Morpholomew, also known as Experiment 316, is an illegal genetic experiment created by Jumba Jookiba and a character in the Lilo & Stitch franchise. He is designed to morph organisms into an exact duplicate of any other, after seeing the _target organism or a photo of it for reference; however, the recipient's vocal cords will stay identical. His one true place is at a costume store, morphing people into celebrities.
Background
Personality
Morpholomew is very curious, as seen when he chased a noise which turned out to be a rabbit. He is also one of the few experiments that demand payment, which he considers to be chicken legs. He enjoys chicken legs so much that he can easily go through several buckets of them in only a few minutes. While he is cautious of others at first, he is friendly and trusting, as he immediately befriended Stitch after the latter pursued him and pronounced him his cousin and ally, even shaking hands. He is fairly relaxed and doesn't mind helping individuals. He also seems to have a sense of humor, as he once changed Gantu into a harmless bunny.
Physical appearance
Morpholomew is a small, red blob-like experiment with a small body, two small arms, two short legs, a short tail, a thin mouth, and black eyes.
Powers and abilities
Morpholomew can alter the appearance of any organism into any other organism, even if it is not the same species. To do this, he must see the _target organism or a photo of the _target at least once before he can change them. He then touches the recipient while briefly changing his own head to that of the _target organism and morphs their appearance to that of the _target's. The recipient's vocal cords stay identical, however.
Appearances
Lilo & Stitch: The Series
Experiment 316 was the 316th genetic experiment created by Jumba with Hämsterviel's funding. He was designed to morph organisms into any other organism. 316 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 316's pod landing on a hay umbrella.
At the very beginning of the episode, Lilo decided to enter the local skateboarding competition in order to win a brand-new skateboard, the Velociraptor 1200, for her crush Keoni. Before the event, she and Stitch discovered Experiment 316, whose pod was activated in a fountain after Stitch unstuck Lilo's skateboard from a straw umbrella. According to Jumba, Experiment 316, or Morpholomew, was a creature capable of giving anyone the appearance of someone else. Lilo used this power in order to enter the competition as Keoni.
In the meantime, Jake, Lao Shi, Fu Dog, Trixie, and Spud arrived at the Kauai skate park. They were investigating reports of undisguised magical creatures lurking on the island of Hawaii (actually Jumba's illegal genetic experiments), although Jake was more interested in winning the contest's grand prize. All of them separated to go on their own business: Lao Shi became enamored with Mrs. Hasagawa; Trixie and Spud headed to the beach; Fu Dog went to place some bets on Jake while the latter signed up for the skateboarding competition.
Lilo did the same, but soon realized that impersonating Keoni was likely a bad idea when she earned a low score. She asked Morpholomew to change her into absolutely anybody else so she could start over, but registrations closed before she got a chance to sign up again.
Elsewhere, Jake, having spotted Morpholomew with Lilo and mistaking the little red blob for a magical creature, transformed into the American Dragon and got ready to pursue them. However, he was captured by Gantu, who mistook him for Morpholomew. Since Jake didn't show for the competition, Lilo decided to ask Morpholomew to turn her into Jake so she could enter in his stead.
Meanwhile, Jake managed to escape Gantu's ship before he was transferred to Hämsterviel's asteroid and went back to the skate park. However, Lilo had already taken his place and failed once again to score any points. Trixie and Spud grew suspicious of Lilo (still disguised as Jake) while she threw a tantrum when Stitch told her that Morpholomew (who earlier got distracted by a rabbit) had been captured by Gantu. They knew something was up when Lilo panicked upon hearing Fu Dog speak. The real Jake (in his dragon form) arrived at that moment and engaged in a duel with Stitch. Before things got too far, Lilo managed to calm everyone down and explain the whole situation.
Once everything was clarified, everyone decided to team up to retrieve Morpholomew. They traveled over to Gantu's ship and fought against him for Morpholomew. In the confusion, Jake and company tricked Gantu into thinking he captured Morpholomew, when in reality, Spud assumed the little red blob's form and got kidnapped instead. Thanks to this, the team managed to get Morpholomew back and change Gantu into a little white bunny as punishment for all the trouble he caused.
The gang then headed back to the skateboard competition, where the winner claimed the Velociraptor 1200. Jake and Lilo were a bit bummed out by this, but were happy to have made new friends. They left on good terms and promised to see each other again soon. Meanwhile, Morpholomew was given a one true place at a costume store, where he morphed people into celebrities according to the photo he was shown.
Leroy & Stitch
Morpholomew was seen early in the movie morphing the Ice Cream Man into the famous Elvis as Lilo was making her rounds with Scrump to make sure all the experiments were happy in the one true place they belonged.
Later, the first 624 experiments, including Morpholomew, 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.
It is unknown whether or not Morpholomew participated in the following battle between the experiments and the Leroy clones.
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!
Morpholomew made an appearance in the Stitch! anime where Hämsterviel transmutated him to morph his own body instead of others and also gave him a vocabulary. At an unknown time after this, Lilo, now an adult, took a vacation with her daughter, Ani, to an island in Japan where, unbeknownst to them, Stitch resided at the time. Ani met Stitch, who mistook her for a de-aged Lilo, and they played together contentedly. Hämsterviel took advantage of this and sent Gantu to use Morpholomew to take the image of her and distract Stitch long enough to capture him.
Morpholomew later appeared as one of the experiments who helped Stitch fight Dark End. He also appeared in the special Stitch and the Planet of Sand.
Gallery
Trivia
- Morpholomew is one of the ten known experiments named by someone other than Lilo, the other nine being Gigi, Elastico, Yaarp, Hammerface, Heat, Thresher, Plasmoid, Shrink, and Leroy.
- He also is the only experiment named by a character from outside the Lilo & Stitch franchise, as Spud from American Dragon: Jake Long named him.
- Lilo initially planned to name 316 "Changer", but Trixie convinced her that he should have a better name, with Spud being the one to name him "Morpholomew".
- His name is a mix between "Morphology" and "Bartholomew".
- Morpholomew is one of the rare experiments to turn from bad to good the fastest, as once Stitch introduced himself as his cousin, Morpholomew quickly reformed.
- In his debut, it is revealed that Morpholomew loves chicken legs, as he was seen eating them out of a bucket and is also paid by them in his one true place.
- Morpholomew and Spooky are the only known experiments that have shapeshifting/transforming abilities.
- It is unclear if Morpholomew can use his shapeshifting ability on himself or not (aside from changing his face when morphing others), although Gantu assumed the former when Jake Long transformed into his dragon form, as he was mistaken for Morpholomew by Gantu.
- Morpholomew's pod color is yellow.
- Morpholomew, Spats, and Lax are the only experiments that debuted in crossovers.
- Morpholomew is one of the few experiments to not appear in the group photo at the end of Leroy & Stitch.
- The experiments list seen in the end credits of Leroy & Stitch spells his name as "Morpholemew", with an "e" replacing the third "o"; the Disney+ listing of his episode reaffirms the correct spelling of his name to be with three "o"'s and one "e".
- Considering that the partial inspiration for his name is also spelled in English with an "o" before "mew", it can be assumed that the experiments list entry is a misspelling.
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