"Frenchfry" is the forty-first episode of Lilo & Stitch: The Series. It first aired on November 12, 2004.
Experiments who appeared or were mentioned in this episode:
- Frenchfry (X-062): This episode's Monster of the Week; a gray-and-white, mustached experiment who was designed to be Jumba's personal chef, but a flaw in his programming removes all nutrition from his meals, causing those who eat his food to rapidly bloat up. He then eats his bloated victims afterward.
- Reuben (X-625): Throws Gantu a birthday party with his old college friends.
Tropes featured in this episode include:
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Poor Gantu can’t even catch a break on his birthday. He fails to catch Frenchfry, gets beat up by Stitch, gets tricked by Frenchfry into eating a cake that turns him fat, and finally, gets humiliated when his college buddies come for a surprise visit and see him in his fattened state.
- Acrofatic: Downplayed. When Frenchfry turns them fat, Lilo and Stitch can only waddle around and Stitch loses his speed and agility, but they can still attack by bouncing on their enemies or rolling over them.
- An Aesop:
- It's always good to eat healthy food, as it's more filling and nutritious. Although eating healthy may not sound appetizing, healthy foods can be delicious.
- That said, you have to actually put the effort into making the healthy food delicious. You can't expect someone to blindly eat something that looks as unappetizing as Nani's vegetable gelatin product even if it's good for them, for example. People still want to eat something that tastes good even if they've set a goal to eat healthy. It's only once Nani uses her imagination to frame the oatmeal and honey as something delicious (at least by Lilo's standards) that Lilo is more receptive to her healthy breakfast.
- Eating nothing but fattening and unhealthy foods will result in you becoming just that; fat and unhealthy. It also means that you lose your physical abilities, as shown by how Lilo and Stitch are completely helpless when they've grown fat enough for Frenchfry to eat.
- Alone with the Psycho: Once Lilo and Stitch realize that Frenchfry is fattening them up so he can eat them, Frenchfry has entered the room, and they are both so fat, they can’t do anything to stop him and he easily traps them.
- Apocalyptic Log: When Lilo and Stitch try to find out why Frenchfry's food is making them morbidly obese so quickly, they stumble upon Jumba's video logs. These logs chronicle how the food has an exaggerated ability to rob self-control from its victims and never leaves them feeling full. The final log cuts off before our heroes can learn Frenchfry's endgame.
- Artistic License – Biology: As it's a cartoon, the kind of weight gain seen is obviously impossible in real life, which is lampshaded by Nani after hearing from Moses that Lilo had turned round and grown a few times bigger in less than a day. In addition to turning round, Lilo, Stitch, and Gantu also become as bouncy as rubber balls after putting on weight, and they roll. Pleakley, for his part, seems rather accurate, if just on a cartoonish scale, since he grows so fat that he becomes a giant, immobile pile of fat.
- Balloon Belly: Anyone who eats Frenchfry's food will become bloated instantly. Jumba says it wears off if the victim doesn't eat any more of his food for 24 hours.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Everybody who wants delicious food from Frenchfry gets their wish, only to end up becoming extremely fat and in danger of being eaten by Frenchfry. Pleakley was also the only one of the trio of him, Lilo, and Stitch who wanted to keep eating even after they finally noticed how fat they'd become, and ended up being fattened up into a colossal blob who could barely move.
- Big Damn Heroes: Nani gets back home to save the fattened-up Lilo and Stitch just as Frenchfry is about to cook them.
- Big Eater: Anybody who eats Frenchfry's food becomes this since his food is designed to never fill anyone who eats it, so they become addicted to stuffing themselves to satiate a never-satisfied hunger.
- Big Sister Instinct: Nani returns to save Lilo and Stitch and fights tooth and nail to protect her little sister, although she admits she's no longer "little" in one sense.
- Birthday Party Goes Wrong: After Gantu is fattened up by Frenchfry, 625, who didn’t know, invites his old college buddies to throw him a surprise birthday party, only for him to be humiliated when they think he let himself go since school.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Frenchfry has a cheerful, eager-to-please attitude and makes Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley all the food they want, but he's secretly scheming to cook them and eat them as soon as he’s done fattening them up.
- Both Sides Have a Point: The family does need to eat healthier as Nani points out, but her gelatin meal is hardly appetizing and it's no wonder nobody wants to eat it.
- Character Catchphrase: Frenchfry says "Bon appétit" whenever he makes someone food.
- Death by Gluttony: An invoked trope. Frenchfry's food is so addictive that the eater becomes obsessed with it, losing any willpower to not eat and will keep eating nonstop until they're too fat and weak to resist when Frenchfry is ready to eat them.
