I never minded the ewoks.
JUB JUB.
And I thought that when they were gonna cook up han and chewie... that was fuckin hillarious. They might be cute little furballs, but they're MAN EATERS. They were obviously there to sell toys and appeal to the kids... but there were those little bits dropped in here and there to appease a more adult viewing as well. Little fucking savages is all the really were. Cute little man eating savages.
Did henson pupetter them? That's sort of a henson thing, mixing the dark into the cute as well as that and being subtle enough about it that you can read it either way and be right.