Houdini, also known as Experiment 604, is an illegal genetic experiment created by Jumba Jookiba and a character in the Lilo & Stitch franchise. He is designed to make armies and weapons invisible; unfortunately, he was gun-shy on the battlefield and always ran away and made himself invisible instead. His one true place is as a Hollywood star magician, but his actions have promoted him to a shark tank attraction, where he makes sharks disappear to amaze crowds.
Background
Personality
Unlike the initial behavior of most experiments, Houdini has no destructive intent; on the contrary, he is a very timid and easily frightened experiment. He is shown to be scared by almost everything, suggesting he has panphobia. He is also easily intimidated and startled by loud noises. It took a tremendous effort for him to leave show biz to help out his cousin Stitch, and even then he typically stays invisible 95% of the time.
Physical appearance
Houdini is a petite, cream-colored rabbit-like experiment. He has huge beady black eyes and even larger ears, but a small mouth with a tooth sticking out. His body has four brown spots on each elbow and knee, light pink markings around his eyes, chest, and stomach, dark pink stripes on his arms and legs, and purple markings on his back and ear tips.
Powers and abilities
Houdini can instantly render anything, including himself, invisible with a blink of his massive eyes, but can also make them reappear by blinking again. Houdini can choose whatever he wants to make invisible by looking at the target. However, his eyes are highly sensitive to camera flashes, as one flash temporarily blinds him, forcing him to blink repeatedly to try to get his vision back, and ends up making random things invisible due to the fact that he cannot see what he is doing. His invisibility also does not hide his body temperature, meaning he can be detected by infrared vision.
In "Snafu", Houdini is shown to have some telekinesis or at least street magic while performing to a crowd by levitating a card.
Appearances
Lilo & Stitch: The Series
Experiment 604 was the 604th genetic experiment created by Jumba with Hämsterviel's funding. He was designed to render entire armies and weapons invisible, but due to being cowardly, he instead kept turning himself invisible and fleeing the battlefield. 604 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.
On a small outdoor stage, Stitch and Pleakley rehearsed a magic act in front of Lilo, Nani, Jumba, and a few experiments for Mertle's upcoming half birthday, but Stitch kept bungling the act with his failed tricks. When Lilo realized that Stitch was having trouble, she asked Jumba if he had any experiments that could help with Stitch's magic act. Jumba then took out 604's pod, but warned that 604 had cowardly habits.
Using a leash as a restraint, Lilo activated 604 and named him Houdini, but the craven experiment panicked and made himself invisible until Lilo pacified him. She then trained Houdini to turn things invisible upon hearing "Alakablooe" and vice versa upon hearing "Alakazoo" with a blink of his eyes.
During Mertle's party, Houdini secretly helped Stitch out with his magic act. However, the former was eventually caught in the act by Mertle, who photographed Houdini. The camera flash spooked him, thus causing Houdini to turn Stitch and numerous other things invisible, including himself.
Before Houdini became invisible, Gantu, who was looking for the experiment, spied on Stitch's magic act and spotted Houdini. However, when Gantu crashed the party in an attempt to nab Houdini, the latter escaped in fear. Mertle later visited Lilo's house and condemned her for being a fraud before revealing the photo taken of Houdini.
To make matters worse, Mrs. Edmonds had booked Mertle's aunt and her staff to witness Stitch's magic act. Lilo knew that Stitch was unable to do magic without Houdini's help. While Stitch was invisible, Lilo adorned him in different ways so that she could still see him before they searched for Houdini.
Later, Gantu, wearing special infrared heat goggles, pursued an invisible Houdini through a jungle. However, the latter was able to slow Gantu down by turning palm trees and other obstacles invisible. Before long, Houdini bumped into an invisible Stitch. The collision caused Lilo to touch what she thought was Stitch (but was actually an invisible Houdini) and drag him into a bush with her. Thus, Gantu ended up capturing what he thought was Houdini (but was actually an invisible Stitch), which he took back to his ship.
Lilo later revealed to Jumba and Pleakley that Stitch couldn't do magic at all, and when she uttered the magic word for making things reappear, Houdini made himself visible again. Lilo then realized that Gantu must have grabbed Stitch by mistake. When Pleakley scolded Houdini, the latter turned invisible out of fright and fled.
Meanwhile, an invisible Stitch began trashing stuff inside Gantu's ship, making Gantu and Experiment 625 suspicious. The former then fired his plasma gun repeatedly in an attempt to subdue the invisible experiment. After a brief struggle, Stitch managed to escape the ship and reunite with Lilo. Eventually, she and Stitch recaptured Houdini after a long chase.
While the staff booed Pleakley for stalling them with his promised magic act, Lilo and Stitch arrived with Houdini, who then made the old lighthouse disappear, much to Pleakley's relief. The crowd cheered, although when Lilo revealed Houdini to them, the people became intrigued and began taking flash photos of the experiment, causing him to make everything on Kauai disappear.
Shortly after, Houdini found his one true place in Hollywood as a star magician.
In "Remmy", Houdini was one of the experiments in Lilo's dream, but he is barely seen behind Thresher and in front of 627.
Houdini reappeared in "Snafu", performing a magic act to a crowd by levitating a playing card using telekinesis.
Leroy & Stitch
The first 624 experiments, including Houdini, 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.
In the following battle between the experiments and the Leroy clones, Houdini evaded attacking Leroys by turning himself invisible.
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!
Houdini made an appearance in the Stitch! anime, along with Frenchfry, Squeak, Pix, and Tickle-Tummy after Hämsterviel kicked them out for being considered useless. Houdini also appeared in the special Stitch and the Planet of Sand.
Gallery
Trivia
- Houdini is named after the famous Hollywood magician Harry Houdini.
- Houdini is shown to be easily scared by almost everything, suggesting he has panphobia.
- Houdini is one of the few known experiments whose powers Stitch is vulnerable to.
- Houdini's pod color is yellow.
- The Experiment Pod Container describes Houdini as: "Experiment 604. Primary function: Invisibility generator."
- Houdini's picture in Lilo's experiment logbook is the same photo that Mertle took of him in his debut.
- Before settling on the name Houdini, the writers of the original series also considered the names "Blinky", "No-Si-U", and "Shelbo" (which is apparently a long story).[1]
References
- ↑ L&S Says Mahalo. TV Tome (December 14, 2004). Archived from the original on March 19, 2016. Retrieved on May 27, 2018.
