Werner Herzog became the protective father figure Baby Yoda never knew he needed when he rebuked The Mandalorian filmmakers on set for considering to replace the puppet with a CGI version of the character.

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An Adorable Gallery of Baby Yoda 26 IMAGES

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According to Vanity Fair , Herzog could not hide his contempt when he spotted Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni removing the pint-sized, pointy-eared puppet from the set in order to reshoot the scene in case they decided to substitute the puppet for a digital surrogate in post-production."You are cowards," he apparently said. "Leave it."The Force was clearly strong between Herzog and the Baby, as Deborah Chow, who directed the third episode of the Star Wars spinoff series , recalled the actor's fondness for the tiny tyke, indicating that it became one of the greatest unions on the set."I had a day with one of the weirdest moments I've ever had directing," she told the outlet. "I was directing Werner with the puppet, and Werner had just fallen in love with the baby. Werner, I think, had forgotten it wasn't actually a live creature, and started sort of… directing the baby."Werner is talking to the baby as if it was a real thing. And I'm trying to direct Werner. And I'm just like, 'How did I get here? How did my life end up like this?'"Chow went on to explain how Baby Yoda fever spread quickly across the set and the only prescription was more Baby Yoda, as she admitted, "It was pretty magical", saying, "You could feel it on set. You have everybody from Werner Herzog to grips and gaffers getting moved by it. Every time we brought it on set, people would be melting."In our review of Episode 3 , 'The Sin', we said, "the fascinating (if still tantalizingly cryptic) reveals about Mandalorian culture, along with the subtle clues about Baby Yoda's mysterious past keep the story moving along at a brisk pace."If you, like us, want to further fuel your Baby Yoda obsession, take a look at our Yoda and Yaddle species explainer , feast your eyes on this Baby Yoda concept art , and rejoice at this round-up of amazing fan art for the smol, green frog-eating tot

Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter