In many scenes of the classic book and film, he shows bravery in the face of danger, similar to the Scarecrow who wants a brain even though he is the smartest one, and the Tin Man who wants a heart but cries to his detriment when he does anything remotely mean by accident and rusts himself still.

The Cowardly Lion joins her so that he can ask The Wizard for courage, ashamed that he is not brave enough to play his cultural role of the King of the Beasts.

When they come into another, wider chasm, the Cowardly Lion holds off two Kalidahs while the Tin Woodman cuts a tall tree to cross it.

In spite of his fears, he still goes off to hunt for his food, and he even offers to kill a deer for Dorothy to eat, but the idea makes her uncomfortable.

He accompanies Dorothy on her journey to see Glinda, and allows his friends to stand on his back in order to escape the Dainty China Country.

In subsequent Oz books by Baum, the Lion was shown to have continued being courageous and loyal, although still considering himself a coward and regularly frightened, even by Aunt Em.

In the 1925 silent film The Wizard of Oz, directed by and starring Larry Semon, the Cowardly Lion was played in disguise by Curtis McHenry.

[4] Zeke helps Hickory (Tin Man's alter ego) lower a bed into its place on a wagon at the farm.

Zeke and Professor Marvel (The Wizard's alter ego) are the only men wearing hats when Dorothy awakens from being unconscious.

In the late 1950s, Mal Caplan, the head of the costume department at MGM was in a life-threatening automobile accident, and spent months in the hospital before returning to work.

[12] The major challenge was the weight of the tail caused rips across the back of the costume that needed to be patched, which was done by Cara Varnell, a textile conservation expert at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

[13] The Cowardly Lion's mane was re-created from human hair imported from Italy at a cost of $22,000, and more than twenty-one artisans worked for two years completing the conservation.

[12] Comisar's Cowardly Lion costume has been featured in the national media, including on The Oprah Winfrey Show, when it was then valued at $1.5 million.

The accompanying text states, "While Bert Lahr appears to wear the same costume throughout the picture, others were available for dress rehearsals or for the stunt double to bound onto the Yellow Brick Road, leap through a window in the Emerald City, or scale the cliffs outside the Witch’s castle.

[18] The Cowardly Lion is a featured character role in The Wiz, an all-Black Broadway musical adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with songs by Charlie Smalls, a book by William F. Brown, and direction by Geoffrey Holder.

[19] Ross reprised his role as the Lion in Motown Productions and Universal Pictures' 1978 film version of The Wiz, directed by Sidney Lumet.

David Alan Grier portrayed the Lion in 2015's The Wiz Live!, an NBC television special adapted from the musical by director Kenny Leon and teleplay writer Harvey Fierstein.

In the 1996 animated cartoon series The Oz Kids, the Cowardly Lion (voiced by unknown) rules the kingdom to the south of Emerald City, Quadling Country and has two cubs, Bela and Boris.

Elphaba, the titular Wicked Witch of the West, notes that he appears "frightened" when threatened in his cage, a nod to the role he will play as an adult.

She stages a rescue, and the experience of the escape with the Cowardly Lion Cub radicalizes her in favor of the talking animals and their cause of freedom.

Raging Knight Dogold is designed with the motif of the Cowardly Lion, whose loss of Utsusemimaru as his host parallels his source of inspiration joining Dorothy to earn courage.

The cub had been the result of cruel experiments by Dr. Dillamond's replacement teacher (in the musical, it was an agent of the Wizard) and was saved by Elphaba and some other students.

The Tin Woodman confirms this in the Broadway musical adaptation Wicked, in the song "March of the Witch Hunters": "And the lion also has a grievance to repay!

In the 2017 TV series Emerald City, the Lion is a former guard in the Wizard's army who is cursed into the form of a beast for his actions against the former Royal Family of Oz.