Turanga Leela

Turanga Leela

Species: Human (Mutant)
Planet of Origin: Earth
Birthdate (estimated): January 19 2975
Age: 25 (30 in Futurama Comics)
Voiced By: Katey Sagal
First Appearance: Space Pilot 3000 (1ACV01)

General Information

Leela enjoying a rare moment of pleasure at LeSpa

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 feature is the fact that she is a cyclops and possesses only one huge eye, plus her natural hair colour is a violent purple. Also her skull is higher than average, probably in order to acommodate the huge 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. 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 a tight corner. 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. Yet she does not hesitate to kick some serious ass if she think it necessary or the people on the receiving end deserve it. A definitive liking for withering sarcasm and violence also reside 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. But she has a strong sense for cuteness and romantic issues, which make her very female. Leela is almost completely unimpulsive.

Leela is a huge Blernsball and New New York Mets fan, but can't play worth a damn 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. This bad habit regularily arouses her greatly, as several people learned to their disadvantage, including Fnog.

Leela lives alone in a somewhat underfurnished appartment (Appartment 1i) somewhere in the city of New New York. She only shares her lonelyness 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 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, although 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, meant to convince the finder of her daughter that she was an alien and thus accepting 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 got relentlessly picked on because of her peculiar looks, and was always a lonely outsider. She then 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 let herself be trained in Arcturan Kung Fu to the level of a black-belt by a master of this martial art, Fnog, despite the fact she was suffering from his obvious sexism.

Leela as a teenager

After leaving the orphanarium, she began a career as Fate Assignment Officer at Applied Cryogenics who assigned 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 aquired her beloved pet Nibbler who is still with her. She briefly was named Miss Universe by accident, also she was 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. When she got hold of genuine Miracle cream that temporarily caused super powers in humans, Leela briefly was member of a team of super heroes named The New Justice Team, consisting of her, Fry 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 her romantic engagements so far proved to be short lived. On the list of her past love affairs are: Shawn, Doug, Zapp Brannigan, Adlai Atkins, Chaz, William Shatner and Alcazar. 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, but he is frequently rejected by her. Yet he does not give up, and his patience seems to be rewarded - it appears as if in time Leela might cave in to his attempts to win her heart.

Kif Kroker, Zapp's luckless First Officer, also admires her for various reasons. First, because she treated him well during his brief employment at Planet Express, which must have seemed like heaven after Zapp's humiliations, and second because 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, she has several dozen Amphibiosan 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.

Additional Info

Leela's Contact Lens

Trivia

• Her name can be interpreted in several ways: it is a spoof of the symphony "Turangalila" by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). The term derives from Sanskrit and means, alternately, "Song of Love" and "Hymn to Joy". At the same time, "Leela" sounds exactly like the term for "purple" in several languages, including German, Spanish, and Swedish (lila). A further possibility is that the name is a spoof of the heroine from The Fifth Element, Leeloo - the perfect woman. And last, she might have been inspired by a character from the British Sci-Fi series Doctor Who bearing the same name (Leela).
• 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 (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.

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.
• When her eye is irritated, she uses eye drops.
• 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.
• Has a good singing voice.
• 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 jewlery on special occasions. The only exception from this was the ring in Space Pilot 3000 that Bender stole, it was never seen again.
• Apart from Fry and Bender, she is the only character that appears in every episode of the show and in every comic.

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?

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".

Two-Eyed Leela

"Amazon Women in the Mood"

Leela has been seen with two eyes several times:

• 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).
• 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.
• 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.