As of this writing, the dancing baby Groot toys we were promised have not been delivered yet, leaving Guardians Of The Galaxy fans to sit around sadly, hands on chin, and contemplate their stupid regular house plants that don’t even dance as 10cc’s “I’m Not In Love” plays in the background. But don’t blame Guardians director James Gunn for the lack of dancing baby Groots on toy store shelves. Blame the toy people. As Gunn tells Vulture, he brought up the idea for the toy while the movie was still shooting, but the idea was scrapped for fear of toy manufacturers leaking the design and spoiling the movie.
“The reason it didn’t happen [sooner] is because you have some control in the film industry over secrets getting out there, but the people you don’t have much control over are the toy people, unfortunately,” he says. “Those toy designs get out, always! And people definitely would have gotten ahold of the Baby Groot if we had started manufacturing it in time for it to come out after the movie, so that was the biggest reason we didn’t push on that particular element.”
So while we all wanted our Groot marshmallow right this second after seeing that pre-credits sequence, this way we all get the joy of experiencing that moment fresh and untainted by spoilers and a dancing baby Groot in time for the holidays. So skip ahead to the next track already.