Wookieepedia:April Fools Day' 2012/Chewbaacca

Chewbaacca was a clone of the Wookiee Chewbacca. He was created by the Chiss Grand Admiral Thrawn from a tissue sample taken from Chewbacca during the Wookiee's detainment by Ewoks on the Forest Moon of Endor in 4 ABY. At that time, an Ewok Imperial sympathizer named Kazak secretly yanked out a tuft of the Wookiee's fur as his tribe prepared to roast the Wookiee and friends over a fire. That act of subterfuge was done at the behest of Lieutenant Renz, an Imperial officer stationed at a bunker on the forest moon, who had promised Kazak that should he provide regular intelligence about the leaders of the Ewok's home settlement, Bright Tree Village, the Empire would eventually sponsor a coup to overthrow Chief Chirpa and install Kazak as the new tribal leader. Nevertheless, after Kazak smuggled the hair to Renz, the Imperial shot the Ewok dead to cover his tracks.

Although Renz was taken prisoner by Rebel Alliance forces during the Battle of Endor, he managed to stash the Chewbacca fur sample in a hidden compartment under the bunker before his capture. Renz sent off one last furtive message to the Imperial fleet about the fur before he finally went into Alliance custody. The Empire ignored the message, but it was saved in an Imperial databank. There it remained until 9 ABY, when Thrawn stumbled across it after taking the reigns of a newly resurgent Empire. He traveled to Endor to recover the fur, and with the help of a Dulok scout, he found the tissue sample still safely buried in the dirt at the sight of the 4 ABY battle.

Thrawn brought the hair to Mount Tantiss, the Emperor's hidden storehouse on the planet Wayland. There, Thrawn used Spaarti cloning cylinders to create a clone of the might Wookiee Chewbacca. Despite Thrawn's best efforts, employing the mad cloned Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth to speed the Wookiee clone's growth, the Chiss Grand Admiral had no idea what he had done. On one fateful night, Chewbaaca escaped.