- Epic Fail: When Lilo tries dancing in hula class, she knocks down the other girls with her new, extra-large body. She then loses her balance because of her weight, falls over, and starts bouncing around uncontrollably until she rolls towards the other girls and knocks them away like bowling pins.
- Evil Laugh: Frenchfry laughs evilly as he’s about to cook Lilo and Stitch.
- Failed a Spot Check: Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley spend some time eating Frenchfry's food, quickly causing them to turn round and grow a few times bigger, but they don't notice how fat they are until Lilo jumps off her chair and starts bouncing.
- The Fat Episode: This episode features Lilo, Stitch, Pleakley, and Gantu all becoming very fat.
- Fattening the Victim: Frenchfry does this to his victims to eat them. Especially Pleakley, who becomes so fat that he fills up an entire room.
- Formerly Fit: Gantu's old college buddies think this happened to him when they find him fatter after having eaten a cake from Frenchfry.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Frenchfry was created by Jumba simply to be his personal chef who can cook delicious meals for him. Frenchfry instead turns out to be a cannibal who fattens up anyone he cooks for so he can eat them.
- Gone Horribly Right: Jumba wanted a cook who could make delicious meals, and he got one, alright, only said cook wants to eat anybody he cooks for. In the present, Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley's wish for unlimited junk food is granted, but they end up obese and practically helpless by the time Frenchfry decides to eat them.
- Gratuitous French: Frenchfry speaks French, but the only French words he speaks in the episode are some of the stereotypical ones known to Americans, such as "Bon appétit" and "Sacré bleu".
- He Knows Too Much: Frenchfry cuts the phone line when Jumba reveals his true intentions to Lilo, and only then decides to go ahead and eat Lilo and Stitch. If Pleakley and Jumba's sizes are any indication, he wasn't planning to stop fattening Lilo and Stitch for some time, but learning of his scheme meant he needed to drop the act before help could arrive.
- Heavy Voice: After gorging himself into a blob the size of a two-story room, Pleakley's voice is much deeper and thicker.
- Heel–Face Turn: Frenchfry is convinced to give up his ways of cooking people when he learns that healthy food can be just as delicious.
- Help, I'm Stuck!:
- Lilo gets stuck in the elevator for a couple seconds, due to Frenchfry making her big and round.
- Pleakley is confined to his room after growing to an enormous size.
- Stitch briefly gets stuck in the house’s back door, due to being turned fat. He gets out, and then Lilo gets stuck in the door, too.
- Lilo gets stuck in her room’s moon roof when Frenchfry bounces her into it.
- Frenchfry traps Lilo and Stitch in a couple of relatively weak pens, which they get stuck in because of how big they are, and they're unable to free themselves due to being so fat they can hardly move.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Nani defeats Frenchfry when she frees Lilo and Stitch, who use their obese bodies to roll over him.
- I Am Big Boned: Pleakley's theory on why him, Lilo, and Stitch are bloated is because of the sun emitting an unusual number of highly-charged particles, or allergies from something in Frenchfry's food. He's definitely not fat from eating too much of Frenchfry's food, no sir.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Frenchfry isn't simply designed to make delicious food: he serves it to his victims so that once they're fat enough, he will cook them up and eat them. He's also perfectly fine eating Stitch who is more or less another member of his species.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: All the food made by Frenchfry to the point that, even after Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley realize the effect it's having on them, they're completely incapable of stopping themselves from continuing to eat it. Even people who haven't eaten it and aren't hungry are hypnotized by it, as Gantu even says he avoids sweets but finds the cake Frenchfry makes for him irresistible.
- Kids Hate Vegetables: Lilo and Stitch are both disgusted by the healthy foods that Nani is trying to get them on at the episode's start: While their hating the oatmeal was just kids being kids, it's hard to fault them for wanting nothing to do with those unappetizing vegetable-studded gelatin ready-made meals that Nani stocks up on. This leads Lilo and Stitch to activate Experiment 062 so he can make much tastier junk food for them, unaware of just how dangerous 062/Frenchfry really is.
- Laser-Guided Karma: When Gantu sees the now-bloated Stitch, he mocks him for being fat. Stitch then immediately beats him up, and then Gantu eats the birthday cake Frenchfry makes for him, making him really fat, too.
- Magic Pants: After Frenchfry fattens up Lilo's body to twenty times its usual size, her muʻumuuʻu somehow stretches to fit her. It also shrinks back to its normal size after Lilo goes back to normal. Gantu's clothes also stretch after Frenchfry makes him fat. Pleakley's dress grows with him at first, but after Frenchfry has made him enormously obese, he's seen without it.
- Magic Skirt: Whenever the chubby Lilo bounces up and down, the bottom opening of her muʻumuuʻu is magically replaced with two tiny holes, showing only her feet.
