Bender (Futurama)

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Futurama character
Bender B. Rodríguez
Age	6 year-old body 1057 year-old head
Gender	Male (Manbot)
Species	Robot
Planet of Origin	Earth
Job	Cook for the Planet Express Delivery Company.
Relatives	Builder: Mom's Friendly Robot Company Mother: Robot Arm Father: Unknown (killed by electric can opener) Aunt: Rita (Although, this may not be true due to the fact that it was stated during a hallucination) Uncle: Vladimir (Deceased) Cousin: Tandy Same model robot: Flexo
First Appearance	Space Pilot 3000
First Line	"Bite my shiny metal ass."
Voiced by	John DiMaggio

Bender, full name Bender Bending Rodríguez and nickname Bending Unit 22, is a fictional character in the animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by actor John DiMaggio. In the series, Bender plays the role of a comic anti-hero, and is described by Leela as an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking gambler" as well as possessing a "swarthy Latin charm". According to the Robot Devil, he is also one of the most evil robots in the universe.

Contents 1 Origin 2 In the show 3 Hardware 4 Software 5 Appearances outside of Futurama 6 Production notes

[edit] Origin

Bender is a robot, who was built at the Mom's Friendly Robot Company plant in "America's heartland", Tijuana, Mexico, circa AD 2998. He is a Bending-Unit 22, serial number 2716057, chassis number 1729. As his name indicates, he was created for the task of bending metal girders. In fact, without his personality (which can be copied onto a 3.5 inch floppy disk), his responses and actions are limited to saying "I am Bender. Please insert girder." He curses, fights, argues, smokes cigars, drinks, and gambles. A kleptomaniac, Bender steals other characters' wallets, watches and other valuables at every opportunity. It is often stated that he has no emotions, referring instead to his dependence on his, "superior/mighty robo-logic". The series provides contradictory information about Bender's origin. In several episodes, he is portrayed as having been assembled in a factory in his current form only a few years prior to the start of the series, as an ordinary machine would be. However, in "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" he is shown as going through growth and development like an animal and said to have "robo- or RNA", a DNA equivalent. In the DVD commentaries, David X. Cohen states that the viewer only sees a full-sized Bender emerge from the machine that built him, while what happened inside the machine was not revealed. Despite his Mexican origin, he displays a poor ability to pronounce Spanish words or imitate Mexican-accented English in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV". His full name is revealed to be Bender Bending Rodríguez in "The Luck of the Fryrish". This is also confirmed in "The Cyber House Rules" when the "Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium" is renamed the "Bender B. Rodríguez Orphanarium" in light of Bender's generous donation of twelve orphans and a government check for 1200 "wing wangs" (dollars).

[edit] In the show

On December 31, 2999, Bender was waiting in line to use one of New New York City's public suicide booths, having lost the will to live after learning that the girders he bent were used to make those very booths. There, he met Philip J. Fry, and after the booth failed to kill them, Bender and Fry go to a bar. Later, in their efforts to evade Leela, an electrical surge alters Bender's programming, thus allowing him to bend deconstructively. After Leela decides not to implant Fry with his career chip, and quit her own career advising cryogenic defrostees, the three end up being hired to work at Planet Express by Fry's great-great-great-...-nephew, Professor Hubert Farnsworth ("Space Pilot 3000").

Bender has semi-secret aspirations to be a famous cook and/or folk singer, however due to a court order he is not allowed to sing. If magnets are placed on his head they interfere with his inhibition unit, which causes him to act out his desire to be a folk singer by performing folk staples. Bender has a soft spot for turtles. As he described it, they both have hard outer shells but lead rich inner lives. Also like a turtle, Bender has great difficulty getting back on his feet after he has been knocked onto his back. After a short stint believing he was a penguin, he became their ruler and encouraged them to attack humans, only to be attacked himself after removing the tuxedo he had used to imitate them. He has also shown affection toward orphans, adopting twelve at one point and re-donating them after learning they were costing him money. Bender desperately wants to be a part of the Harlem Globetrotters, but was turned down.

