Disney Channel is giving Stitch fans a double feature on Wednesday, November 11. The channel’s schedule has the original Lilo & Stitch at 5:25 p.m. Eastern, followed by Stitch! The Movie at 7 p.m. Eastern.
It’s a nice pairing, because Stitch! The Movie picks up right where the 2002 film leaves off. Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois wrote and directed the original, and Sanders voices Stitch in both movies. If you only know the first film, this is the one that opens up the whole experiment storyline that kept the franchise going on TV for years.
Stitch Has 625 Cousins
Stitch was Experiment 626, which means there were 625 experiments before him. In Stitch! The Movie, those experiments start landing on Earth, and it’s up to Lilo and Stitch to rescue his “cousins” and turn them from bad to good before Captain Gantu can capture them. Jumba, Pleakley and Nani are all along for the ride.
The villain this time is Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel, the one who paid for Jumba’s experiments in the first place. He hires a now-fired Gantu to round them up for him, which puts Gantu and Stitch on opposite sides of the hunt for every experiment that falls out of the sky. At about an hour long, it plays more like a TV event than a feature.
The movie came out on home video on August 26, 2003, and it doubled as the launch for Lilo & Stitch: The Series, which premiered the following month. Most of the original voice cast came back for it, including Daveigh Chase as Lilo, Tia Carrere as Nani, David Ogden Stiers as Jumba, Kevin McDonald as Pleakley and Kevin Michael Richardson as Gantu. If the experiment-of-the-week format from the show is what you remember most, this is where it all starts.
More Stitch On The Way
The timing works out, too. The new animated short Lilo & Scratch, which follows Lilo and Stitch with a rescued cat, plays in theaters with Disney’s Hexed starting November 25. And the live-action Lilo & Stitch 2 arrives May 26, 2028, with Chris Sanders directing. We’ve already seen it filming in Waikiki with Angel along for the ride.
Air times can vary by provider and by time zone, so check your local Disney Channel listing before you settle in. If you’d rather stream it, Stitch! The Movie is also on Disney+.
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