How fuzzy blue alien Stitch became a Disney cash cow

Eight-year-old Elle Bauerlein of Wake Forest, North Carolina, is obsessed with Stitch. "Honestly, I think about him all the time. Like, 10 hours every day."

- Ashley Spencer

Her American Girl doll - clad in a Stitch onesie, complete with alien-eared hood - is technically named Stacy, but Elle prefers to call it "S" in tribute to Stitch.

Her pillowcase is Stitch. Her backpack is Stitch. Her Crocs are Stitch.

The third-grader was born more than a decade after the 2002 Disney animated film Lilo & Stitch was released in theaters. And yet, for the past two years, the rambunctious title character has been a fixture in her life.

In an act of belated cultural permeation, Stitch - the destructive but adorable alien experiment that crash-landed in Hawaii and befriended a young girl named Lilo - has become a crucial character in The Walt Disney Co's modern empire, mainly in the form of a dizzying array of licensed merchandise.

There is also a cottage industry of TikTokers who devote their accounts to showcasing the latest Stitch-centric items.

While Disney does not release official sales data, the company's annual financial reports for 2023 and 2024 included Lilo & Stitch on a short list of nine examples of its "major" licensed properties, putting it on a par with classic titans such as Winnie The Pooh and Mickey And Friends, and conglomerates like Star Wars and the Disney princesses.