Stitch (626)

Stitch, A.K.A. Experiment 626, is an illegal genetic experiment created by Jumba Jookiba, and one of the two primary characters of the Lilo & Stitch franchise. Originally created to cause chaos across the galaxy, he is marked by his short temper and mischievous behavior, traits that endear him to his friend Lilo, who adopted him as her "puppy". He is designed to be abnormally strong, virtually indestructible, super intelligent, and very mischievous.

Personality
Before Stitch was rehabilitated, he was a vicious, hyperactive, selfish, and extremely aggressive and mischievous creature. After Stitch was rehabilitated, although his mischievous, destructive, and aggressive tendencies remained, he possessed a heart of gold.

He also seems to like turtles, being there is a picture of Stitch shading two sea turtles in the credits of the original Lilo & Stitch movie and snuggling a stuffed turtle after a nightmare in Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch. As well as having a soft spot for turtles, he also seems to like frogs. He gently moves frogs out of harm's way constantly and seems to talk to them as if they are his friends. These likes may be a sign that Stitch may be growing fond of Earth creatures.

Starting off bad when he was programmed by Jumba Jookiba, Stitch was originally designed to create pandemonium and chaos wherever he was. He was drawn to large cities where he would uproot buildings, change street signs, and steal people's left shoe, but Lilo changed his ways a while after adopting him at ananimal shelter.

Stitch is still prone to having temper tantrums when things don't go his way, or he sees that he's been squirted by a water bottle for something that he thought was good. So he isn't good all of the time. Or more accurately, he isn't well-behaved all of the time. He also gets easily angered by inanimate objects, especially the toaster. The toaster has popped toast in his face once, and since then, he has beaten up the toaster and juiced it at least twice.

Stitch has a huge appetite and gets very irritable if he doesn't get what he wants to eat. Also, despite his temper tantrums, Stitch can sometimes have a little common sense and be more mature than Lilo. Such an example is when Lilo wanted to use Sprout to win an orchid competition, Stitch wasn't so sure it was wise, and he straight out told Lilo that it was her fault that Sprout had gone out of control.

Appearance
Stitch is a blue, koala-like experiment with light blue patches around his eyes, and a light blue patch running from under his chin down to his stomach, two dark blue markings; one on the back of his head, and the other on his back, large rabbit-like ears with pink insides and dark blue tips on the back, a wide mouth with a pink inside, white teeth, a navy round nose, navy claws and toes, large black, tear-shaped, pupil-less eyes, a small, short, stumpy tail, stubby legs, two nose wrinkles, one chin wrinkle, three tuffs of sharp hair on top of his head and on his chest, as well as two extra, retractable arms, sharp navy retractable claws on his front and back paws, three thick, long, sharp, venomous retractable porcupine-like spines tipped with white and a very dark navy that run down his back and two long dark blue-tipped retractable bug-like antennae on his head, but his antennae and spines are a few centimeters longer than that of Reuben's and some of Jumba's other 600 series creations. He stands 3 feet 6 inches (106 centimeters) tall and weighs 120 lbs. (54.4 kg), but is taller than Reuben.

In his disguised "dog form", he wears a red flea collar with a gold name tag.

In his true alien form, he wears a red spacesuit with an upside-down triangle consisting of a red border and yellow center on his chest, and each of his sleeves and patches consisting of a dark red border and orange center on each of his legs, black belt with a dark red square buckle, both black collar, cuffs, and anklets.

Because Stitch was imprisoned, he wears a prison jumpsuit covered in horizontal dark and light blue stripes.

Covered in blue fur and having exceptionally large ears for his body, Stitch is an unusual thing to see wandering the streets. Usually, his smile scares people, as his gums are lined with nothing but sharp teeth.

Stitch's ears both have a little notch missing, though both in different places (although in Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, it was shown that he initially had pierced ears); his lower left ear and upper right ear have a triangular piece of flesh that is missing from them. He has got large black eyes that turn green when using his night vision, red when infrared vision, bright green when x-ray vision, purple when ultraviolet vision, and white when binocular vision.