- Mundane Solution:
- Nani is able to get Lilo to eat and enjoy her healthy breakfast by telling her it's mummy food with ectoplasmic goo as a topping, which Lilo, being young and with a taste for the macabre, laps up on the spot. Nani even lampshades she should've used it before.
- Frenchfry is convinced to stop eating sapient beings when he tries some of Nani's healthy food and likes it, and is convinced that there are other delicious foods worthwhile.
- Never My Fault: Pleakley tries to deny that his, Lilo’s, and Stitch’s weight gain is caused by their overeating for as long as possible. Subverted with Lilo, who immediately guesses that Frenchfry’s food is what turned them round and bouncy. She believes Pleakley’s explanation that their transformation was caused by the sun, but accepts that the food is what caused them to become fat after going to hula class and seeing that nobody else has bloated.
- Nutritional Nightmare: Frenchfry removes all nutrition from the food he cooks, resulting in empty calories.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: It's not explained how Jumba - who was fattened up to the size of a spaceship - was able to subdue Frenchfry.
- Oh, Crap!:
- When Lilo calls Jumba to ask what went wrong when he initially created Frenchfry, Jumba's tone of voice gives off this reaction.Jumba: Tell me you did not reactivate Experiment 062.
- This is Lilo's reaction when Jumba tells her Frenchfry's true intentions for her, Stitch, and Pleakley.
- When Lilo calls Jumba to ask what went wrong when he initially created Frenchfry, Jumba's tone of voice gives off this reaction.
- Pet the Dog: Gantu is genuinely touched when the experiment he was trying to capture produces a birthday cake for him. Too bad it was a harebrained attempt to turn him into a potential meal for him. And 625 tries to cheer Gantu up on his birthday by inviting his college buddies for a visit. Too bad they caught Gantu at an embarrassing moment.
- Plot Allergy: Invoked. Pleakley reasons he's probably allergic to some of Frenchfry's food to explain why he's so morbidly obese.
- Running Gag: Lilo and Stitch keep getting stuck in holes and doorways due to Frenchfry's food making them too big and fat to fit through.
- Secret Snack Stash: Pleakley has various secret compartments in his room just for hiding junk food.
- Smug Snake: Frenchfry has a nasty smirk as he watches Lilo, Stitch, and Pleakley gorge themselves on his food.
- Supreme Chef: Frenchfry was specifically designed to be a master personal chef for Jumba. It's shown by the end of the episode that he adapts very well to making healthy food, opening a successful tofu fry stand.
- Temporary Bulk Change: Invoked. Frenchfry's food makes anyone who eats it grow big and round. Jumba says that the weight gain of Frenchfry's victims will wear off after 24 hours as long as they don't eat his food again. If they keep eating it, though, they'll just keep getting bigger.
- Tornado Move: Frenchfry can turn into a miniature grey tornado, much like Taz from Looney Tunes.
- Trampoline Tummy: At the start of Frenchfry's fight with Nani, he jumps into the now-fat Lilo's belly and bounces off of it.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When Lilo shows up to hula class with her body now round and five times its normal size, Mertle and Yuki only look surprised for a second and keep dancing.
- Villainous Glutton: Frenchfry fattens up his victims to impossibly large sizes, but is still eager to eat them, suggesting he himself has a huge appetite he wants to fill.
- Villains Out Shopping: While we know Jumba isn't truly evil, during his time as an evil genius he created Frenchfry simply to serve as a personal chef. No destructive or malevolent intentions, Jumba just wanted a cook.
- Weak-Willed: Anyone who eats Frenchfry's food will be completely unable to resist eating more of it. Best shown when Frenchfry brings Lilo and Stitch a big plate of doughnuts. Lilo and Stitch agree that they shouldn't eat them, then immediately eat all the doughnuts anyway.
- Weight Taller: As Frenchfry fattens them up, Lilo and Stitch grow until they're taller than Nani. Pleakley ends up being at least 20 feet tall.
- Wham Line: Jumba warns Lilo that she must not eat any more of Frenchfry's food. When Lilo asks why, she gets this disturbing answer:Jumba: Because, once you are properly fattened up, he will try to eat you!
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Already morbidly obese, Pleakley weakly cries, "Oh no! Not the corn dogs! I can't resist the corn dogs!" when Frenchfry presents him with some, too weak of will to resist gobbling them up.
- You Are Fat:
- Moses gently asks if Lilo has been eating okay, as she's looking "a little round".
- Gantu doesn't waste any time mocking Stitch when he finds him too fat to fit through a door, asking mockingly if he's put on a little weight.
- Gantu later gets the receiving end of this when one of his old college buddies says that he "really let himself go".
