While trying to get big enough to go on a ride, Stitch has to deal with an experiment that cuts wires to short them out.
Lilo and Stitch head to a carnival, but Stitch finds out that he's too short to ride the roller coaster. With Pleakley's help, he uses a growth ray to grow bigger. But when Gantu distracts them, accusing Lilo and Stitch of having the recently-activated Experiment 297 in their possession, Stitch grows much bigger than intended. Despite his insistence that "bigger is better", Stitch soon finds out that it might not necessarily be the case for him.
Lilo and Stitch are at the local carnival and try to ride the Pineapple Plunger. However, Stitch is too short and Lilo has to ride alone. Lilo buys Stitch some lemonade as consolation, but he is angry and bites a chunk out of the stand, causing lemonade to pour down into a drainage ditch and activate an experiment pod. Stitch wants to find a way to get bigger, but Lilo tries to tell him that he's fine just how he is.
Gantu and Reuben are also enjoying themselves at the fair, but while Reuben is able to win all the prizes, Gantu has no such luck. Reuben is there to see the world's largest sandwich — a giant hoagie the size of a car. They see a newly-activated experiment scurry by, but are unable to catch it. Heading back to the ship to look up its abilities, they find that 297 is built to cut electrical wires with his claws. Reuben notes that they are probably too late to catch 297 since he saw Lilo and Stitch there, so Gantu goes to their house to get him back.
Stitch tries to find a growth machine in Jumba's lab, but Jumba is off-planet doing community service for his evil genius conviction. Surprisingly, Pleakley makes a more-that-able substitute, as he straps Stitch down in a Frankenstein-style evil lab and uses Jumba's growth ray on him. The process is slow, and when Pleakley hears the doorbell he and Lilo leave to answer it. It's Gantu, who is convinced Lilo is housing 297. Lilo cleverly feigns ignorance and manages to get Gantu to tell her where he saw the experiment last, then pretends that they already caught it. Just when Gantu is about to search the house himself, something bigger than him appears behind him...
It's Stitch! Jumba's growth machine was left on him too long, and he is now over thirty feet tall. Gantu retreats, vowing that this isn't over. Lilo and Stitch plan to catch 297 for real now, but Stitch is much too large to wear his usual "Kenny" human disguise. Pleakley quickly sews a larger version of it, and Stitch comically drives himself and Lilo in the much-too-small-for-him X-Buggy. They go back to the carnival to look for 297, noticing that a lot of the rides are out of order due to the experiment's wire-cutting abilities. Stitch finds out that he is now too tall to ride the Pineapple Plunger. And besides, the ride's out of order as well. They see 297 jump out of the ride panel, and Stitch begins to chase him, tripping and bumping into things because of his huge size. Lilo catches 297 in an containment pod and the duo go home. Meanwhile, Gantu has realized the ruse and knows for sure 297 will be at the Pelekai household this time around.
While Stitch is asleep, Lilo gets Pleakley to secretly turn him back small again using the same machine as before. However, 297 uses his sharp claws to cut a hole in the containment pod, then sabotages the growth/shrink ray. It starts blasting objects in the house, randomly making them big or small. It blasts 297, which makes him twice the size Stitch already was — taller than the trees! Stitch uses the growth ray to make himself even bigger than 297 to stop him. They face off in the carnival, exchanging blows using the various carnival rides as weapons. Stitch meets his match as he is thrown head-first into the Pineapple Plunger, stunned. Just then, Jumba arrives at the carnival, home from his community service. He says that the reason Stitch is losing is because he was designed to operate at his original size — the bigger he is, the weaker he becomes. Jumba shrinks Stitch back to original size, and he is able to use this to his advantage as he evades 297's claw attacks with ease. He ties a rope around 297's legs, making him fall over and unable to rampage any longer.
Just when everything seemed over, Gantu appears... with a giant Reuben! Apparently, he had used the growth ray when everyone left it at the Pelekai residence. Luckily, he doesn't seem to care about defeating anyone or capturing 297; he just takes the opportunity to eat the world's largest sandwich on display at the carnival. Jumba is ready to shrink everyone back to normal size, but Lilo has an idea. 297 (now named "Shortstuff") should stay giant and find his one true place as a living carnival ride, picking up carts with his claws and spinning around. And this time, Stitch gets to go on the ride as well.
Experiments who appear or were mentioned in this episode:
- Shortstuff (X-297): This episode's Monster of the Week; a small red-orange crab-like experiment who is designed to short out electrical circuitry by cutting them with his claws. He accidentally gets enlarged by Jumba's growth ray, which he sabotaged, becoming a giant.
- Reuben (X-625): At the end of the episode, Gantu uses Jumba's growth ray to enlarge him in hopes of getting him to defeat our heroes, but Reuben instead uses his larger size to eat the World's Largest Sandwich.
Tropes featured in this episode include:
- Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Shortstuff has the ability to rotate his upper body way more than 360°—which becomes the basis of his "one true place" at the end.
- Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Stitch uses Jumba's growth ray to make him much larger; as big as Lilo's house, in fact. Shortstuff also gets zapped to an enormous size and wreaks havoc onto the carnival until he is pinned down by the now regular-sized Stitch. Lilo and Stitch didn't even bother to change him back to normal size; his one true place is being a living fair ride.
- Be Yourself: Jumba makes a point to Stitch that he doesn't need to be bigger, because he was designed to function better when he's small.
- David Versus Goliath: Stitch (back at his original size) vs. the giant Shortstuff; Stitch wins by Hobbling the Giant. Lilo even mentions that he "David and Goliathed" the experiment when she runs up to Stitch to hug him for his victory.
- Giant Enemy Crab: Shortstuff becomes this after his enlargement and Stitch had to fight him. He stops being an enemy, however, after he was defeated, then allowed to stay giant and given a "one true place" as a carnival ride.
- Height Insult: The premise of the episode involves several people poking fun of Stitch for his short stature and denying him entry on rides. It gets to the point where Stitch gets Lilo and Pleakley (due to Jumba being away) to make him bigger with a growth ray under the impression that bigger is better. When Jumba returns, he lets Stitch know that being bigger is not good for Stitch and that he is fine in his normal size, which Lilo agrees with. The episode ends with Stitch brushing off the comments.
- Hobbling the Giant: After being shrunk back down to his original size, Stitch defeats the giant Shortstuff by tying three of the latter's legs together using a cable from a ride, pulling on the cable to trip him over, and then using the cable to tie him down.
- Inconsistent Spelling: The episode's name is officially spelled with two words, but the titular experiment's name is spelled as one word. Disney+ ended up using the one-word spelling for the episode's title as well on the streaming service.
- Ironic Name: 297's name Shortstuff starts out as a Meaningful Name, as he is initially a tiny experiment (the second-smallest, in fact; only the microscopic Poxy is smaller), but it becomes ironic after he grows into becoming the largest experiment.
- Mundane Utility: For his "one true place", the now-permanently-giant Shortstuff uses his ability to swivel his upper body to become a swing ride.
- Shrink Ray: Growth ray, in this case. Jumba's Protoplasmic Growth Ray is how the experiments that appear in this episode grow bigger.
- You Must Be This Tall to Ride: What kickstarts the plot of the episode is Stitch finding out that he's too small for the carnival roller coaster. He even tries to use his long ears to bypass the limitation to no avail. What's worse for him is after he overdoes his growth and returns to the carnival, he finds that there is a maximum height requirement as well.
