Lyle Van de Groot

Lyle Van de Groot is the main antagonist in George of the Jungle and the secondary antagonist of George of the Jungle 2. He was Ursula's devoted fiancé and a wealthy man who tried at all costs to marry her.

George of the Jungle
In the movie, Lyle Van de Groot was Ursula Stanhope's fiancé who is guided into the Jungle of Africa by Max and Thor to find Ursula, who he finds and gives her a big kiss when he is reunited with her. When she asks him how he found her, he says that he hired Max and Thor who are the best guiders in the world. That night at camp, Lyle tries to get in contact with someone to help him and Ursula get back home to San Francisco, California but Ursula decides that she wants to stay to see if they could find the legendary White Ape, which Lyle agrees to.

The next day, Lyle and Ursula sneak into the jungle so they can find the white ape but they are attacked by a lion, and Lyle runs for help but gets knocked out while Ursula is rescued by the white ape who is really a man raised by apes: George of the Jungle. When Lyle wakes up from being knocked out he finds Ursula's scrunchie. He later finds the group and asks them to help him find Ursula, which they do but they never find her. The next day Lyle and the group are out searching again when Lyle hears Ursula and takes Max and Thor with him. He finds Ursula and tries to reunite with her but she refuses to accept him back because she believes that he was not trying to save her when the lion attacked them. Then George appears and Lyle shoots him. George survives and Lyle, Max, and Thor are taken to the Bujumbura Jail where Max and Thor get out but Lyle has to stay because he is convicted for shooting George.

Later on, Lyle escapes the jail and becomes a mail-order minister and returns to the jungle where he finds Ursula with George and kidnaps Ursula to take her to Bujumbura and marry her. George tries to stop Lyle but Lyle's henchmen capture George, and Lyle manages to escape with Ursula. When they reach the river, Lyle and Ursula slip into the water but swim to the boat that is waiting to take them to Bujumbura. As Lyle rows the boat he proposes to Ursula but before Ursula can turn him down, they notice big waters but luckily, unknown to Lyle, George has escaped the Mercenaries and is nearby to rescue Ursula. When Lyle rowed the boat safely into a nearby cave, he still thinks Ursula is in the boat with him and orders her to say "I do" to which someone replies "I do". When Lyle ignited his lighter to see his bride, he sees that he has accidentally married a female ape and is kissed by her as the boat continues downstream.

George of the Jungle 2
Lyle is first seen in his bedroom, talking to Beatrice, Ursula's mother, on the phone. Believing Ape owned the deed to Ape mountain, he cheated him in a poker game. Upon realizing that Ape doesn't own the deed, but George does, Lyle instead makes Ape work off his debts from the gambling for the next 17 years. After stealing the deed from George's hotel room, he later appears at the circus, convincing Ursula that he was not responsible for his actions in the first film, even getting his doctor to explain it. But once the doctor mentioned that Lyle knew where Ursula was, Lyle fired him. He attempted to make Ursula love him again, but George ruined it by singing his own theme song. Lyle then hires a hypnotist to make it seem like Ursula married him, and it worked. He mocks George at a farm, only to be dragged away by a horse that does not like him.

Lyle sends two agents, Sally and Kowalski, out to destroy the jungle in order to build his anticipated Zoo. He also calls the police on George, Ape, and Rocky. The police were about to shoot Ape, but George saves him. They stop on the Empire State Building, and Lyle quickly gets himself sent (in a package) to the jungle. He attempts to kidnap a knocked-out Ursula, who wakes up and chooses Lyle over George. At the last second, George grabs Ursula away, hangs Lyle up in a tree branch, and kisses Ursula, restoring her full memory of him. Lyle escapes, repeats his threat on George's life, and insults the narrator, calling him annoying. In response, the narrator grabs Lyle and drags him away into the sky, making it look like he never existed (albeit in one of the bloopers reel, the narrator accidentally dropped Lyle while grabbing him).