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Even though King Julien’s character in the PoM show is more selfish and narcissistic, I love that Julien’s soft spot for children is consistent across the board.
When I first started AHKJ and watched S2E8:“Daddy Julien”, despite the weirdness of Mort pretending to be his son, I loved seeing Julien act so sweet and caring towards his “child”. He feed him, played with him, read parenting books, and comforted “Prince Falcon” when he got upset. It really drives home the point of what Julien truly desires: a family of his own, where he can give unconditional love and receive it in return (likely stemming from his neglectful upbringing with his own parents).
At first I thought “if only this side of King Julien existed early on in the PoM show “. But, after rewatching the show recently, there is definitely moments where his paternal side shines through!
Some notable examples are:
Lemmy the Robot Lemur 🤖: Julien was so happy to “raise” Lemmy and teach him all his dance moves, it is very similar to how a father proudly teaches his son all his favorite activities to spend time together. He was so unexpectedly heartbroken when the penguins blew him up that they decided to fix Lemmy again to make him happy. He acted like such a proud dad too when he saw Lemmy on TV before he was eaten by an alien.
Eggy the Duckling 🐣: In his first appearance, Julien was smitten with that tiny duck egg. He had a whole song dedicated to him! Singing about all the things him and his “JJ” would do together once he hatched. My heart broke for him when Mama Duck took Eggy back and said “Does she get to keep ALL the JJ’s”. But when he returned, Julien encouraged Eggy’s (albeit dangerous) dream of being a commando. And when Eggy couldn’t defeat him, he cheered him up by showing him the ways of “shaking booty”. Cause there was no way his “JJ” would be sad on his watch!
Baby Skipper 🐧: Julien was gushing over baby Skipper, whom he named “Petey”, about how cute and tiny he was. And despite being an annoying babysitter, Julien still tried to take good care of him. He played peak-a-boo with him, “feed” him (a misconstrued way yes but it’s the thought that counts), and sang him a lullaby. But his greatest moment was when he jumped in front of “Petey” to protect him from a flying brick thrown his way. That lemur would do anything to protect an adorable baby!
Baby Fossa 🐱: Though he spent most of the episode being afraid of the baby fossa and tried to ship him away, the minute the fossa called him “dada” he did a compete 180! He went as far as to keep him safe from Savio! You know, the giant boa snake whom Julien abandoned the Penguins and Marlene to in a previous episode, and even offered himself up to be eaten first instead of the baby fossa. He has such a soft spot for babies, it’s implied he stayed around the fossa afterwards despite being bitten by him constantly, and referred to himself as “papa” when saying goodbye on the fossa’s last day at the zoo.
It goes to show that even in his worst adaptations, Julien still has a good heart deep down❣️, at least when it comes to children.
Even though it’ll likely never happen, if Dreamworks ever decides to give him kids, I firmly believe King Julien would make a great papa! 👨👧👦