Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

YMMV / Lilo & Stitch: The Series

Go To

Lilo & Stitch franchise YMMV tropes
Films: Original film | Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch | Stitch! The Movie | Leroy & Stitch
TV series: Lilo & Stitch: The Series | Stitch! anime | Stitch & Ai
Video games: First GBA game | Lilo & Stitch: Trouble in Paradise | Stitch: Experiment 626 | Stitch Jam games
Other media: Stitch's Great Escape! | Stitch & the Samurai
  • Alternative Character Interpretation:
    • Is Gantu's Villain Decay due to subpar writing, or did being fired from the Council in the original movie (and being reduced as the servant of a hysterical rodent) make him fall into a depression so deep it directly affected his performances?
    • When Mr. Kaponi and Moses punish Mertle for Lilo and PJ's prank, do they sincerely think she did it or are they punishing her for her earlier pranks in the episode and letting Lilo off the hook due to being Misblamed for Mertle's pranks throughout the episode?
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees:
    • Experiment 627's weakness is that laughing too hard makes him suffocate. This is a real condition, cataplexy.
    • Nightmarchers (huakaʻi pō or "Spirit Ranks", ʻoiʻo) are actually based on Hawaiian mythology; they are not something that was made up by the mainland-based writing staff when they were working on "Belle".
  • Anvilicious:
    • The strong emphasis on ʻohana (family) is usually sweet, but is absolutely everywhere.
    • "Frenchfry" delivers its message about eating healthy with about as much subtlety as a volcanic eruption.
  • Ass Pull:
    • In "Angel", Lilo only finds out Angel is working for Hämsterviel because of a tag she saw around her neck on the video Pleakley took. Angel never wore the tag any other time.
    • The T. rex at the end of "Retro". We never see Retro creating any non-avian dinosaurs in the whole episode. Though it could be assumed that he used his powers on a chicken (the T. rex's closest relative out of all things) or some other type of bird.
    • In "Snafu", Angel releases everyone from their capsules by knocking her head against the glass. Apparently, super-strong experiments can't break those capsules without The Power of Love. That, and Angel never showed signs of having super strength in her debut (which is not entirely the writers' fault considering what happened behind-the-scenes, but still).
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Lilo Pelekai herself, as her behavioral changes between the original film and this series have caused some fans to find her becoming too annoying, headstrong, and too weird for weirdness's sake. Other fans believe that, while she does get annoying in a few egregious cases, she's still the ʻohana-loving Hawaiian girl that we know and love, backed by the voice talents of Daveigh Chase.
    • Nani herself got hit with some of this as well; in the main movies, it's established that her volatile temper is due to the stress of being unable to find a stable job to support herself and her sister, and sure enough she does mellow in the sequels. In the series, this trait of hers got so Flanderized that she can come across as unlikable sometimes, up to the point she will ground Lilo and Stitch for pretty minor deeds. That being said, her overly harsh behavior towards Lilo and Stitch did become a plot point in a few episodes, such as "Phantasmo" and "Bonnie & Clyde".
  • Common Knowledge: That Angel was a fan-submitted design by a kid dying of cancer. This is a false claim from users on Reddit in response to a memetic Tumblr post criticizing Angel's character design.note  What proves that this isn't true is that the show never accepted fan submissions for anything—executive producer and screenwriter Jess Winfield even stated on his TV Tome thread that company policy forbade him from taking any outside suggestions—and that Angel was designed by Jose Zelaya, a character designer and animator at Disney Television Animation.
  • Contested Sequel: This show has plenty of fans who enjoyed watching the antics of Lilo and Stitch as well as his "cousins" and find it to have nearly as much charm as the original film with a plausible (if quite silly) natural progression of the ʻohana, who remain just as charming as ever, seeing it as a worthwhile addition to the franchise's canon. It also has plenty of detractors who find the show to be too formulaic and derivative of Pokémon, the characters too Flanderized to stay likable, the loss of more dramatic and emotional moments to be disappointing, and the increased focus on aliens and comedy to be lackluster and at times grating. Either way, this show did start the franchise's Broken Base, years before the Stitch! anime and Stitch & Ai fractured it. There have been many arguments on the Internet over whether The Series is any good, making this show a rather divisive one among Disney's animated television series.
