Hero Overview

I like to move it, move it!
~ King Julien

King Julien XIII is a supporting character in the Madagascar franchise, a minor character in Penguins of Madagascar: The Movie, the deuteragonist of The Penguins of Madagascar, and the titular protagonist of All Hail King Julien and All Hail King Julien: Exiled. He is Maurice's best friend.

He is voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen in the films, Danny Jacobs in all other appearances, and Keith Ferguson in the first video game.



Julien has a small role in the film and has a few scenes only.

Self-proclaimed "Lord of the Lemurs," Julien ruled over a great colony of lemurs in Madagascar with charisma and certainly little ability to lead. It is a goof for Julien to be a king since male ring tails are not leaders (though in the film, Maurice said he was "self-proclaimed" lord of the lemurs). Julien had parties for his people on Madagascar with much frequency, the likes of which were interrupted constantly by the fossa, which trespassed onto the lemur villages, interrupting their parties, ripping their limps off, and devouring all they could catch. The day Alex and his friends came to Madagascar, King Julien and his subjects were enjoying one of their parties when it was invaded by fossa. When the fossa were scared off by Alex, Julien and his people were hiding in the trees and saw this scene, thinking Alex and his friends were giants from some faraway land, with Julien coming forward and presenting himself as the king of the lemurs.

When asked where the people were, Julien pointed to a skeleton of a man caught in a parachute hanging from a tree. Later that night, Julien had a meeting of the lemurs and other creatures of the jungle in the plane. Julien insisted if they could make friends with Alex and his friends, the fossa would be scared away for good. Maurice was skeptical about this plan, but Julien insisted that being king, his ideas were the best. When Alex and his friends were prepared to go back to New York, Julien gifted them his crown; however, he had already made himself a bigger one, with a gecko named Stevie on it. Julien proclaims that while he is in New York, Stevie will take his place as king, leaving the other lemurs speechless.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

After leaving Stevie in charge, Julien, along with Maurice and Mort, accompany Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman to New York on the plane built by the penguins (after kicking Mort off the plane). He is in the first class, ordering constant refreshments, and amusing himself with plane crash videos. As the plane crashes down to Africa after running out of fuel and momentum, Julien takes utter pleasure in the feeling of weightlessness caused by the high speed descent. By being in first class, he and Maurice escape the crash with a parachute and fall. However, they survive with an assist from a flamingo. Upon arriving in Africa, Julien at first thinks they are in New York and makes himself a new crown, declaring himself king (even though no one pays much attention). Later, when the reserve watering hole dries up, Julien suggests they make a sacrifice to "his good friends, the water gods" at the volcano to replenish the water.

He asks for a volunteer for the sacrifice and Melman comes forward since he thinks he was going to die soon anyway. But after Melman realized he was going to live, he gave up on being a sacrifice, leaving Julien disappointed at his plan's failure. However, Mort arrives soon after, followed by a persistent shark that had been trying to eat him. This shark then falls into the volcano and as Julien comes out of the volcano, he sees the water coming back to the reserve (due, in fact, to a dam constructed by Nana being destroyed by Alex and Zuba) and is convinced of his plan's success.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

Julien has a supporting role in this film. He goes with the crew to Europe after crash landing their own plane (again) and appears in a lot of scenes. One of them is when he is ready to flip the switch when Maurice gives the signal and Mort is holding the clock. He presses it, shutting the power down, but then Mort takes over and presses it repeatedly while Julien and Maurice dance as Julien sings "Wannabe." Julien appears in another scene where Captain Chantel DuBois pursues them while the gang goes on a high speed chase in a Luxury Assult Recreational vehicle (L.A.R.V.), when Julien pops open the door and thinks he is famous and calls them "paparazzi", gleefully telling them not to take his picture. He is then hit with a tranquilizer dart by DuBois.

The vehicle falls with Julien while the rest are scared. The exception is Maurice, who looks hopeful. However, he lives by another plane lifting the vehicle up (to Maurice's disappointment). Later in the film, Julien appears with Sonya (a bear he fell in love with). They go on a romantic tour around Rome and they go to Vatican City where Julien stands in line to kiss the pope's ring. When he kisses the ring, he secretly puts it in his mouth and places it on Sonya's finger. When her tricycle is broken on the steps of the Vatican, he buys her a motorcycle instead with the pope's ring because he cannot bear to see her unhappy.

They continue together, performing as an acrobatic duo on Sonya's motorbike in the circus. When the circus returns to New York and the animals are uncovered, he goes with the zoo animals, but is shot with another dart. Not being one of the zoo animals, he gets back to the circus animals, who realize the zoo animals are in danger as a result.


Madagascar 4

Julien and his friends will return in Madagascar 4 and return to New York City.

The Penguins of Madagascar series

Julien appears regularly, often noisily and unintentionally annoying Skipper and pretty much everyone. He is the self-proclaimed "King of the Zoo", no doubt due to his former king status in Madagascar. Only Mort and Maurice truly believe and respect him as their king, whereas everyone else just humors him, showing up to his royal decrees.

Julien hates having anyone touch his feet, such as passing a royal decree that anyone who touches his feet would be banished from his kingdom (his habitat). (Episode: "Two Feet High and Rising")

When the sewer rats went to the zoo and tricked the penguins out of their home ("Miracle on Ice"), Julien decided to play for the penguins in a game of hockey to try and win their home back. They were losing until one of the rats touched his feet; after that, he lost it and beat all of them on his own.

