Turanga Leela

Primary character
Turanga Leela
Age	49
Date of birth	(estimated) January 19, 2975
Species	Human (Mutant)
Planet of origin	Earth
Profession	Space captain at Planet Express
Relatives	See family section.
First appearance	"Space Pilot 3000" (1ACV01)
Voiced by	[[Katey Sagal|Katey Sagal]][[Category:Characters voiced by Katey Sagal|Turanga Leela]]

Turanga Leela is one of the most important employees of Planet Express. She occupies the position of the ship's captain and pilot and therefore is the head of the regular delivery crew consisting of her, Fry and Bender. Her most noticable features are that she is a cyclops, possessing only one huge eye, and that her natural hair colour is a violent purple. Also her skull is higher than average, probably in order to accommodate the oversized eye, although this is hardly noticable because of her impressive hairdo. Apart from that, she is very shapely and can almost pass for normal - until people take a look at her face, that is.

Leela enjoying a rare moment of pleasure at Le Spa.

Her default clothing consists of big grey boots, black stretchpants and a white tank top. She mostly wears her plentiful hair in a ponytail, but has been seen with other hairdos on special occasions. A further major feature is the Wristlojackimator or, as she usually calls it, "that thing I wear on my wrist", which seems to be a device of multiple uses around the house. On formal occasions and in private she likes to wear tones of blue, red, purple or pink to match her hair colour.

Leela is by far the most competent and responsible crew member of Planet Express. Being captain and pilot of the Planet Express Ship, she frequently has a leading role in the developments, and as she is a very well trained fighter and does not hesitate to use force if necessary, she is useful in difficult situations. It is usually her job to rescue her other crew members from distress, which she has done countless times, especially Fry. Likewise, she stops her co-workers from doing things that are stupid, dangerous or both. She wears a contact lens and a reading monocle, and as she has only one eye, she is denied the benefits of good depth perception and stereoscopic sight.

As a mutant, Leela has a peculiar metabolism different from that of standard humans. Mutagens cannot harm her, and she seems resistant to many poisons, enviromental hazards and illnesses. Her special condition may have helped her fight off the threat by the Baby Space Bee Queen's poison, and it proved instrumental for finding the cure against the common cold that had New New York in its clutches. Also, it might explain why Leela is so fond of sports and well muscled. As a recruit of the Earth forces, she surpassed every other recruit on the training ground, even well-trained males, and has shown extraordinary strength, dexterity and stamina on numerous occasions.

Leela was intimate with Fry in a "What If?" scenario

Despite her troubled past, Leela is friendly, smart and self-reliant, yet sometimes impatient and quick to anger. She cares deeply for her friends and loved ones, plus issues she feels she must stand up for, like freedom, the enviroment and cute animals, but she does not hesitate to use force if she believes the recipient deserves it. A definitive liking for withering sarcasm and violence also resides within her, but she nevertheless seems to have developed strong maternal instincts at times. She is engaged in a constant low-intensity feud with Amy Wong, the only other female at Planet Express, who more or less accuses her of not being ladylike enough to be a true woman, despite Leela having a strong sensitivity for cuteness and romantic issues. Leela is almost completely unimpulsive.

There have been several instances when Leela is overwhelmed by her emotions, which causes her to become hesitant or irrational, and she is usually inconsolable during these periods. These mood swings are often gradual; her confidence and mindfulness slowly dwindle if she is initially at her peak in these situations.

Leela is a huge Blernsball and New New York Mets fan, but has almost no skill whatsoever due to her bad depth perception, which soon ended her professional career. She seems to have a soft spot for men with creative musical talent, like Shawn and Fry, but she is strongly opposed to any form of sexism, which regularly arouses her anger, as several people learned to their disadvantage, including Fnog.

Leela lives alone in a somewhat underfurnished apartment (Apartment 1i) somewhere in the city of New New York. She only shares her loneliness with her alien pet, Nibbler.

Biography

Leela as she was found in the Orphanarium

Turanga Leela was born as the only child of a married couple of mutants in the sewers of New New York. Her parents are Turanga Morris and Munda. As Leela is probably the least mutated mutant ever born (as described to her parents by a medical professional), and looked almost like a normal child, her parents decided that she should not share the fate of her people living in the sewers. They instead chose to give her a life as normal as possible - a "real" life - by giving her up to the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, though it was a tough decision and they suffered greatly by giving her away. Attached to the basket she was found in was a note in an alien language written by her mother Turanga Munda who has a Ph.D. in exolinguistics. She meant for the note to convince the finder of her daughter that she was an alien and thus accept her into the orphanarium. The plan worked, and Leela was taken in by the head of the orphanarium, Warden Vogel.

