There are three reasons to present ten facts about Yoda today. Firstly, it’s the birthday of Frank Oz, the puppeteer who played him. Secondly, it’s the anniversary of the day Star Wars was first shown in 1977, and thirdly, the anniversary of the day The Return of the Jedi, opened in the US in 1983.
That said, Yoda wasn’t in the first Star Wars film, but made his first appearance in The Empire Strikes Back. Which was initially going to be his only appearance. George Lucas envisaged him training Luke and then vanishing back into obscurity on his swamp planet. However, in pre-production of Return of the Jedi a child psychologist advised that kids under 12 wouldn't accept the twist that Darth Vader is Luke’s father unless it was made a lot clearer. Yoda was the character chosen to confirm Luke’s parentage.
Yoda could have been very different from the little Green creature we’re all familiar with, based on some of Lucas’s early ideas. He could have ended up as a massively tall, bearded Blue creature called Buffy, wearing a silly hat. Or he could have been portrayed on screen by a Monkey in a Yoda mask.
Having been talked out of calling the character Buffy, Lucas suggested "Minch Yoda", but in the end decided he should have just the one name as that would add to the mystery. Yoda was chosen because it sounded Eastern and mystical. He may or may not have known that Yoda is Sanskrit for warrior. Another character in the Star Wars universe ended up with the name Minch.
Likewise, Lucas made the conscious decision not to reveal what species Yoda is or where he originally came from, and says that he doesn’t even know himself.
There are at least two other members of Yoda’s species that have appeared in the Star Wars Universe, though. There’s a female Yoda who sits on a Jedi council although she isn’t shown speaking. She has longer hair and is called Yaddle. Baby Yoda is not actually Yoda but another member of the same species whose real name is Grogu.
Actors who have voiced Yoda are Tom Kane, John Lithgow, Peter McConnell, Piotr Michael, Tony Pope, and of course, Frank Oz. Frank Oz wasn’t Lucas’s first choice to voice the character; perhaps, given that Oz was the voice of various Muppets including Miss Piggy, he feared Yoda might sound too much like a Muppet! He came around in the end, though, and even tried to get Oz nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. However, the Academy deemed that a puppeteer wasn’t an actor and therefore could not be nominated in that capacity.
Yoda’s speech pattern is more than an affectation to make him sound alien. Some researchers believe that all human languages evolved from such a pattern, and is commonly a stage in human children’s language development.
Yoda was born in 896 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and died in 4 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin). That made him 900 years old when he died. He is is 66cm tall and weighs 17kg and was trained by Jedi Master N’Kata Del Gormo.
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song about Yoda in 1980. Called simply Yoda, it was a parody of the song Lola by the Kinks.
In 2012, scientists discovered a new species of worm that lives one and a half miles under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. This creature has large lips on either side of its head, which reminded the scientists of Yoda’s ears. So they named the creature Yoda purpurata.
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