Western Animation: Lilo & Stitch: The Series aka: Liloand Stitchthe Series
Here we go again...
Lilo & Stitch: The Series (2003-2006) was a sequel series to the Disney movie of the same name. After the events of the film, Hawaiian girl Lilo is safe and happy with her sister Nani and their expanded family: alien experimental life-form Stitch, giant four-eyed mad scientist Jumba, and meek cycloptic soldier-bureaucrat Pleakley.As the series begins, it is revealed that many other experiments of Stitch's lineage, of which he is number 626, have landed near Hawaii by accident (as shown in the straight for video movie Stitch The Movie). Stored in pods that activate one by one in freak occurrences (usually by dropping into water), each specialized experiment uses its unique power to wreak havok on the island until it is captured. Lilo and Stitch's goal is to find a place in which each of Stitch's "cousins" can be useful and happy. Competing with them for each capture is movie bad-guy Captain Gantu, who seeks to enslave the experiments for the even-eviler Doctor Hamsterviel. After three seasons of this, the series closed out with the 4th and final movie, Leroy and Stitch.Now has a character sheet.
Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: An invisible Stitch is messing up things on Gantu's ship. In order, he takes out the Stabilizing Gyro Porter, the Subspace Hyper Gaskets, and the Satellite TV.
Art Shift: The series has a simpler and thicker lined style than the original film.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: All of the experiments are capable of doing this, as seen in 'The Asteroid', whether they have been specifically designed to survive in vacuum or just can hold their breath a long time is debatable.
Big Eater - Experiment 625, Gantu's sidekick and Stitch's immediate predecessor, is a lazy bum who eats Dagwood sandwiches all day. In fact, most of the experiments (at least the more "beastly" ones), including Stitch himself, are.
Broken Aesop: Ohana may mean family, and family may mean that nobody's left behind, etc. etc., but Lilo can be astonishingly cold to some of the experiments. The episode Snafu hinged on this fact, actually.
Cardboard Prison - Dr. Hamsterviel is able to keep contact with Gantu through video phone and receive captured experiments from within his prison cell.
Gantu himself flipflopped on the issue, depending on the episode.
Cheaters Never Prosper: Subverted in one case where Mertle actually won a dog contest through cheating but relinquished the the trophy after the duo helped saved her pet (which was an experiment) from Gantu. Played straight in a later episode via a trivia contest.
Continuity Nod: In the above episode, Stitch travels to the big city to participate in the dog show... and although he mostly keeps his destructive impulses with regards to large cities under control — the question of whether he can being one of the driving elements of the plot — he does eat someone's left shoe.
Crossover - A series of episodes in which the characters from other Disney Channel shows came to visit the islands. The series also holds the honor of having the most crossovers in a Disney series, which include:
Pleakley's cross dressing was also greatly exaggerated.
Nani's attitude toward Stitch was hit the most. She even tries to get rid of him in "Phantasmo", which was stupid in and of itself.
And what about when she grounded him and Lilo in "Bonnie and Clyde" just because they, as Lilo puts it, "ran around the house and burp"? What The Hell, Writers?
Moses (Lilo's hula teacher) as well. In the movie, he tries his best to give Lilo support. In the series, he is surprisingly un-supportive of her ideas weird as they are. You think he would at least give her some amount of creativity a chance.
Flawed Prototype: Some of Stitch's 'cousins' are regarded as failures by Jumba. The two most notable ones are Reuben (#625) and Woops (#600), both of which were prototypes for Stitch but had negative traits (laziness and clumsiness, respectively). Ace (#262) is considered by Jumba to be his greatest failure for not having any evil traits at all, instead being a hero by default.
Frickin' Laser Beams - The only type of firearms that appear in the series, being a kid's show and all. Technically averted in that they aren't really lasers, but "plasma". At least two of the experiments have this power as well.
Slightly lampshaded in the original movie, where Stitch catches the ball of plasma that Jumba fires at him, does a "hot potato" reaction for about two seconds, and throws it back. Even still, this hot potato reaction was from the gun it was fired from overloading.
Hartman Hips - Nani, Myrtle's mom and aunt, and most of the women.
Hypno Fool - Gantu, Lilo, Stitch, and some other random islanders in one episode; caused by Swirly (#383).
