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Review
Stitch invades Magic Kingdom
The cute but crazy alien experiment gets his own ride at Walt Disney World.
By NATALIE NICHOLS
Published November 22, 2004
[Photo: Natalie Gillespie]
Kids in Stitch costumes pour out of Cinderella’s Castle to announce the opening of the ride.
KISSIMMEE - Visitors to Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom walked right into a high-speed chase last week as Stitch, the little blue monster from Disney's animated film Lilo & Stitch, escaped inside the theme park.
The mischievous creature wrapped Cinderella's castle in toilet paper and wrote the words "Stitch is King" on a wall. Then he and a bunch of singing Elvis impersonators stormed the stage show starring Mickey Mouse, crooning You Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog, while hundreds of kids dressed in Stitch hats poured into the audience.
All the fun was part of the grand opening of Stitch's Great Escape, Tomorrowland's new attraction that now occupies the space where Alien Encounter used to be. The show is somewhat the same, although it is less scary for little kids.
"It was cool," said Josh Woolbright, 9, a student from Methodist School Center in Brooksville. "I liked the part where the captain is surprised that Stitch looks so cute."
The show begins with an alert that a "Level 3 monster" has been caught and is being brought to the Galactic Federation Prisoner Teleport Center. Everyone is afraid of this Level 3 until they find out it is Stitch. They don't realize the trouble he can make until the lights go out and he "escapes" into the audience. There are a bunch of surprises before Stitch reappears again in the center of the room.
"I felt him brush by me," said Justin Gillespie, 6, of Weeki Wachee. "I really liked it."
Stitch does a little bit of everything, including a burp that smells, well, really bad.
"It did (smell bad)" agreed Jessica Woolbright, 13, a home-schooled student from Weeki Wachee. "The new ride is good, but a lot of it is familiar if you remember Alien Encounter."
Chris Sanders, the creator and voice of the Stitch character, said Stitch was first an idea he had for a children's book character.
"But he was too big of an idea to fit inside just a book," Sanders said.
"Kids love Stitch because he is so mischievous," said Kevin Rafferty, who wrote Stitch's Great Escape and works as a Walt Disney "Imagineer." "We thought he would be the perfect fit for the Magic Kingdom."
