| “ | I see. I'm not going to get rid of you that easily. I suppose I could make an exception to the truce between herbivores and carnivores! | „ |
| ~ Leonard preparing to eat Dave. |
| “ | Looks like I got to get my paws dirty after all! | „ |
| ~ Leonard preparing to kill Hazel as he pins her to the wall. |
Leonard, also known as the Lion Captain, is the secondary antagonist of the 2015 German-Luxembourgish-Belgian-Irish computer-animated film Ooops! Noah is Gone... (or All Creatures Big and Small in the US and Two by Two in the UK), and a minor character in its 2020 sequel Ooops! The Adventure Continues. He is the vain and egotistical captain of the Ark. He has two gorilla henchmen and two assistants, a unnamed flamingo and a female black rhinoceros named Margaret.
He was voiced by Martin Sheen in the American English version, who previously portrayed Orin Scrivello in Little Shop of Horrors and by Alan Stanford in the Irish English version, who also voiced Black Wolf in The Flight Before Christmas.
Appearance[]
Leonard appears to be a dark tanned African lion with a cream belly, paws, and snout. He has he has bicolor eyebrows, brown eyes with yellow sclera and a messy black mane done in a quiff,
Personality[]
As the captain of Noah's Ark, Leonard is determined to steer Noah's Ark across the great flood for safety of all the passengers on the Ark. Despite this, Leonard is also very hasty, completely desperate to keep his captain position on the Ark. Because of his egotistical view, he is willing to break his own animal consumption law to kill others just to keep his rank.
Biography[]
Ooops! Noah is Gone...[]
Leonard first appears gathering all of the animals from around the world to warn them about the incoming flood, and tells them about Noah's Ark, a massive wooden boat able to hold a male and female as well as their children for every species, as long as they were on Noah's checklist. He, Margaret, and Flamingo set up a check-in station inside a short cave, where almost every animal from the gathering is accepted with only three rejects: the Nestrians, Obesey the whale, and a squid-like creature called Tanglefoot. Dave the Nestrian pleads Leonard to reconsider, but accidentally lets out his smokescreen after Margaret snorts at him and is kicked out of the cave. The next morning, before the flood-water comes in, Leonard alerts all the passengers to seek shelter in their assigned cabins and advises them to stay in their cabins throughout the whole expedition unless otherwise. He also states that he could go for some giraffe, though Flamingo alerts him that his message is still on air.
When Dave is discovered to be a stowaway impersonating the Grymp's husband, Mrs. Gorilla throws him and Hazel into the prison cell and calls in Leonard, who is unhappy since he was in the middle of having his mane done. Dave and Hazel try to explain to Leonard about the disappearance of their children and beg him to turn the Ark around. Leonard coldly refuses, declaring that as the one in charge he will not turn the ship around for anyone. Before leaving, he tells Mrs. Gorilla to keep them in their cell so he could deal with them later.
Later, Dave and Hazel trick the Gorillas into letting them out of their cell, and make it up to the ship's bridge where Leonard is. Dave enters first and pleads Leonard a second time to turn around the Ark to find his son, since Finny was all Dave had. Leonard, assuming Dave was purposely bothering him, declares that he will make an exception to the animal consumption ban. Before he is able to eat Dave, Hazel whacks Leonard in the back of the head with a stick, knocking him out. Mr. Gorilla shortly enters the room (not knowing that Dave and Hazel are controlling Leonard's body like a puppet) and informs his boss about Dave and Hazel's escape. Through Dave's voice, "Leonard" tells Mr. Gorilla to stop the prisoners before they can start a mutiny, and Mr. Gorilla leaves.
The next day, when Dave and Hazel are about to reach the mountain where Finny and Leah are, Leonard wakes up and attacks the two upon discovering they led the Ark off-course. Hazel fights against Leonard as Dave keeps control of the Ark's wheel. After a short brawl (and tango dance) with Hazel, Leonard grabs one side of the wheel while Hazel and Dave grab the other side. A tug of war takes place only for the two to trick Leonard into banging his head on the sides of the wheel. Leonard spots a hair of his mane that fell out of place and angrily pins Hazel to a column, and extracts his claws, about to "get his paws dirty after all". Before Leonard is able to kill her, Dave sprays his smokescreen at Leonard, knocking him out yet a second time.
At the end of the film, Leonard with a piece of meat healing his right eye, Margaret, and Flamingo spot Dave and Finny swimming in the water and tells his assistants about how they should have told the Nestrians at the check-in that they were aquatic all along. During the end credits, Leonard, fully reformed, is shown celebrating the retraction of the floodwaters along with the other animals, and toasts a dinner with Flamingo.
Ooops! The Adventure Continues[]
Set after the first film, Leonard chooses the strongest and bravest dove to find any trace of land. Just as he lets it go, an elephant sneezes at the dove due to Finny and Leah playing with a feather, sending it straight into Leonard's mouth. Dave and Hazel make him spit it out with the Heimlich maneuver, causing a chain reaction that injures everyone. Angered, Leonard forces Dave and Hazel to work community service as the Ark's chefs. Due to his plan of saving up what little food the Ark has left, Dave offers grease instead of food. Disgusted, Leonard demands Dave to make proper food next time or the Nestrians may be added to the menu. Before he could eat his slob, Finny and Leah's hang glider crashes through the window onto the table. Leonard pounds on the table in anger, causing Finny to release his smokescreen. Disappointed, Dave and Hazel punish their kids to serve as lookout patrol until land is found.
After Dave accidentally knocks over all the remaining food barrels off the Ark which causes Finny and Leah to fall overboard when they escape the crow's nest, Leonard forces Dave and Hazel to walk the plank. Before pushing them off, the animals turn their attention upon sight of an island and turn the Ark towards it. While Dave and Hazel set off to rescue Finny and Leah, having been imprisoned by native Nestrians that grew to fear all other species, Leonard and the animals tear down a chunk of the Ark's outer shell to build their own resort, consisting of a tiki bar, three hot tubs, and a game room. Once Dave, Finny, and the Grymphs manage to escape the Nestrians, they warn Leonard of a volcano on the island about to blow, but he dismisses their claim as he was currently living in paradise.
Suddenly, the volcano erupts and the animals run around screaming. Seeing the Nestrians evacuate towards the beach, Dave and Finny convince them to settle their opinions with the animal species and help them rebuild the Ark while Finny goes out to rescue their leader Patch when she is trapped in the flooding Nestrian utopia. Once the Ark is finally completed and everyone makes it safely on the Ark, all the Nestrians release their smokescreens to launch the Ark away from the island as the volcano destroys it. Leonard mourns his loss of paradise until spotting the dove returning, having found actual land, and has the Ark follow it to find a new home.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Although Leonard's goals could be considered bigger compared with the Griffins (the main antagonists of the film), where the Griffins just wanted to eat while Leonard wanted to both eat and keep control of the Ark, he ended up reforming at the end, which the Griffins did not.
- Leonard's design resembles Scar from The Lion King.
- Leonard was not given a proper name until the sequel came out, as he was simply referred to as the Lion in the first film.