"PJ" is the forty-seventh episodenote of Lilo & Stitch: The Series. It first aired on April 1, 2005.
As Mertle keeps causing pranks to get Lilo into trouble, Moses brings in a strict substitute teacher to look after the hula class while he leaves for Honolulu for a week.
Experiments who appeared or were mentioned in the episode:
- Gigi (007): Appears along with two regular dogs when Mr. Kaponi steps into bone-shaped squeaky toy shoes in one of PJ's pranks.
- PJ (133): This episode's Monster of the Week; an orange and white koala-like experiment with a horn for a tail wearing Groucho glasses (although they aren't removed in this episode) who performs practical jokes.
- Drowsy (360): Lilo brings him in to get Stitch to sleep so she can free PJ from the containment capsule Stitch stuffed the experiment in.
Tropes in this episode include:
- An Aesop: Playing jokes on others can be fun, but only if the other person is laughing.
- April Fools' Day: Although not specifically set on April Fools' Day (thus averting April Fools' Plot), the episode first aired on that day in 2005 and it involves practical jokes galore.
- Cash Lure: Lilo and Stitch first meet PJ as they almost arrive at home when the experiment tricks Stitch into chasing a twenty-dollar bill on a fish line, causing Stitch to jump in a mud puddle. Moments later in the kitchen, Pleakley tries to pull the same prank on himself, holding the line with the bill in one hand and pulling it away when he tries to reach it with his other hand. Although he easily amuses himself, no one else laughs, though PJ then sucks up the line and the bill through his Gag Nose almost immediately thereafter, causing Pleakley to wonder where it went and Lilo and Stitch to laugh.
- Electric Joybuzzer: PJ comes to Stitch upon first meeting him and quickly offers him a handshake to shock him with a hidden one.
- Forced Sleep: Lilo uses Drowsy to get Stitch to sleep so she can take PJ back. Unlike with humans in Drowsy's debut, though, Stitch wakes up on his own hours later.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- PJ sets up a very elaborate prank in the halau for Lilo to play on Mr. Kaponi on the substitute's last day, but then Stitch, having been freed from the containment capsule he was tricked to be caught in earlier, chases the prankster experiment down. After Lilo stops Mr. Kaponi from going inside the halau, PJ runs inside to avoid Stitch and ends up falling for his own prank.
- This trope also indirectly applies to Mertle for what she does to Lilo as well, since...
- Laser-Guided Karma: Mertle has been goading Lilo to prank Mr. Kaponi on her behalf so the latter girl would take all the blame. This, combined with when she framed Lilo for being disruptive earlier on, becomes fitting when Lilo withholds that PJ set up the prank and not Mertle, leading to Mr. Kaponi punishing her instead.
- Irony: At the end of the episode, PJ accidentally falls for one of his own pranks.
- Not Helping Your Case: When Mr. Kaponi punishes Mertle for a prank PJ set up, she tries to insist, "But this time it wasn't me". If anything, this just makes it sound like she was directly responsible for all the other pranks Lilo and PJ pulled on him. (Which, technically, she was responsible.)
- Oh, Crap!: Stitch reacts in this manner when Lilo gets Drowsy to put him to sleep (so she can free PJ from the containment capsule Stitch put him in).
- Pie in the Face: PJ does this to Stitch as the last of the pranks the experiment pulls on his cousin when they first meet. He does this again after provoking Stitch later in the episode, leading Stitch to stuff him in a containment capsule before Lilo and PJ could set up another prank.
- Poor Communication Kills: Reconstructed. When Mertle walks in telling her friends she's got a prank planned for Mr. Kaponi, who should wonder if she set up PJ's prank than Mr. Kaponi himself. The reconstructed part is, this is Mertle's just desserts for how she's gotten Lilo in trouble with Mr. Kaponi.
- Stock Audio Clip: Fibber's buzz can be heard when PJ shocks Stitch with the Electric Joybuzzer trick.
- Wham Line: During his last day as a teacher, Lilo overhears Mr. Kaponi telling an acquaintance about how he's having trouble with a certain student. With each description, Lilo pegs that he must be talking about Mertle, who never liked him in the first place. But then he brings up a familiar name of a little girl who's been pranking him the entire week:Lilo: (sadly) Not Mertle, me.