  • Designated Heroes:
    • Lilo and Stitch come across as this in some episodes, particularly in the ones where they practically give the experiments over to Gantu and Hämsterviel usually because the experiments annoyed them, such as Nosy, Felix, and Heckler. This can be more justified with experiments whose abilities have little to no positive effect, such as Hunkahunka and Poxy, but can still come across as surprisingly harsh and callous. Worse is that these abandonments are often Played for Laughs as said experiments start messing with Gantu afterward (Felix starts making a mess in Gantu's ship, Poxy makes Gantu ill, and so on). "Snafu" does help alleviate this with Lilo and Stitch agreeing to go on a rescue mission to save all experiments from Gantu, plus Nosy calling Lilo out on this.
    • Stitch can be unnecessarily rough towards his cousins, with a couple of old YouTube videos titled "Stitch the Bully" showing clips of him mistreating his cousins (though the person who made those videos—a self-proclaimed Stitch fan—intended for them to be humorous and not actual criticism).
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Several of them among the experiments, which are covered in a separate Ensemble Dark Horse page for the whole franchise. Angel is probably the biggest one, considering she's one of the few experiments most fans can recall right off the bat and Disney is continuously releasing merchandise featuring her worldwide to this day, despite that she was in only two episodes throughout the entire three-year run of this show, and the anime where she is more prominent is disliked by most Westerners (especially Americans).
  • Evil Is Cool: Experiment 627 for being a juggernaut Stitch-like experiment who is more powerful than him and has more powers overall. Fans remain baffled to this day as to why he was only used as a One-Shot Character.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: This is far from a universal opinion, as this show is popular enough in its own right to be looked back upon fondly. Nevertheless, there are several puristic fans who were so unhappy with the Lighter and Softer direction this show took that, to this very day, they try to invoke this trope however they can. The fact that, unlike most other Disney Television Animation sequels and prequels to Disney Animation's films, this show has actually been impactful enough to still be acknowledged by Disney years later through merchandise and crossover video game appearances has made it all the more frustrating for purists, who go as so far to complain about slots being "wasted" in Disney's crossover games when characters from this series—usually Angel—are chosen over characters from the first film.
  • Fanfic Fuel:
    • Since Stitch has over 600 different cousins, it's not hard to write a fanfic featuring at least one of them.
    • The various implications and possible future interactions the crossover episodes bring. Like the Lorwardian invasion.
  • Fan Nickname: 627 is given the name "Evile" by fans (and, previously, even wikis) due to "evil" being the only word he said, at least initially. He was never named by anyone in the franchise proper. Interestingly, some fans have stopped using this nickname in recent years, finding the name to be rather trite, but inertia and the lack of a consistent alternate nickname among fans have kept it intact.
  • Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Fans prefer the original script and storyboards of "Ace" over the final Clip Show version that was produced and aired, as the original version had a much more substantial plot that gave Jumba an opportunity to show how much he's changed as a person, have the titular experiment play a more significant role in the plot, gave some other experiments more screentime (most notably Spike, whose only appearance in this show was his otherwise well-liked debut episode), and didn't have Jumba anti-climatically lose his E.G.O. membership.note 
  • First Installment Wins: Of the three Lilo & Stitch TV shows, usually because it's the only one that actually follows up on the original film and maintains Lilo as a lead.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Sparky and Angel were popular enough to appear in Kingdom Heartsnote  and Stitch!, as well as numerous Japanese merchandise based on Lilo & Stitch, despite respectively debuting in Stitch! The Movie and the American animated series.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: When Skip skips Lilo to ten years in the future in his namesake episode, Nani hugs Lilo after missing her and not knowing where she went. In "Spooky", it was revealed Nani's worst fear was losing Lilo.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ho Yay:
    • Pleakley. True, it can be given in the beginning that his "aptitude" with Earth customs is lacking, but early on... he openly tries girl's clothing. He also seems to crush on Jumba. Ironically, this seems to be a Disney subversion of Hide Your Lesbians.
