Sample, also known as Experiment 258, is an illegal genetic experiment created by Jumba Jookiba and a character in the Lilo & Stitch franchise. He is designed to record random sounds he hears and replay them in endless loops in an annoying, musical rhythm in order to drive the entire population into madness. His one true place is providing backbeats for the band Fox Roswell and the Tall Grays.
Background[]
Personality[]
Sample is a lively, upbeat experiment. He is usually happy and easily amused by his own music and any other sound, commonly dancing by bouncing from one foot to the other. His perky, carefree attitude may be a result of him being blissfully unaware of the situation at hand. He also shows great curiosity toward any sound that is new or unfamiliar to him. He doesn't like to be silent unless he can play his music (or any sound) to amuse himself. He normally just tends to do his own thing, completely disregarding the simple command to be quiet, yet following complex instructions during a rescue mission. He doesn't have a real voice (he can only dub someone else's voice) but finds a way to communicate through his backbeats, head nods, and basic hand signals.
When he appears transmutated in Stitch!, however, he becomes more aggressive, as he forces others to dance to his beat. He also gets angry when others try to stop his rhythm and not dance along.
Physical appearance[]
Sample is an orange koala-like experiment. He has a tuft of fur on his chest, stubby soft paws and legs, pointed fingers, hourglass-shaped markings on his legs, and black pupil-less eyes. He also has a big round oval-shaped nose with purple and magenta stripes, which functions as an amplified microphone, and big round ears resembling speakers.
When he is transmutated by Hämsterviel, he is a darker orange color, gains green irises, and has Hämsterviel's insignia on his nose.
Powers and abilities[]
Sample can record any sound that he hears through his nose (microphone) and play it through his mouth and ears (loudspeakers) with other recorded sounds in loops and backbeats to make music that can be annoying or catchy. Like Stitch, he can climb walls and ceilings.
In the Stitch! anime, it is also revealed that Sample can use his speakers to launch out yellow rings of dust that make individuals dance uncontrollably after being transmutated by Hämsterviel.
Appearances[]
Lilo & Stitch: The Series[]
Experiment 258 was the 258th genetic experiment created by Jumba with Hämsterviel's funding. He was designed to annoy enemies by recording, replaying, and looping random sounds that he hears. 258 and the other first 624 experiments were deactivated and smuggled to Earth by Jumba during his mission to capture Experiment 626.
All of the experiment pods were released and scattered across the island of Kauai, with 258's pod landing on a golf course.
258's pod was mistaken for a golf ball, where a golfer whacked it into a pond, activating the experiment. 258 then deftly recorded and sampled the noises of a parrot and frog, causing the golfers to become annoyed by the racket.
Later, 258 sampled the sound of a jackhammer and casually made his way to town, where he was almost captured by Gantu, who was out looking for the experiment. However, 258 was instead caught by the dogcatcher, who mistook the former for a dog and took him to the dog shelter.
The dog pound lady contacted Merwin and Dean, two alien hunters who eagerly accepted 258 and almost took him to an alien convention. However, when Lilo and a reluctant Stitch later arrived at the pound to get Stitch his shots, Merwin and Dean (seeing that Stitch was an alien too) attempted to grab him to take him to the convention as well. When Lilo and Stitch saw 258, they decided to rescue him from the two alien hunters.
Lilo, Stitch, and 258 managed to escape Merwin and Dean, but when the trio attempted to hide from them, 258 kept playing his rhythm, despite being told to be quiet by Lilo. The two alien hunters were alerted by 258's music and soon caught up. However, Gantu intervened, causing Merwin and Dean to try to catch him as well, since he was also an alien. They chased Gantu, forgetting about Stitch and 258.
Safe for now, Lilo, Stitch, and 258 arrived home, where Jumba explained 258's powers. Due to the latter's skills, Lilo decided to name 258 Sample (whom Stitch locked in the closet after he was nearly driven crazy by the cacophony of recorded sounds). Shortly after, Pleakley left to attend the alien convention, with a wary Jumba tagging along.