Leela grew up in the orphanarium unaware of her true roots, believing that she was indeed an alien. She had a hard time there, as she was relentlessly picked on because of her unusual appearance, and was always a lonely outsider. As a child she wore a monocle and, later, braces. Nevertheless, or maybe because of this, she managed to develop a strong and caring personality. As an outlet for her deep frustration, she trained in Arcturan Kung Fu to the level of a black-belt by a master of this martial art, Fnog, despite being a victim of his obvious sexism.

Leela as a teenager

After leaving the orphanarium, she began a career as Fate Assignment Officer at Applied Cryogenics, assigning defrostees to their permanent careers and provided them with the proper career chips. Then one day a defrostee named Philip J. Fry came along and inspired her to quit her job. Ultimately she ended up being hired by Fry's many-times-great-nephew Hubert Farnsworth as the new captain for his interstellar delivery service, Planet Express. In that position, she also acquired her beloved pet Nibbler, who is still with her. She was briefly named Miss Universe by accident, and was also named Orphan of the Year in her old orphanarium. After a lifetime of searching, she learned of her true heritage as a mutant and was finally reunited with her parents. For a short time, she was a professional Blernsball player with the New New York Mets, being the first woman to play major league Blernsball. When she got hold of genuine Miracle cream, which temporarily causes super powers in humans, Leela briefly became a member of a team of super heroes named The New Justice Team, consisting of her, Fry (also under the influence of the miracle cream) and Bender. Her secret identity was the super heroine Clobberella.

As a cyclops, Leela has always had difficulties in relationships with others, especially men. Because of this, she is jealous of Amy's constant successes with the opposite sex. All of Leela's romantic engagements have so far proven to be short lived. On her list of past relationships are: Shawn, Doug, Zapp Brannigan (see Zapp-Leela relationship for more info), Adlai Atkins, Chaz, William Shatner, Alcazar, Fry, and Lars Fillmore. She made the mistake of sleeping with Zapp Brannigan when, for a split second, her common sense was overwhelmed by pity - a deed she has regretted many times, since Zapp has developed an unhealthy obsession for her, and she, in reaction to this, developed an overwhelming hatred for him. Apart from him, the most persistent admirer to date has been Fry - they were even briefly married during a time-skip, but Leela believed he tricked her into marriage, and divorced him during the next time-skip. Fry was frequently rejected by her, but he did not give up, and his patience seems to have been be rewarded - at the very end of Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela admitted her love for him.

Kif Kroker, Zapp's luckless First Officer, also holds her in high esteem for various reasons. Firstly, she treated him well during his brief employment at Planet Express, which seemed like heaven to him after enduring Zapp's humiliations, and secondly she is the biological parent of his offspring and helped defend them until they reached the safety of the water in the birthing grounds on Amphibios 9.

Family

• Turanga Morris, Father
• Turanga Munda, Mother
• Due to an accident, and because of the reproductive process of Amphibiosans, she has several dozen offspring from Kif Kroker, currently living in an immature "tadpole" form in the swamp of the Kroker clan birthing grounds on Amphibios 9. About half of these have only one eye each, like her.
• In Time Keeps on Slippin', she was shortly married to Fry due to the time skips, but then they got divorced during another time skip because she believed he tricked her into marriage. (see Fry-Leela relationship for more info)
• In Bender's Big Score she almost married Lars Fillmore.
• In The Beast with a Billion Backs, she married Yivo, along with the rest of the universe, against her will.

Additional Info

Leela's Contact Lens

Trivia

• Her name can be interpreted in several ways: "Leela" sounds exactly like the term for "purple" in several languages, including German, Spanish, Danish and Swedish (lila). A further possibility is that the name is a parody of the heroine from The Fifth Element, Leeloo - the perfect woman. Lastly, she might have been inspired by a character from the British Sci-Fi series Doctor Who bearing the same name (Leela). "Turanga" may be derived from the symphony "Turangalila" by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). The term derives from Sanskrit and means, alternately, "Song of Love" and "Hymn to Joy". Alternately, Turanga may derive from Taronga Zoo, the name of which is an Indigenous Australian word for "beautiful view".
• The designers kept trying to make Leela's nose smaller, because it was larger than they thought appropriate for a female character, but Matt Groening insisted it stay the larger size.
• Unlike Fry, who is frequently chopped to pieces in the series, Leela tends to lose the use of her senses instead, namely sight and hearing.
• As Fate Assignment Officer, her code number was 1BDI (or "one beady eye").
• Books read by Leela include "True Stories of Courageous Animals" (Parasites Lost), "A Child's Garden of Space Legends" (Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles), "Dances of the ancient Bronx" (Jurassic Bark) and "Great Machete Battles" (Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch), plus the magazine Nosy Inquirer, headline: Bigfoot turns 80! (The Farnsworth Parabox)
• Tends to snore.
• Always uses lipstick, mostly pink, and is rarely seen without it.