His front legs differ from his hind legs, as his front paws look more like little hands and his back feet have flat pads. They  are tipped with sharp claws that help Stitch to attack his enemies. He has also got some darker blue markings on his back, but nowhere else.

Special Abilities
Stitch can think faster than a supercomputer, is fireproof, bulletproof and shockproof, can hear in different hearing levels, see in the dark, jump very high, climb up walls and walk on ceilings, roll into a ball, has super sight and hearing, and can lift objects 3,000 times his own weight (but not an ounce more).

Stitch also has the ability to spit acid if he so desires or roll into a ball like a pill bug. Though mistaken for a dog, this alien actually had the smelling capabilities of a normal dog and also has sharp hearing that allows him to hear people or things within a thirty-foot radius. Stitch is resistant to poisons, though not immune to them. His infrared vision permits him to locate targets by their body heat, and his night vision permits him to see clearly at night/in dark places.

Being a genetic alien experiment as well, he can hide his two antennae, claws, abdominal arms and three spines that are on his back. His feet also have some sort of gripping on them that allows Stitch to climb onto walls and even hang from ceilings. Stitch also has both night and infrared vision that helps him with what he is looking for.

Stitch is also highly intelligent, as he had learned English and some Hawaiian sayings from Lilo, though he prefers using his alien talk called Tantalog.

Stitch is mostly physical but also has four basic plasma guns on hand. He is also dexterously skilled in hand-to-hand combat, using all four arms or just two.

He is also shown to have a natural battery in his body that can super-charge his powers in the Stitch! anime.

In Stitch & Ai, Stitch is revealed to have a metamorphosis code in his DNA that causes him to become very huge and more destructive; in this form, he also develops four tentacle-like blasters.

Weaknesses
One of Stitch's few weaknesses is water; he cannot swim and will easily drown due to his great molecular density. This weakness also led to Stitch developing aquaphobia (a phobia of water). It is also shown that if Stitch consumes two different elements that form to create a particular chemical compound, all of his physical training will be eliminated. As Stitch is also 62% Snootonium, if this Snootonium is drained from his body, he will become temporarily exhausted from dehydration. Stitch is apparently allergic to sauerkraut.

He is also not immune to the effects of the following experiments: Amnesio, Babyfier, Spike, Bugby, Spooky, Lax,Dupe, Frenchfry, Swapper, Yaarp, Snooty, Swirly, Drowsy, and Houdini.

