"Checkers" is the forty-sixth episodenote of Lilo & Stitch: The Series. It first aired on March 4, 2005.
The titular experiment puts himself on Lilo's head, causing everyone to treat her like a queen. When she decides to stop being one though, Gantu gets a hold of the experiment and becomes a king and it's up to Stitch and several other experiments to overthrow him.
Experiments who appeared or were mentioned in this episode include:
- Checkers (X-029): This episode's Monster of the Week; a yellow-and-purple, crown-shaped, centipede-like experiment who is designed to give whoever wears him on their head the power to command all living creatures, except for other experiments.
- Backhoe (X-040)
- Clip (X-177)
- Sparky (X-221)
- Spooky (X-300)
- Elastico (X-345)
- Yin (X-501)
- Richter (X-513)
- Deforestator (X-515)
- Cannonball (X-520)
- Digger (X-529)
- Kixx (X-601)
- Holio (X-606)
- Reuben (X-625)
Tropes featured in this episode include:
- An Aesop: Good leadership is about listening to your subjects, not forcing them to follow your every command.
- Chekhov's Gun: Experiments are immune to Checkers’ influence. Stitch uses this later on to gather a small following of his cousins to take down Gantu when he gets a hold of Checkers.
- Immune to Mind Control: Checkers’ mind control doesn’t affect other experiments.
- Mind Control: Checkers’ power. When he sits on someone’s head, everyone around them will call that person their king or queen and do whatever the person tells them to. However, other experiments are immune to his power.
- Morality Pet: In a role reversal, Stitch actually becomes Lilo's morality pet in this episode, as she becomes a bit mad with power while being treated like a queen with Checkers' influence and Stitch ends up being the voice of reason trying to get her to dial it back.
- Produce Pelting: After Gantu loses Checkers, the people he enslaved are freed from his control and pelt him with fruit.
- Shout-Out: At one point, Stitch and several other experiments get an outrigger canoe and row to Gantu at the hotel where he's "ruling", and they're posed in a matter similar to the Emanuel Leutze painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, with Stitch standing heroically on the bow and Deforestator holding a flag (an alien flag, likely the flag of Planet Turo).
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Nani often works very hard just to fill in for her late parents, keep a roof over her family's heads and make sure her sister is provided for. Towards the end, at recognizing her sister is deserving of respite for her self-sacrificing lifestyle, Lilo has Nani be the parade's queen for a day, courtesy of Checkers.Nani: (satisfied) I could get used to this.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: "Queen" Lilo declares that from now on, every day is a holiday and nobody has to work, so as to ensure she's a benevolent queen to her subjects. Mrs. Hasagawa, however, humbly makes a point that without work, nobody would be able to earn money to buy food or keep a roof over their heads.