    • Jumba and Pleakley continue to live together in a single house, continue to play husband and wife a lot in private and in public, and share a bed (to be fairer, they share a bunk bed so they technically sleep in separate beds).
    • The episode where Pleakley's family tries to make him get married—he's very reluctant until the "bride" is Jumba in a dress, and in the end, his family accepts that Pleakley's happier without a wife. He also promised to wear men's clothes, which set off Fibber. Meaning he intends to keep wearing women's clothes and never has any intention of ever wearing men's clothes.
    • There was also a scene between Jumba and Pleakley where they rip off the airport scene from Casablanca.
    • And the relationship between him and Jumba seems to go both ways: Jumba occasionally addresses him as "my little one-eyed one." Awwww.
    • Actor Allusion, Actor Allusion, Actor Allusion! Pleakley is voiced by Kevin McDonald, of The Kids in the Hall fame. The man is used to playing characters in dresses. Also, his family members in that said episode were voiced by old castmates Bruce McCulloch, Mark McKinney, and Scott Thompson, with Dave Foley playing the priest. Oh, and Jumba's voice actor David Ogden Stiers was openly gay.
    • "Jumba and I have found the secret of love!" Oh, Pleakley.
    • Hunkahunka's peck, which causes the target to fall in love with the first person they meet, is decidedly gender-blind, leading to at least three instances in the episode where a male character falls in love with another. Gantu was a constant victim of this as the experiment's pecks caused him to fall in love with Pleakley (who he mistook for a woman because Pleakley was wearing a dress at the time) and Stitch. Pleakley also flirts with five surfer dudes while cross-dressing in the same episode, only to get rejected by all of them.
    • The relationship between Gantu and Reuben has some Ho Yay in it as they live together in Gantu's crashed spaceship and Reuben often makes some snarky but somewhat silly comments towards Gantu about his looks. They even bicker Like an Old Married Couple due to being Vitriolic Best Buds in The Series.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Gantu occasionally gets his moments in episodes like "Dupe" and "Phoon", where he questions his own life and failures. In "Amnesio", when he loses memory, in a Call-Back to the original film, he says, "I'm lost."
  • Just Here for Godzilla: There are some people who only watch this series because of the Crossover episodes with Recess, American Dragon: Jake Long, Kim Possible, and The Proud Family that links all five shows in the same universe.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Angel's singing, courtesy of Tara Strong.
    Stitch (to Angel): Eegalagoo!* Ooh, nice pipes!
  • Paranoia Fuel: 623 experiment pods are scattered all over Kauaʻi, and they’re so small you wouldn’t notice. They could be in your backyard, your pantry, your backpack, and even the food you eat. An experiment can activate anytime, anywhere and then cause havoc, and all it takes is just one drop of liquid. Next thing you know, you wake up with a strange creature in your house, or run into one on the streets. If you’re really unlucky, you might accidentally end up eating one of them—at best, you’ll get an amoeboid experiment, and at worst well, the result will not be pleasant.
  • Retroactive Recognition: Mertle's voice actress Liliana Mumy went on to grow up to voice Leni Loud, who is a much more likable character, to say the least.
  • The Scrappy: Keoni Jameson. He's a bland Audience Surrogate who adds nothing to the plot, and Lilo's crush on him tends to bring out the worst in her.note 
  • Seasonal Rot: The second of the show's two seasons is often seen to be weaker than the first, with the show's formula becoming all too familiar by then, both Nani and Gantu being further Flanderized, the animation dipping in some episodes (such as in "Ace"), some reused plot points,e.g. and some episodes' plots becoming too ridiculous, even by Lilo & Stitch standards. To its credit, the season is still seen as good and contains some of the show's funniest episodes like "Swapper", "Heckler", and "Spike".