Bender has periodically stated a desire to kill all humans, and has made several remarks (asleep or otherwise) indicating a repressed bloodlust. In the episode "The Sting", in which Fry is thought to be dead, Bender reveals that every time he stated that he wished to kill all humans, he would then whisper "except one," the one being Fry. This may not be canon, as this scene is part of a realistic dream Leela had while she was in a coma. Bender's bloodlust is likely a reference to the many movies set in the future in which robots turn against their creators. At one point, on a planet controlled by human-hating robots, he became a celebrity after claiming to have killed "a million-billion" humans. In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Bender claims to have once "pounded a guy into the ground like a stake with a shovel". In "Xmas Story", he claimed to have donated blood, but admitted that the blood he donated belonged to "some guy".

Bender is an example of the series' breakout character, and also served as a symbolic representative once Futurama was cancelled (having guest appeared in two Simpsons episodes).

[edit] Hardware

There is very little consistency in Bender's hardware throughout the series, and his internal workings vary as required for the story or for comic effect.

Like all robots in the series, Bender has square pupils. All of the biological characters have round pupils.

Bender's serial number is 2716057, which is expressible as the sum of two cube numbers ((952)³ + (-951)³). He shares this trait with another Bending Unit he meets called Flexo, whose serial number is 3370318 ((119)³ + (119)³), and they both laughed heartily at this fact. This is one of several joke references to obscure mathematical facts; such as the Hardy-Ramanujan number.

In "Fry and the Slurm Factory" it is revealed that Bender's CPU is a MOS Technology 6502.

Bender's habit of hard drinking is a result of his design; like most robots on Futurama, he uses alcohol as fuel and produces greenhouse gases as a result. He actually only suffers symptoms of intoxication when he stops drinking, becoming disoriented and developing a robot equivalent of a five o'clock shadow (the area around his mouth becomes rusted and brown). While alcohol is his primary fuel source, he is also capable of processing mineral oil and dark matter. He is also equipped with a nuclear pile which is revealed in "Godfellas".

He has been shown to operate in both vacuum and at the bottom of the sea. While deep under water Bender can open his chest compartment to reveal breathing masks similar to the emergency equipment used in commercial aircraft. He also notes that "in the event of an emergency, [his] ass can be used as a flotation device." This is likely a reference to the same capacity noted by Data in Star Trek: Insurrection.

His "extend-o-matic" limbs are extendable, detachable, and capable of functioning independently of his body. He seems to have trouble with the seam below his right underarm, however, as he is seen welding it or asking someone to weld it at various times throughout the series. In most cases, his eyes are shown to be extending cylinders with rounded ends but are generally replacable as necessary for the plot.

Bender's chest cavity uses the fictional idea of hammerspace, as Bender frequently pulls and stores objects within it that are far bigger than the laws of physics would normally allow. This access seems to be situational, as his chest cavity has been filled a number of times. The interior of Bender's chest cavity is actually shown in Futurama: The Game, wherein there are a variety of cogs, wheels, gyros, and various other mechanical components. The interior is shown to be larger than it should be. As with most spin-off material for television shows, the videogame may not be considered canon. In "Insane in the Mainframe", an X-ray like "Gamma Scan" reveals a variety of axles and cogs, as well as a small bat. The heads of Lucy Liu and Luciano Pavarotti were both stored in the cavity at one point. In one episode, Bender ferments about 30 bottles worth of malt liquor in his chest cavity, carrying it as though he were pregnant. Bender had a bomb in his chest at one point said to be capable of destroying a planet, placed in him by Zapp Brannigan in "War is the H-Word". Though Professor Farnsworth couldn't remove it, claiming it was "stuck in there with glue or something," Bender detonated it at the end of the episode; it was apparently a dud.

Like his limbs, Bender's head is detachable, and can continue to function when not attached to his body. Bender's head seems capable of various functions depending on the situation. It has been seen functioning as an audio tape recorder (his pupils can change to play, rewind, eject etc. symbols with function), answering machine, CD player, film projector, camera (still and video), martini shaker, a bell, credit card terminal, and a spray can. The camera aspect of his head is a consistent feature, which he uses in multiple episodes. On top of his head is an antenna, which is multi-functional and can work as a radio transmitter, a remote control receiver, sword, or a toilet flusher. Bender is quite sensitive about it, seemingly equating it with a human penis. In "I, Roommate", Bender responds to Leela's suggestion of removing his antenna with "You're not a robot or a man, so you wouldn't understand." In the same episode, the peace-keeping officer(police) robot URL sees it and says in a degrading fashion "You call that an antenna." Despite this assertion, he can unscrew it. Also, in another episode he is turned into a human. He wonders where his antenna is, then finds it, stating: "Just let me adjust it." Fry shouts "No! You'll make God cry!" as if Bender were masturbating.

