Chomper is the secondary tritagonist of The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure and is one of the main characters in The Land Before Time franchise.
History[]
The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure[]
Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike originally found Chomper as an egg in (when they were trying to rescue an egg from Ducky's nest, which had been stolen by the Egg Stealers Ozzy and Strut. They mistook the egg to be the egg from the nest, as it was approximately the same (save for the size; Chomper's was larger), being blue with orange speckles. When they brought the egg from the Mysterious Beyond back to the nest, however, they found that Ducky's unhatched sibling had rolled back to the nest, although they mistook it to be a coincidence that they had seen Ozzy and Strut leaving Ducky's nest with the egg, and that the one they had brought back was the one they had really stolen. They decided to take care of the baby as surrogate parents when it hatched, until they found out he was a Sharptooth when he did.
Littlefoot was the first to realize that as a baby he was not yet dangerous, and could perhaps be steered away from the natural dietary habits of theropods. Though Littlefoot's attempts to raise Chomper on a diet of plants failed, Chomper nonetheless found a diet of insects to be agreeable fare. When Littlefoot introduced Chomper to the others, they accepted him at first, even singing a song for him (You're One of Us Now). Cera, however, became bitter towards him after he bit her tail by instinct. Chomper then ran away, to one of the volcanoes (called "Smoking Mountains" by the characters) on the edge of the Great Valley. There, he chased more insects until Ozzy and Strut attacked the others again, for revenge. He then came to their rescue, as he had inadvertently done before (his shadow had fooled the egg-nappers into thinking he was an adult). Later, when the gang found out that a landslide the night before had opened up a new path between the Beyond and the Valley, enabling Sharpteeth to enter, Littlefoot tried to lead Chomper to safety, but encountered the two Sharpteeth which had come into the Valley. Chomper immediately clicked onto who these particular Sharpteeth were, and vice versa. He and his parents then began to leave, until he heard Littlefoot calling for help as Ozzy and Strut tried to throw him off a cliff, whereupon his grateful parents chased them off, and Chomper and Littlefoot said their final goodbyes.
The Land Before Time V: The Mysterious Island[]
Chomper made his second appearance in the fifth film in which the gang found out that he and his family lived on the island they had found themselves trapped on. Chomper was convinced his parents would be friendly to them, even though the carnivorous food source on the island was limited. However, when he found out, upon asking his parents if he could invite some of his friends over for dinner, that they viewed any guests as dessert, he offered to help the gang hide away from them. He then led them to a batch of foul-smelling roses he referred to as "The Stinky Place", and professed that the smell of the flowers would block their own scent from reaching his parents. He then went off to fetch food for the gang after Spike began to eat the flowers.
Throughout that time, Cera maintained a paranoiac distrust of Chomper, and she constantly reminded the others that he could turn on them at any moment. When she thought that Chomper was about to bite Littlefoot, she finally blurted out her fears within Chomper's hearing range. Chomper, who knew all along that she didn't trust his parents, was hurt that she was even suspicious of him, and he walked away. Later, when another Sharptooth who had also been living on the island found the children, Chomper tried to protect them by battling with the Sharptooth himself. Then his parents showed up and took on him, during which he fell into the Big Water and knocked Chomper in with him. Littlefoot then jumped in to save Chomper from drowning, and held him out of the water until the sharptooth was washed away. Shortly after, the shark (called "swimming Sharptooth" by the characters) began to approach them, however it was revealed to be Elsie, a kind, sea-dwelling Plesiosaur. When she returned them to the island, Mama and Papa Sharptooth spared the children from ever eating them as gratitude for all they had done for their son. Cera then realized that it was possible for them to resist their instincts for their friends' sake, and began to trust Chomper more.
In the TV series, Chomper had come into the Great Valley again, accompanied by a female Oviraptor named Ruby who'd been entrusted by his parents to look after him after Red Claw separated them from their families. Even though he is a Sharptooth, the residents have apparently accepted the two of them. Other than Daddy Topps, who frequently poked at Chomper's carnivorous appetite and even made up stories like in Episode 2 to scare him. But most of the adults had no objection to him living in the Valley or playing with their children, in spite of his carnivorous nature. This is perhaps because Chomper is still content to feed off of insects, and doesn't need to eat so much as to be likely to eat his friends.
The Land Before Time XIV: Journey to the Brave[]
Chomper and Ruby do not appear in, as the story takes place before the TV series, though it was issued after the series premiered. However, they both make an official appearance in Template:Film. Many fans of the series hoped that the fourteenth movie that featured Chomper and Ruby would have explained more of the details behind their eventual arrival in the Great Valley, as other glimpses of what happened had been seen in flashbacks in the series, but not enough has yet been given to complete the picture. This was not the case, however.