Lilo & Stitch: The Series

**Lilo & Stitch: The Series** is an American television series created by Bobs Gannaway and Jess Winfield. It is based on the 2002 film Lilo & Stitch.

The series premiered on Disney Channel on September 20, 2003 and aired for two seasons until July 29, 2006.

## Plot

Continuing where Stitch! The Movie left off, Lilo and Stitch are given the task of collecting the rest of Jumba's 623 missing experiments, changing them from bad to good, and finding the one place where they truly belong. Meanwhile, the former Captain Gantu and his reluctant partner, Experiment 625 (later named Reuben), try to capture the experiments for the imprisoned Dr. Hämsterviel.

Running for two seasons, it had a total of 65 episodes. The storyline of the series concluded with the Disney Channel broadcast of the television finale Leroy & Stitch on June 23, 2006.

## Cast and Characters

### Main

* Chris Sanders as Stitch
* Daveigh Chase as Lilo Pelekai
* David Ogden Stiers as Dr. Jumba Jookiba
* Kevin McDonald as Pleakley
* Tia Carrere as Nani Pelekai
* Jeff Bennett as Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel
* Kevin Michael Richardson as Gantu
* Rob Paulsen as X-625

### Recurring

* Liliana Mumy as Mertle Edmonds
* Dee Bradley Baker as David Kawena
* Tara Strong as X-624/Angel
* Tress MacNeille as X-007/Gigi
* Frank Welker as X-221/Sparky / Ice Cream Man
* Kevin Michael Richardson as Cobra Bubbles
* Jillian Henry as Elena
* Kali Whitehurst as Teresa
* Lili Ishida as Yuki
* Clyde Kusatsu as Mr. Wong
* April Winchell as Mrs. Edmonds
* Zoe Caldwell as Grand Councilwoman
* Shaun Fleming as Keoni Jameson
* Kunewa Mook as Moses Puloki
* Alyson Stoner as Victoria
* Amy Hill as Mrs. Lynne Hasagawa

## Episodes

See Also: List of Lilo & Stitch: The Series Episodes

 2 | 26

## Production

In July 2002, Thomas Schumacher, then-president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, announced that Disney was developing a television series sequel to the film for Disney Channel in fall 2003 under the working title of Stitch! The TV Series. The series was announced alongside the direct-to-video film, Stitch! The Movie. Television animation directors Tony Craig and Bobs Gannaway, who both worked on Disney animated series such as House of Mouse and The Lion King's Timon & Pumbaa, and television screenwriter Jess Winfield, who wrote for Teacher's Pet and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, served as executive producers of the show. Victor Cook and Don MacKinnon directed for the show's first 39 episodes, which comprised the first season. For the remaining 26 episodes, which comprised the second season, Rob LaDuca replaced MacKinnon as the other main director alongside Cook, while Craig directed two episodes, "Spike" and "Shoe".

## Release

### Home Media

Only a few episodes of Lilo & Stitch: The Series were released on home media in the United States. The episodes "Clip" and "Mr. Stenchy" were bonus features for a DVD board game called Lilo & Stitch's Island of Adventures that was released on November 11, 2003. Another two episodes, "Slushy" and "Poxy", were released on separate Game Boy Advance Video compilations of Disney Channel series. Finally, the final episode "Link" was a bonus feature on the Leroy & Stitch DVD that was released on June 27, 2006, a month before the episode aired on television.

### Streaming

Lilo & Stitch: The Series was available on the now-defunct DisneyLife streaming service in the United Kingdom.

The first American digital streaming release for The Series was via the TV Everywhere service DisneyNow in 2018, while the show reran on Disney XD, although it was later removed from the service in August that year. It was later made digitally available in the United States again and in other countries on Disney+ when that service launched on November 12, 2019, alongside all four feature-length Lilo & Stitch films. For unknown reasons, Disney+'s listing claims The Series's original run ended in 2004 rather than 2006.

## Reception

In a review for the finale film Leroy & Stitch, AllMovie's Skyler Miller called Lilo & Stitch: The Series a "high quality" television series, stating that it "was a pleasant surprise to fans of the 2002 film, continuing its good-natured, offbeat spirit while introducing the ingenious plot device of having the titular duo capture and rehabilitate Stitch's 625 'cousins.'"

Betsy Wallace of Common Sense Media gave the show's quality 3 out of 5 stars, applicable for ages 6 and above. Wallace noted that "Lilo frequently demonstrates compassion to creatures," but ultimately deemed the series's humor to be its "strong point", pointing out that the show "even makes fun of [its own] scant educational content."

In his 2018 book The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows, author David Perlmutter wrote that the show's concept was "saddled... with formulaic and derivative elements" that were not found in the original film, though he praised Kevin McDonald's vocal performance as Pleakley, calling said performance "clever and amusing" and "the show's central grace".