Star Wars Galactic Pals

Star Wars Galactic Pals is an animated micro-series that premiered on April 12, 2022, on StarWarsKids.com and YouTube.
==Official description==
A spinoff of the adventures of the droid SF-R3 ("Aree") in Star Wars Galaxy of Creatures, Galactic Pals joins M1-RE ("Miree"), another member of the Galactic Society of Creature Enthusiasts, as she looks after and studies ornery Ortolans, fussy Hutts, scavenging Jawas, and more creatures and aliens aboard the Youngling Care Space Station.
==Development==
Building off of the success of Star Wars Galaxy of Creatures, Jason Stein, the creative executive in Animation Development and Production, and the production team saw an opporunity to show younglings in a new series. They decided that caring for young creatures and aliens would require a specialized member of the Society to handle them, and this led to the creation of Miree and her camera droid CAM-E.
Miree was voiced by voice actor Mo Beatty. She finished recording for the series the week before March 10, 2022. Beatty said that voicing Miree was a dream come true, and she was very happy that she got to voice her.
==Release==
On April 14, 2022, the show was announced, and the first two episodes, "Wookiee" and "Ewok," were released on YouTube and StarWarsKids.com. Two episodes premiered on April 19 and April 26. The series then took a hiatus until later in the year to continue the other six episodes until the series met its 12-episode season. A compilation of the first six episodes was released on Youtube on May 4. The first six episodes were also released on Disney Kids and Disney Junior on May 4.
==Merchandise==
StarWars.com announced that Lucasfilm Ltd. and Mattel Plush collaborated to create a line of plush toys to debut alongside the premiere of the series. Denise Wong, the senior manager of Mattel Plush, said that from the beginning, they knew they wanted to create a styling that was cute and provided a fun play pattern. The main goal was to make the plush toys feel as lifelike as a real youngling and to enable kids and fans to form relationships with the plush toys that focus on caring and caretaking. Brian Merten, the senior manager of Product Design of Disney Consumer Products, said that they pushed themselves towards plush toys that looked cute, as well as appearing inviting and endearing, in addition to feeling authentic to Star Wars. Wong said that they tried several approaches before they settled on a look that they were satisfied with and they believed would work with the wide range of Star Wars characters. The design team came up with almost 80 sketches before they settled on a look that everyone liked, and the design was tweaked during the prototyping phase.
The team fine-tuned the scale and proportions of the several iterations, and they imagined how each plush would feel in a child's hand or when being cuddled. The design team decided to use soft plastic or fabric for the heads and they settled on the best overall size and body proportions. Merten said that getting the eyes right was one of the hardest and worthwhile struggles. The final aesthetic blended chibi and cartoonish styles and featured expressive eyes and warm smiles. Lucasfilm and Mattel wanted fans to form a caretaker-like connection with their plush, so each plush comes with a satchel.
==Episodes==
Episode	Image	Title 	Original Airdate
1 	 	"Wookiee" 	April 12, 2022
2 	 	"Ewok" 	April 12, 2022
3 	 	"Jawa" 	April 19, 2022
4 	 	"Rodian" 	April 19, 2022
5 	 	"Gamorrean"	April 26, 2022
6 	 	"Huttlet" 	April 26, 2022
7 	 	"Tauntaun" 	October 18, 2022
8 	 	"Rancor" 	October 18, 2022
9 	 	"Porgs" 	October 25, 2022
10 	 	"Ortolan" 	October 25, 2022
11 	 	"Gungan" 	November 1, 2022
12 	 	"Loth-Cat" 	November 1, 2022
==Sources==
==Notes and references==
 
Galactic Pals