan of Courage (1984) and The Battle for Endor (1985), which were themselves spin-offs of Return of the Jedi.
 * The Ewoks and the Droids cartoons are generally considered to have been fairly well-crafted compared to other Saturday morning animated series of the period. The shows featured visual designs that were original at the time. Both shows presented continuing story lines, which were uncommon among mid-80's Saturday morning shows.
 * A particularly thoughtful aspect of the first season was the fact that the debut episode was set in the late summer (coinciding with its September airdate). The weather seasons changed in harmony with North American seasonal changes that were occurring as the episodes aired.
 * Unlike the rest of the series, the last three episodes were originally aired out of story order. The correct order was "Party Ewok", "Malani the Warrior", and "Battle for the Sunstar", respectively. However, the episodes were originally aired in the order of "Battle for the Sunstar", "Party Ewok", and "Malani the Warrior". Storywise, the series ends with "Battle for the Sunstar", which depicts the Empire discovering the Endor moon, where it would later construct the second Death Star.
 * The episode "Battle for the Sunstar" re-aired separately on January 10, 1987, and that marked the official end of the series.
 * The title of the series' twelfth episode ("Blue Harvest") is a reference to the famous ruse used by Lucasfilm to maintain secrecy when shooting location scenes for Return of the Jedi.
 * Most episodes of the second season were aired together in pairs.
 * According to series animator Brian Lemay, after working on a few episodes, the animators at Nelvana grew a hatred for the Ewoks&mdash;particularly Wicket. As a result, a wall in the studio was devoted to drawings of Wicket being killed and mutilated in ways similar to that of the animated shorts of Happy Tree Friends. The wall, as called by one of the staff members, was called "the Wicket Wall".
 * In the early and mid 1990s, beginning in 1994, the US Sci-Fi Channel ran episodes of the series, along with those of its counterpart, Star Wars: Droids, on its "Cartoon Quest" and "Animation Station" blocks of programming.
 * Warwick Davis, the actor who portrayed Wicket in all of the character's live-action appearances, auditioned for the same role in the animated series, but was ultimately not given the role.
 * James Cranna is the only actor who participated in both the Ewoks films and animated series; He voiced the Ewok Widdle Warrick in Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, and voiced the Ewok Teebo in the second season of the Star Wars: Ewoks animated television series.
 * The series had two different opening sequences&mdash;one for each season. The first season opening featured a song by the American blues musician Taj Mahal, while the second season opening was, like the actual episodes, designed to be more kid-oriented. The second season featured the Ewoks singing a song about their friendship.

Merchandising
The Ewoks episodes referenced many previously-developed incarnations of the Ewoks and attempted to pull everything together into one plot. Characters from Return of the Jedi, the Ewok films, the storybooks, the coloring books, and the Kenner toys blended together thanks to the show's writers.

Tie-in books
Prior to the debut of the series, Joe Johnston wrote and illustrated an Ewok storybook titled The Adventures of Teebo, which formed the basis of the show. Among other things the book introduced the Duloks (who were originally much nastier than the bumbling Duloks in the TV series).

In 1984, Random House began publishing a series of children's books with the subtitle "An Ewok Adventure", which were meant to tie in to both the series and the film it spun off from, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure.

Comic book series
In 1986, Star Comics, an imprint of Marvel Comics published a bi-monthly Ewoks comic, which was based on the animated series. The comic ran for two years, ending with issue #14. Like the TV series, this was aimed towards a younger audience. It was produced along with the Droids comic, which was based on the Droids animated series. Issue #10 of Marvel Ewoks was a cross-over with Star Wars Droids 4: Lost in Time.

Toy line
In 1985, Kenner produced a toy line based on the series, including action figures, ship models, and other items. For more on the toy line, see this link.

Star Wars: Ewoks merchandise was offered at the Celebration IV Lucasfilm Licensing Archives auction, including a complete set of the rare Kenner action figures.

Home video releases


The series received its first home video release in 1990 when J2 Communications released The Star Wars Trilogy Animated Collection. The collection consisted of three VHS tapes; one tape contained one episode, while the other two tapes contained two episodes each&mdash;with one of those repeating the episode from the single-episode tape. Each tape began with a Star Wars Animated Classics trailer promoting the "Special Double Length Edition" volumes. However, for the single volume tapes, the white box covers were shown, but differing content was advertised. CBS/Fox Video also released the complete series on Region 2 VHS in the UK.

In 1997, Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox released an animated film, The Haunted Village, which was a compilation VHS of four episodes from the series. Fox created a commercial advertising the newly-edited film, along with its counterpart Droids animated film, The Pirates and the Prince. The commercial was included on the release, and was later hidden on the DVD release of The Pirates and the Prince. The initial shipments of the tapes were sent to many stores in a display bin that featured a Star Wars Animated Classics header. Several stores also received a merchandising kit with shelf danglers, shelf talkers, countertop displays, mobiles and buttons.

Star Wars: Ewoks was released on Region 1 DVD on November 23, 2004 as an edited compilation under the title Star Wars Animated Adventures: Ewoks. It contains eight episodes of the series, edited together as two full length films. Episodes 2, 1, 3, and 9 were edited together to make The Haunted Village (which was previously released on VHS in 1996 ), and Episodes 10, 5, 4, and 13 were edited together to make Tales from the Endor Woods. These compilation films were later released in several Region 4 countries, such as Brazil (the Brazilian edition was released in 2005 with the Region 1 and 4 Codes on the same disc) and Australia. The Pirates and the Prince combines four loosely-related episodes into one story, while Tales from the Endor Woods connects four seemingly unrelated stories via a voiceover by Alex Lindsay (digital effects artist for The Phantom Menace) intended to be an adult Wicket. The original opening credits and theme song are not included as part of the films, and were replaced with simple credit sequences and new scores by Marco D'Ambrosio.

The placement of the episodes in The Haunted Village causes several continuity errors; Chief Chirpa's campfire story at the beginning of the film was taken from the ninth episode, "Sunstar vs. Shadowstone". However, the rest of the ninth episode is presented as the final act of the film, in which Chirpa's story is said to have occurred the previous night. When taken as one continuous story, several nights have passed between the two sequences. Additionally, Malani gets her hood in the first episode, "The Cries of the Trees". However, since this episode is presented second in the film, we see Malani wearing her hood before she receives it. Another unrelated continuity error is when Paploo is seen playing his horn, but no sound can be heard by the viewer.

The entire original series has yet to be released on any home video format. However, some of the original episodes were released in the eighties and nineties on VHS. On June 26, 2002, prequel trilogy producer Rick McCallum responded to a question about a complete DVD release on StarWars.com's now defunct "Ask the Jedi Council" feature, in which he said "I hope so. Definitely. At some point after we're finished with Episode III, we'd really like to make all of that material available to our fans on DVD. Unfortunately, we won't be even thinking of making any firm plans until we're finished with this trilogy." However, in 2005, at McCallum's Celebration III "Spectacular", he and Lucasfilm's Vice President of marketing Jim Ward dodged questions about a complete DVD release of the series.

According to Steve Sansweet at 2007's Celebration IV, Lucas himself cut together the film versions from his favorite episodes. The 1996-1997 VHS releases were meant to present that, and for the 2004 DVD release, the DVD team assumed that the re-edits were what Lucas wanted on the DVD. Sansweet says that Lucasfilm has many materials they have yet to release that will be released in the coming years, and that with the upcoming animated and live-action series, a complete DVD release of Star Wars: Ewoks is possible if the fan support is there. In the meantime however, there are currently no plans to release the entire series on DVD.