I Choose To Stay: Stitch, Jumba, and Pleakly in Leroy and Stitch.
Idiosyncratic Episode Naming - Every episode title is the name of the featured experiment, except for "The Asteroid", "Bad Stitch", and "Rufus".
Idiot Ball - And how. Nearly every character gets a hold of it within the pilot movie alone.
Informed Ability - 625 "Reuben" is said to be as strong as Stitch, but is too lazy to use this strength effectively. Lampshaded repeatedly, mostly by himself. Finally gets to show off his strength in the Grand Finale, if only for a little bit, after Lilo names him.
Ironic Echo - A ridiculously funny example in Shoe.
Monster of the Aesop - Ridiculously so; an episode about healthy eating has a chef experiment that cooks unhealthy food, an episode about cooperation has two radically different experiments that work together, etc.
Mons - The experiments can be thought of like this.
My Name Is Not Durwood - Dr. Hamster Wheel Hamsterviel. Doesn't help that he actually looks like a hamster.
Actually he looks more like a gerbil (hamsters don't have tails that big).
Never My Fault - After Mertle activates Holio despite Lilo's warnings she blames Lilo for the whole thing.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown - There's a montage of Stitch getting his ass kicked by Experiment 627 in one episode, including being electrocuted, used as a trampoline, and used as a literal punching bag.
No Name Given — Experiment 625, until the Grand Finale, where he is christened "Reuben" after the sandwich.
Experiment 627.
Inverted in Leroy from the Grand Finale - he is given a name but no number.
Noodle Incident- in one episode, Pleakley remembers 'the incident with the giant chicken'.
Off Model - Gantu's height can range from just over twice Jumba's size to taller than two stories, and everything in between.
It was stated by the producers that Gantu's sudden shrinkage between the movie and the series was so that Gantu could appear in frame without ridiculously dwarfing anything he stood over. (That doesn't explain the variance in the series itself, however...)
Poke the Poodle- Some of Jumba's experiments are like this (an experiment that steals people's desserts, another that annoys people by talking too much, etc.)
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness David started talking like this after a wish-granting experiment had made him "the smartest person in the world". He was also practically incapable of speaking regularly.
In one episode, Lilo and a couple of Stitches (Duplication experiment, nuff said) try to do a levitation spell from The Craft. Even reciting the incantation "Light as a feather, stiff as a board."
Super Strength - Stitch, although he has been stated to not be able to lift one ounce over 3000 times his own weight (this weakness has been exploited by both of the main villains).
The Ace - Even named Ace (#262), He has the appearence of a superhero and dosen't have the slightest bit of evil in him.
Take That - Phantasmo (#375) acts suspiciously like Bart Simpson... This is a Take That because in The Simpsons, Bart never gets any comeuppance for his behavior, so Phantasmo, who acts like him, also does not get any comeuppance until the end. This sets up the Aesop: Don't blame others because you will be found out.
Theme Music Power-Up: "Aloha E Komo Mai" would play without vocals in an upbeat form whenever Stitch or someone else was doing a lot of fightng.
The Unintelligible - Stitch's speech is very hard to understand, and most other experiments make animal or robotic noises.
Trans-Pacific Equivalent - There is a Japanese version where Stitch lives on an equally tropical island in Okinawa. They keep the animation style, for the most part.
Unusually Uninteresting Sight - Many Hawaiians mistake Stitch and other experiments for normal Earth animals. They also mistake Gantu for a human foreigner even when he's not wearing a Paper-Thin Disguise. Only two American tourists noticed Gantu and the experiments were aliens and when they complained to the mayor, even giving photographic evidence, he just shrugs it off as a hoax.
In the Frenchfry episode, Kumu doesn't seem to find it odd that the now fat Lilo is shaped so unrealistically or how she gained so much weight in so little time.
The American Dragon Jake Long crossover stated they were in Hawaii to investigate reports of undisguised magical creatures, so apparently a few people noticed.
Verbal Tic - Mertle has a habit of putting emphasis on words like me and my, showing how conceited she is. It's pretty subtle, but it's made more apparent when Lilo does it when she's hypnotised into acting like Mertle.
0 reviews