Later, Gantu came to the Pelekais' house looking for a place to hide from Merwin and Dean. Although hesitant, Lilo and Stitch complied after Gantu promised to behave and not take Sample away. As the two alien hunters tried to break in, Sample began sampling random noises, despite Lilo and Stitch's best efforts to silence him. Everyone then quickly escaped out a window, but Gantu got stuck halfway and was captured by Merwin and Dean.
Lilo, Stitch, and Sample went back to rescue Gantu, but he blasted the trio into a net and then put Stitch and Sample into containment orbs. Lilo reprimanded Gantu's betrayal, though he informed her that he had called a truce with Merwin and Dean by allowing them to showcase Stitch and Sample, the latter of whom they would give back to Gantu in return.
Stitch and Sample were taken to the alien convention, where Merwin and Dean planned to have them be shown in front of an audience to prove aliens were real. However, Stitch escaped and released Sample. Gantu unsuccessfully tried to stop them from running away. Merwin and Dean then forced Gantu to pose as an alien in front of the entire audience.
Sample later found his one true place providing backbeats for the band Fox Roswell and the Tall Grays, whose rhythm was initially out of sync.
In "Snafu", Sample was one of the experiments that joined Lilo and Stitch on a mission to rescue Gantu's captive experiments. Sample stood watch outside Gantu's ship and was told to crow like a rooster if the coast was clear, while the others all broke into the ship. While he was standing guard, Experiment 120 somehow convinced him to imitate the ship's alarm system, thus alerting Gantu to their location.
Leroy & Stitch[]
The first 624 experiments, including Sample, were rounded up by Leroy and taken to a stadium to be destroyed. However, Lilo, Stitch, Jumba, Pleakley, Reuben, and Gantu arrived before the experiments could be destroyed.
Sample participated in the following battle between the experiments and the Leroy clones by annoying Leroys with his cacophony of recorded sounds.
However, the Leroys soon gained the upper hand in the battle, but were defeated when Lilo, Stitch, Reuben, and several other experiments performed the song "Aloha ʻOe", which caused the Leroy army to shut down due to the original Leroy's fail-safe.
Stitch![]
Despite appearing prominently in certain intros of Seasons 1 and 2 of the Stitch! anime, Sample only appeared in one episode of Season 3: "Yuna vs. Jessica". In this episode, he was "transmutated" by Hämsterviel so that instead of just repeating sounds he hears, he can fire waves of light yellow dust from his ears, causing anyone it touches to dance uncontrollably when he plays his music (similar to Carmen's ability).
He was given the assignment to use his ability to get Stitch to the top of a hill, where a pre-built transportation device would be waiting to send him to Delia. He managed to form a parade out of several people he affected, including Jessica, Toriko, Makiko, Hiroman and his entire soccer team, and even Stitch. However, when he tried to use his power on Yuna, the dust reflected off her umbrella, hitting him and breaking his spell on everyone. Stitch was then able to use the spandex-covered inside of the umbrella to absorb Sample's dust and dump it on him, knocking him unconscious.
He was then placed in a machine built by Jumba that would reverse the transmutation, but he still used his dancing power on Yuna when a little bit of the remaining dust from the umbrella fell on her. Stitch then discovered that the machine wasn't plugged in, but decided to enjoy Yuna dancing for a while, despite her protests.
Eventually, Sample was reverted back to normal, then dehydrated back into an experiment pod and locked in Jumba's vault as shown in "Shogun". Eventually, Jumba grabbed his pod to help Stitch in his fight against Dark End, but Sample wasn't one of the experiments that was activated. He later appeared in the special Stitch and the Planet of Sand.
Disney Parks[]
Stitch's Hawaiian Paradise Party[]
Sample and some of the other experiments join Stitch and their foes for meet and greets at Disney Village in Disneyland Paris.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Sample seems to always be smiling and can apparently tolerate anything, including being captured.
- Sample 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.
- Sample's pod color is white in the original series. In the Stitch! anime, it is blue.
- The Experiment Pod Container describes Sample as: "Experiment 258. Primary function: Sonic annoyance. Drives people mad by sampling sounds and repeating them in an endless, grating rhythm."
- Sample's ears appear in the online game Jumba's Lab.
- In the French dub, Sample is named "Echo", which is the same name as Experiment 048.