In the episode "Crown Fools," he panics when he loses his crown and obsessively longs for it. However, it is revealed he had a spare crown all along (prompting Marlene to chase him with a crowbar).

Despite his desire for everyone to listen and do what he wants, he is irritated by and ignores Mort, his most loyal follower, who treats him like a god. Mort responds to everything Julien tells him to do as "I like...", followed by whatever Julien said. Julien does not hate Mort as he is occasionally nice to him.

In the episode "Haunted Habitat," he mentioned he had a dream that he was "the last mammal on Earth". Mort was just happy to be in the dream, despite the fact that he was "road kill" in it.

A recurring gag in the series is Julien's behavior and belief in Supernatural Beings, Sky Spirits. This is ironic in that, while the Sky Spirits have shown no actual display of power and therefore could possibly not be real, he did not believe in Darla's "backwoods magic", which actually is real.

It is also shown that Julien gains a super-lemur level of strength if he gets angry. This is visible when in "Miracle on Ice," Julien spanked and humiliated the Rat King, after one of his henchmen touched Julien's feet; In Happy King Julien Day!, Maurice claims that Julien violently caned everyone who forgot his self-proclaimed holiday.

He made friends with the LEM-R unit sent to study him in "Lemur See, Lemur Do." He even nicknamed it Lemmy.

All Hail King Julien

Julien stars in his own Netflix original series All Hail King Julien.

In the pilot "King Me," he is given the throne by his uncle so that Julien would be killed by the Fossa instead of him. However, Julien survived and leads his kingdom with help from Maurice and his bodyguard Clover.


Julien has not shown romantic feelings toward any of the female characters in the Madagascar films until the third one. In Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, he instantaneously falls in love with Sonya. While on tour with the circus, Julien even relinquishes his crown to be with her and they go with the others on the circus' American tour.

In The Penguins of Madagascar, Julien has shown attraction for a myriad of different women.

  1. In the episode "Otter Gone Wild", he was kidnapped by Marlene, who became feral once she left the zoo, and the object of her affection, which he did not return due to her then-wild nature. However, he is disheartened when she doesn't recall her affection for him when they return to the zoo. He believed himself to be Marlene's secret boyfriend due to this and battled Fred the Squirrel for her hand in "Otter Things Have Happened". After losing to Fred, he decided that Marlene was not worth fighting for and loses interest in her.
  2. He occasionally flirts with Rico's toy doll Ms. Perky, much to Rico's chagrin.
  3. In the episode "Feline Fervor," Julien flirts with a ferret named Zoe, who lacks any interest in him.


Julien is rather lazy, but his constant dancing keeps him in good shape. As a lemur, he has naturally high agility, flexibility, dexterity, speed, and reflexes. He can swim and is durable enough to survive hits and falls that should damage him greatly.

Though he lacks combat training or experience and is often shown to be too timid to fight, Julien has proven to be a rather capable fighter when properly motivated (usually by anger or annoyance). In "Assault & Batteries," he held his own against and arguably defeated Skipper in a fight, something none of the other penguins or zoo animals could do. He also defeated Eggy, someone whom the Penguins could not defeat either due to Eggy possessing their combined abilities. Julien is also able to fight with twin sticks, similar to the martial art "Eskrima".

Despite having a low intellect, Julien has shown to have occassional cases of brilliance, such as when he was able to keep up with Skipper's incredibly complex plan in the episode "Go Fish" and when he tricks the eco-terrorist Dr. Blowhole (who had proven to have an intellect rivaling Kowalski's) into trusting him so he could foil the doctor's plan to melt the Arctic so he could rule the flooded Earth in the episode "Dr. Blowhole's Revenge".

He cannot whistle in the film, but in the series, he is pretty good.

Julien also displays a very good singing voice, having sung the first film's theme song "I Like to Move It" and multiple songs in the TV series. In the episode "The Return of the Revenge of Doctor Blowhole," his singing voice was used in a plan to defeat Blowhole.

Julien rarely uses contractions in his daily vocabulary.


Julien is a self-appointed monarch of the lemurs and the Central Park Zoo in the TV series and therefore shows clear signs of arrogance. He is easy-going and enjoys festivities. Julien believes he can order around other, usually larger and more powerful, animals. He is incredibly egotistical, shown by him creating his own holiday called Julien Day to celebrate himself and naming the month of December and several imaginary numbers after himself.

He is also sensitive to rejection, jealous of other people's success, and expects acceptance from everyone, though this may stem from a hidden desire to keep his friends by his side.

Despite his overconfidence, Julien truly means well and is ultimately a good-hearted lemur.


  • Julien is depicted as being leader of the lemurs. However in real life lemur society, male lemurs are low ranking whilst females are dominant.


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Main Characters
Alex | Marty | Melman | Gloria

Skipper | Kowalski | Rico | Private

King Julien XIII | Maurice | Mort

Madagascar: Mason and Phil | Lemurs
Escape 2 Africa: Zuba | Florrie | Moto Moto
Europe's Most Wanted: Vitaly | Gia | Stefano | Sonya | Esmeralda, Esperanza and Ernestina | Manu and Maya
Penguins of Madagascar: Classified | Eva | Short Fuse | Corporal

The Penguins of Madagascar: Marlene The Otter | Burt Elephant | Roger the Alligator | Lemmy (LEM-R) | Eggy | Doris
All Hail King Julien: Clover | Masikura | Xixi



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