TriviaEdit

 * Despite not appearing in the show itself (as the show ran for about one year before the movie came out), Stitch was featured with Lilo in some online games for the television series House of Mouse.
 * In a deleted scene of the original film, Stitch was responsible for the death of Pudge the fish. This incident made him learn about the consequences of his evil actions and gain a better understanding of mortality. It was cut out because Disney figured that it would be too morbid for a protagonist to kill someone and would also set a bad example for children. Moreover, Stitch is more interested in vandalism than violence.
 * Another deleted scene where Jumba attacks Stitch, resulting in the Pelekai residence accidentally being burned down, was actually going to have more violent scenes like Stitch actually using a chainsaw to attack Jumba, and Stitch setting the house on fire by biting apart a gas pipe and tricking Jumba into shooting it with his blaster. The final version of the same scene has everything violent edited out and replaced in favor of making the scene more slapstick-oriented (Jumba knocking the ceiling down with dishes instead of laser blasts, Jumba's "shuriken" being made of hairbrushes and a tube of toothpaste instead of knives and a pizza cutter, the entire chainsaw scene shortened), had more comedic scenes added in (exploding Scrump, Stitch catching Jumba's laser, Stitch yelling, "Blue Punch Buggy! No punch-back!" when hitting Jumba with Nani's VW, the Elvis Presley song "Hound Dog" playing in the background), and the house being destroyed by having Stitch stop up Jumba's blaster with a carrot and then having them both play "hot potato" with it until the blaster overloads and explodes.
 * Stitch was originally supposed to be the last experiment that Jumba created before he got arrested by the Galactic Federation, before 627, 628 and Leroy.
 * Stitch is the first successful destructing experiment that Jumba created after two failures: 600 and 625.
 * Stitch is one of two experiments that was never seen in pod form, the other being Leroy.
 * Stitch appears, along with several other Lilo & Stitch characters, in a parody of the Disney Channel Original Movie High School Musical, which was broadcast as part of the High School Musical: Around the World one-year anniversary special.
 * In said parody, when Stitch and the other experiments are looking up at the ceiling, Stitch is colored red and 627 is colored blue. It is unknown how this happened, though it could be a continuity error.
 * In the Stitch! anime, he talks in complete sentences, his English has improved, and has more dialogue.
 * This may actually imply that his command of Japanese is better than his English; since he is on anisland prefecture of Japan, it is reasonable that he is speaking the local language, and thus the American-dubbed version is actually a case of "audience filter". On the other hand, since the anime takes place years after Leroy & Stitch, Stitch may have spent enough time on Hawaii before leaving to actually get a decent grasp on English. It should also be noted that English is heavily-taught as a second language in Japan.
 * However, in Stitch & Ai, he mainly speaks his original dialect (Tantalog).
 * Stitch has a tendency to refer to himself in the third person. He developed this habit probably because of his broken English or he had gotten it from Jumba, whom he too refers to himself in the third person.
 * In Lilo & Stitch, the only two times he did this was after he was apprehended by the Grand Councilwoman, asking her if he has to go into her ship, and if he can say goodbye to Lilo and Nani.
 * In Stitch Has a Glitch, he is shown to do this less often.
 * In the English dub of the Stitch! anime, he does it even less often than before, but over the course of the series, he seems to have grown out of this habit.
 * While Stitch and the other experiments are technically siblings, "cousins" is a Hawaiian term, like "ʻohana", for extended family and close friends, although Stitch only uses it in regard to the experiments.
 * Stitch loves reading his favorite storybook, The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen, which he obtained from Lilo at some point.
 * The plot revolving around the book mirrors Stitch questioning his purpose, as it revolves around his loneliness and desire to find a family, to which he did in the end.
 * Stitch also developed a fondness for ducks as he showed some ducklings the storybook, as seen in the credits of Lilo & Stitch.
 * Stitch apparently has a fondness for frogs, as seen in Lilo & Stitch where Stitch saves one from being blasted from a plasma gun of Gantu's ship.
 * He is also very fond of sea turtles and even sleeps with a stuffed one, as seen in Stitch Has a Glitch.
 * In the end credits of Lilo & Stitch, Stitch is also seen covering a turtle and its baby with a leaf.
 * Stitch likes to dress up as Elvis Presley, and is very skilled at playing the ukulele.
 * His favorite foods are coconut cake and coffee, which are the very first Earth-based food and drink he ever ate, as seen in the original film and also mentioned in Stitch! The Movie. However, whenever he drinks coffee, he gains a massive amount of uncontrollable energy. Ironically, in "Slugger", he drank a large bowl of cappuccino, along with Lilo's cappuccino, but didn't go crazy at all.
 * He has also been shown to eat anything inedible and very rarely doesn't like to eat something. An exception was in "Spooky", when he spit out a lemon, saying, "Ew, organic!", implying he might not like lemons.
