From his first appearance, The Mandalorian's Baby Yoda immediately joined the ranks of Star Wars' most recognizable and lovable characters. While fans still don't know his real name, they do know that Baby Yoda is a good-natured tyke with abilities in the Force that live up to his species' reputation, as well as the power to feature in just about any type or topic of meme that exists. All pretty impressive for a character who, despite being about 50 years old, has the communication skills of a toddler.
However, there's one accolade that Baby Yoda cannot claim: Star Wars' original adorable baby sidekick. This accomplished goes to Rotta the Hutt, the favorite son of Tatooine's premier gangsta and aspiring Empire bigshot, Jabba.
Rotta the Hutt doesn't feature a whole lot on screen or in print in the Star Wars universe. He exclusively appears in content related to the Clone Wars, with our main look at the baby Hutt coming in the animated movie version of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which covers the time elapsed between episodes II and III.
In the movie, the future heir to the Hutt empire is kidnapped. The Jedi are enlisted by Yoda, on the request of Jabba, to track down and return Rotta. The whole scheme was devised by Count Dooku and Ziro, Rotta's great-uncle, in an attempt to doublecross and discredit the Jedi Knights in the eyes of Jabba and the Hutt council. Luckily for Rotta and future Hutt-Republic relations, though, the little emperor was successfully rescued from his capture on planet Teth by Anakin Skywalker and his padawan, Ahsoka Tano.
Rotta also appears in the Clone Wars Legends novel based on the same plot, as well as a young reader Clone Wars companion book called Operation: Huttlet. Rotta makes another small appearance in the episode "Sphere of Influence" from the animated The Clone Wars TV series, and that's pretty much all fans have seen of him so far.
Ok, so maybe Rotta is not quite as cute as Baby Yoda. The slime doesn't do him any favors, and based on what we know about his dad, he probably doesn't smell too great. But, his wide eyes and friendly, frog-like features do compete with Baby Yoda's black pupils and twitching ears -- and both characters make use of nifty baby carriers to get around. Rotta's version of Baby Yoda's egg-shaped pod is a decidedly lower-tech GAR backpack, used by Skywalker and friends as a practical way to stow the weakened Huttlet during his rescue.
However, when they stack up against each other, Rotta and Baby Yoda both bring some much-needed innocence and cuteness into the troubled galaxy. While fans are set to learn more about Baby Yoda in the next installment of The Mandalorian, Rotta seems to have faded into the background, along with his family's criminal empire. It would be nice to find out what Huttlet has been up to in the decades years since the Clone Wars -- and whether the now grown-up Tatooine royalty has any plans to rekindle his clan's golden age.