One of my favorite silly things to do when I'm watching Star Wars with family is call out to everyone, "There's Ephant Mon," or, "There's Ishi Tib." Then I get to laugh at their puzzled faces, as they can't believe those characters even have names (and that I know them).

The "Day the Earth Stood Still" references are certainly amusing, and part of what primed me to like the creatures of Star Wars so much was Jim Henson's "Labyrinth" as well as The Muppets. It's too bad there was never more explicit collaboration between the Henson Creature Shop and Lucasfilm. Sure, Frank Oz made Yoda the iconic Jedi creature we still love, but George Lucas never went beyond hiring a few of the puppeteers, who worked on Henson projects like "Dark Crystal."