 * However, in "Shortstuff", Stitch, as a giant, drank some lemonade from the cart he accidentally smashed without expressing any disgust, and in "Swapper", he drank a whole bowl of lemonade (albeit modified by Jumba to cause those who drink it to temporarily change colors), again without expressing any disgust, which would contradict this supposed dislike of lemons. It could be that either Stitch doesn't like organically-grown foods (as his heightened senses might have the unintended side effect of him tasting even the tiniest amounts of manure residue), he doesn't like the taste of unsweetened lemons or lemon juice, or him spitting out the organic lemon was nothing more than a simple joke.
 * In the Stitch! anime, he also loves Yuna's blue crab sushi.
 * Due to a continuity error, Stitch's ear notches have a tendency to disappear or change position in some works or merchandise.
 * Following after Stitch! The Movie, Stitch's toes have changed from dark blue to black.
 * Additionally, following after Stitch Has a Glitch, Stitch's fur color has changed from dark blue to light blue.
 * Stitch's blood is revealed to be pink when a sample was taken out of his body.
 * When Stitch has a glitch, his eyes glow green.
 * In the original movie, Stitch's eyes were shown green after he crashed landed on Earth. In Stitch Has a Glitch, the animation was reused in the beginning.
 * Usually when Stitch rolls into a ball, he puts his feet into his mouth and covers his face with his butt. In "Dupe" and "Snafu", his ball form resembles Cannonball's ball form in Leroy & Stitch.
 * Stitch is described by the experiment computer screen as, "Experiment 626. Primary function: Destruction of populated areas. Weapons: Sharp teeth and strong jaws for tearing stone, metal and flesh, 4 clawed hands, and 3 poisonous spines. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS".
 * Since Lilo's adoption of Stitch was a legal process under State of Hawaii law (complete with legal documentation), it can be said that his legal name is indeed "Stitch" and not "Experiment 626". Disney INFINITY seems to re-enforce this by describing him as "Dr. Jumba's former Experiment 626" on the description for Stitch in the games' Hall of Heroes.
 * This may also provide additional context when he interrupts the Grand Councilwoman to clarify his name in the denouement of Lilo & Stitch, as he may also imply that it would no longer be considered proper to refer to him as "Experiment 626" in any further formal or legal matters. Since he is referred to as "Captain Stitch" when he joins the Galactic Armada in Leroy & Stitch, it could also be that the United Galactic Federation does formally acknowledge "Stitch" as his proper legal name; if they didn't, then he would have been "Captain 626" instead.
 * In the prequel comics, it is revealed that Stitch's genes contain those of some of the most powerful creatures in the galaxy, as well as some of Jumba's for "brains and good looks". One of the genes was a puppy, explaining Stitch's resemblance to a dog (though Jumba did not know how it got in there).
 * In each of the Lilo & Stitch franchise's three TV series, Stitch grows into a giant at least once per show via some method.
 * In the Lilo & Stitch: The Series episode "Shortstuff", Stitch uses Jumba's Protoplasmic Growth Ray to make himself bigger, but the episode's experiment also becomes bigger. Stitch uses his giant size to fight Shortstuff at the carnival, but loses. Stitch would later be returned to his normal size in order to fight back.
 * In an episode of the Stitch! anime, Shrink zaps Stitch with an energy ray after the latter falls into a swimming pool, causing him to grow into a giant. Due to Retro reverting Stitch to his original destructive programming, Stitch goes on a rampage in this giant form until Yuna reaches out to him and reminds him of his promise. Shrink would be used again to revert Stitch to his original size.
 * In Stitch & Ai, it is revealed that Stitch has a metamorphosis code programmed in his DNA, which transforms him into a gigantic monster armed with four tentacle-like blasters.
 * However, a deleted version of the opening of the original film contradicts this. In this opening, the Galactic Council shows video footage of Experiment 626—in his familiar small size—causing chaos and destruction in an alien city, including tipping over a skyscraper by lifting it from its base. The existence of this scene strongly suggests that Chris Sanders, Stitch's creator and original voice actor, never intended or at least considered giving Stitch this metamorphosis ability, thus likely making the monstrous "destruction form" in Stitch & Ai a retcon or a "revision" of the character. (Sanders did not work on either Stitch & Ai or theStitch! anime series in any capacity; he was only credited in those shows for creating the characters who originated in Lilo & Stitch, including Stitch.)
 * Toothless, a Night Fury from DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon franchise, bears a strong resemblance to Stitch. Even their facial expressions are similar, especially those showing, excitement, wariness, and anger. However, their personalities are somewhat different, as Stitch is far more mischievous than Toothless. This is not a coincidence; Chris Sanders was the designer for both characters and co-directed both films.
 * Chris Sanders left Disney to join DreamWorks (Disney's rival company) in 2007 due to creative differences over Disney rejecting his original Bolt script and designs. Despite his departure, though, Sanders still continues to voice Stitch in the video games like Kingdom Hearts II, Birth by Sleep, Disney INFINITY: 2.0, and every other opportunity he gets.
 * In Big Hero 6, Stitch is referenced twice: the first as a costume worn by Mochi in a painting, and the second as one of the pillows on Fred's bed.