I too liked the Ewoks, even to this day. But I *may* have a higher tolerance for (legitimately) cute things than some. Jar Jar is *not* cute, he's incredibly annoying and stupid. The Ewoks were at least not horribly offensive or particularly overtly obnoxious - cutesy, sure, but nowhere near the level of Jar Jar. And let's not forget the droids in the originals were a big part of the comic relief, one could say they're annoying too in some respects, but they work. Even the same characters in later movies just seemed poorly written and annoying (i.e. crude jokes in Ep 1-3 with R2D2 and C3P0).
- Oshyan