Stitch: Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois
Learn more →In 1985 Chris Sanders drew a strange blue creature for a children’s book that was never made. He hid the sketches in a drawer for 17 years. Over a sushi dinner at Disney World he pulled them out and told the story of a lonely little monster from space who didn’t know where he came from. The producer said: “move him into the human world.” Sanders looked at a map on the wall and saw Hawaii. That’s how Experiment 626 came to Lilo, learned the word “Ohana” and discovered that family means — that nobody gets left behind. In 2025 the live-action remake earned a billion dollars. Stitch waited 17 years. It was worth the wait.