Leela applying lipstick

• Used to brew her own beer at the orphanarium.
• Can do the Robot Dance like no one else.
• Owns her own harpoon.
• Tends to fill her day with humdrum activities.
• Is camera-shy.
• Usually prepares her dinners in advance for one month and then freezes them.
• For obvious reasons, no one can give the evil eye quite like her.
• Adept in the use of weaponry like laser guns or machetes.
• Used to play the drums.
• Tends to play with her hair when upset or nervous.
• Frequently accused of poor hygiene (sweaty boot rash, etc), but may be at a disadvantage due to her mutant physiology and energetic lifestyle.
• Usually, Leela only wears jewellery on special occasions. The exception from this was the ring in Space Pilot 3000 that Bender stole; it was never seen again. She also wears a bracelet made by her father at all times.
• Apart from Fry and Bender, she is the only character that appears in every episode of the show and in every comic.
• Has had four weddings; three were called off, and the other was quickly followed by divorce. Reverend Lionel Preacherbot performed the first three of these, Father Changstein El-Gamal performed the fourth. A fifth proposition was made, but the wedding never took place.
  • To Alcazar, "A Bicyclops Built for Two" (2ACV09)
    
  • To Philip J. Fry, followed by divorce, "Time Keeps on Slippin'" (3ACV14)
    
  • To Robot Devil, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" (4ACV18)
    
  • To Lars Fillmore, Bender's Big Score - "Bender's Big Score Part 3" (5ACV03)
    
  • To Yivo, no wedding, The Beast with a Billion Backs - "The Beast with a Billion Backs Part 4" (5ACV08)
    
• Can wield a gun with her foot, and hides one in her boot for easy access.
• May very well be the second-most important person in the universe behind Fry (though she doesn't know it).

Leela's elbow talons close-up

• Leela, like her parents, has a second mutation. She grows skin covered spikes, called "elbow talons", down from her elbows. However, she usually trims these.
• Became a centaur in Bender's Game
  
  .
• Actually continued to legally work at Applied Cryogenics until 2ACV11
• At the end of Into the Wild Green Yonder, Leela reveals that she is in love with Fry and they finally kiss properly.

Quotes

• "I guess you never outgrow being an eyeball... oddball."
• "Fry, you're wasting your life in front of that TV. You've got to get out and see the real world."
• "I don't care how hilarious your apron is, we're not cooking him!"
• "OK, if everyone's finished being stupid."
• "That's stupid."
• "Look, I don't know about your previous captains, but I intend to do as little dying as possible."
• "For a split second, my common sense was overwhelmed by pity."

Catchphrase?

While not entirely a phrase, her most prominent shout close to a catchphrase is "Hi-yah!".

It seems as if a half-hearted attempt was made to give Leela a sort of catchphrase, where she uses old musical references, turning the first word into a verb and applying it to the last word as a noun. The only two examples are:

• "This toads the wet sprocket." (3ACV21) A reference to the band, Toad the Wet Sprocket.
• "This wangs chung!" (3ACV03) A reference to both the band Wang Chung, and their hit song "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" which includes the line "Everybody Wang Chung tonight".

She also says "Oh, Lord!" quite a lot.

Two-Eyed Leela

"Amazon Women in the Mood"

Leela has been seen with two eyes several times, though each time it appeared different:

• When Aliens Attack — To portray the role of Jenny MacNeil, a plastic eye is taped to the side of her face (which Zoidberg later eats). This is clearly the least-convincing appearance of a two-eyed Leela.
• Amazon Women in the Mood — When the Amazonians are approaching, a puddle ripples, causing Leela's reflection to distort, showing her briefly with two eyes. Her eyes appear to be rounder than the others.
• The Cyber House Rules — A second eye is grafted onto Leela's face. She later realizes she's better off being different, and has it removed. Her eyes are more narrow.

Appearances

While Leela appears in all episodes, films and comics, these categories may be of interest:

• A plots focusing on Leela
• B plots focusing on Leela