  • So Okay, It's Average: The Series has plenty of entertaining moments involving the main characters, is loaded with all those unique experiments, and maintains a good amount of the feel-good charm of the original film. As such most fans regard the show fondly, however, there is also a substantial number who find it to be this. The 65-episode limit of the time, the Lighter and Softer shift in tone, Disney's Executive Meddling, a somewhat rushed production, and the company overmilking the franchise for what it's worth during the 2000s decade had some significant negative effects on it in the long run. The show's writing is formulaic and stuffed with generic children's aesops (a few of which were mishandled), much of the experiments' characterization potential was squandered since the production staff had to stick to the Monster of the Week trope throughout its run, viewers didn't even get to see all the experiments,note  and the core cast was Flanderized to the point that some viewers may find them Unintentionally Unsympathetic.
  • Tear Jerker: The show is mostly Lighter and Softer compared to the original movie, but does manage to create some heart-tugging moments of its own.
    • In the Halloween special, we get Spooky who can shapeshift into people's worst fears. For Lilo, he turns into a Monster Clown. For Stitch, he turns into water. For Jumba, he turns into his ex-wife. For Pleakley, he turns into his mother. What does he turn into for Nani?
    Nani: Cobra Bubbles?
    Spooky (as Cobra): I'm here to take Lilo away.
    (Nani looks appropriately terrified.)
    • Then there's the episode "Remmy", where both Lilo and Nani are depressed throughout the majority of the episode, due to it being the anniversary of their parents' death. It is the episode that comes closest to having the same melancholic feel as the original movie.
    • After encountering Amnesio, Gantu thinks he's a heroic and friendly cop and acts exactly like it. Jumba tells him he's actually a villain, and he can't believe it until he sees Lilo's "Big Dummy" drawing of him. Poor guy would rather let Amnesio go rather than have the memory wipe reversed and go back to being his old self.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Although par for the course for any Disney Television Animation Spin-Off/Sequel Series to a DAC film in The '90s and the 2000s, the Art Shift to a thicker-lined art style compared to the original film was met with disgust from some fans. The altercations to Stitch's design, especially his more saturated blue fur and slightly more humanoid posture, get this the most.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Victoria, the red-headed girl Lilo befriends. It's obvious the writing team struggled with her and then just gave up altogether. A pity, she had a cute design and good chemistry with Lilo.
    • Experiment 627 being just Monster of the Week made a lot of fans upset. Many feel he would have been perfect as a recurring villain or as the Final Boss of the franchise, instead of a red doppelganger of Stitch.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
    • "Dupe": Gantu finds four experiment pods, activates the experiments, and turns them into a Four Man Strike team against Lilo and Stitch. After they are defeated in the climax of the episode, the experiments never show up again, save for the finale, "Snafu", where they are Gantu's prisoners.
    • "Spats": Mr. Cooper's subplot is superfluous, being a one-shot original character in the middle of a crossover between two series' established casts. Not exactly "perfectly good", maybe, but nonetheless it could have been a totally separate episode.
  • Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Viewer Gender Confusion:
    • Quite a few people mistook Pleakley for a woman, which is fairly easy to assume, since he usually wears dresses, and disguises himself as a lady in public.
    • Yin (X-501) gets a lot of this as well. Despite being a fairly feminine-looking experiment, Lilo referred to her as a male repeatedly in the experiment's debut. It wouldn't be until a Disney Tsum Tsum event in September 2018/January 2019note  finally (re-)confirmed her gender.
    • Same goes for Shush (X-234), who's much less feminine than Yin and was also referred to as male in their episode, yet fan wikis labeled the experiment as female for a long time. And unlike Yin, Shush has not been lucky enough to get a re-confirmation of their gender through other media.
  • Villain Decay: Gantu turned from the imposing but somewhat anti-heroic twenty-something-foot-tall military captain from the original movie into a shorter bumbling idiot who even proclaims that he "likes to be evil". Subverted at the end of The Series when it doesn't work out for him and gets his old job back.
  • Writer Cop Out: Gantu managing to capture some experiments (or even be given them by Lilo and Stitch) can be seen as this, as the experiments he gets at the end of an episode tend to be ones we never find out about their "one true places" at any point in The Series. This is most likely because the writers couldn't figure out a good "one true place" without missing their production deadlines (which considering how the first season aired 39 episodes in a time span of less than six months, must have been very tight back then).

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top