Her family (particularly her parents' accent and "outcast" status) parodies aspects of pollution and undesirability associated with industrial New Jersey when compared with New York City.

In the episode "A Bicyclops Built for Two", Leela meets Alcazar, a cyclops who convinces her that he and she are the last two members of their extinct race, only to discover that he is a shapeshifting impostor who just wanted to marry her so she would be his maid.

Together they are employed as the crew for Planet Express, an intergalactic delivery business run by Fry's distant relative, Professor Hubert J.

In the episode "Raging Bender", a flashback revealed that she had earned a red belt in Kung Fu as a teenager, but despite her besting all the other students, she quit due to her sexist instructor, whom she beat up years later.

The mutants later revealed to be Leela's parents appear as background characters in the season 2 episode "I Second That Emotion", providing an early hint at her origin.

[13] Later in the series it is revealed that her parents had given her up to an orphanage (styled an 'orphanarium') in order to give her a chance at living a normal life on the surface, passing her off as an alien due to her relative lack of distinguishing mutant features.

[6] Katey Sagal describes her as a "tough, strong career girl who just can't get it together in the rest of her life...she's vulnerable and hard at the same time".

[14] During the many stages of character design, Groening decided to give Leela a large nose just for fun, but the animators resisted the idea, believing that it was unnatural.

[19] Animator Gregg Vanzo notes that the artists also had initial difficulties drawing facial expressions and moods for Leela because of her single eye.

Groening intended Leela to be portrayed as attractive and sexy, but had to instruct the animators to de-emphasize exaggerated aspects of their original design that were too "racy".

Leela wears an electronic device on her wrist,[21][22] referred to in one episode as a "wristlojackimator;"[23] it is capable of a variety of tasks, similar to The Doctor's sonic screwdriver or the tricorders of Star Trek.

"[15] Sagal notes that she found out years after accepting the part that someone else (comedian Nicole Sullivan[26]) had previously been cast as Leela but the creators had decided to replace her.