Bender claims to have a total of eight senses, four of the Five classical senses. Although he is equipped with "smision" (apparently a combination of smell and vision), he lacks the regular sense of taste. Aside from his own faculties, Bender has several external devices which he uses in the series. One such device is his "gaydar", which is shown as a black box with a radar array attached - his gaydar apparently detects everyone he meets as gay, however. Bender has a built-in, but unreliable, "cheating unit" for predicting the outcome of his own dice rolls. Bender makes mention of a Hilarity Unit (an opening subtitle for one episode of the show claims this unit may be powered by "Microsoft Joke"). Bender's computational abilities are self-admittedly poor, which he reveals in the episode "The Cyber House Rules". When Bender claims to need a calculator, Fry reminds him that Bender is a calculator, to which Bender asserts "I need a good calculator." Bender seems to have four different buttons for deleting information: one on his shoulder, one on his chest, his antenna, and one where his rear end would be. Bender also has a 'Patriotism Circuit' which compels him, when signaled, to fight and possibly give his life in times of crisis. Zapp Brannigan has a device that can trigger Bender's 'Patriotism Circuit', (as shown in "When Aliens Attack") and uses it to draft him into Earth's defense force. When triggered, Bender's antenna blinks and beeps, and Bender stands to attention and shouts a response phrase such as "It is every robot's duty to give his life for the good of humanity!", followed by a regretful moan, or utterance such as "Oh, crap".

According to information from various episodes, Bender is composed of 30% iron ("30% Iron Chef"), 40% zinc ("Fry and the Slurm Factory") , 40% titanium ("A Head in the Polls"), 40% dolomite ("Jurassic Bark") and an unknown quantity of osmium (in alloy with the iron) with a 0.04% nickel impurity ("A Pharaoh to Remember") and he also claims to be 40% lead in Futurama the game but this may not be canon. No explanation for the total of over 150.04% was offered in the series, though it is pointed out in the DVD commentary. David X. Cohen at one point suggests that the various substances may overlap as compounds. Bender's aforementioned calculation skills, or lack thereof, may also be a factor. In "Raging Bender", he is announced as weighing 525 lb (238 kg).

[edit] Software

Bender initially couldn't act against his programming. In the first episode, Bender was deprogrammed after being electrocuted by a hanging light bulb. As mentioned above, when his personality is removed (by downloading) his vocabulary reverts to "I am Bender. Please insert girder." When he comes in contact with a magnet, it disrupts his inhibition unit and he sings various folk songs, including "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain." He is unaffected by magnetism in his shoulder/'neck' area, as he is sometimes shown sticking a magnetic bow tie on there. He is also uneffected by a magnet on his rear end, as in one episode he is carried by a magnet there and responds with WHEEEE!!!

On the episode "Roswell That Ends Well", Bender's brain (in the form of computer chips) was mistaken as food and was eaten by Enos Fry, yet he functions normally without it throughout the whole episode.

When Bender is reactivated, he automatically takes on the traits of the first organism he encounters. In "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz", Bender reboots as a penguin after being mauled by a killer whale. His primary tasks in "Penguin Mode" are to acquire food and frolic. When he reboots back to "Human Mode" after being shot by Leela, his two primary tasks are to bend and "Cheese it!"

[edit] Appearances outside of Futurama

• Bender appears with Al Gore in A Terrifying Message from Al Gore, promoting (or in Bender's case, disparaging) An Inconvenient Truth.
• Bender has made cameo appearances in several episodes of Matt Groening's other show, The Simpsons:

• In "Future-Drama", Bart and Homer go through a portal/tunnel on a hovercraft. At the other side, Bender is seen in between Bart and Homer, saying "All right! You guys are my new best friends". Homer says "You wish, loser!" and throws him out of the car, where he breaks apart (a joke on the fact that Futurama had been cancelled at the time).
• Bender also appears in "Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade". Due to a lack of sleep brought on by watching too much TV, Bart begins to hallucinate in class. The characters from various shows Bart had been watching (such as Bender, a bulimic Tom Brokaw, Pikachu, and an anthropomorphic clock) greet Bart and throw him on their shoulders while singing the Jewish folk song Hava Nagila.
• In the episode "My Big Fat Geek Wedding", Groening himself appears, but is identified as "the creator of Futurama." Milhouse is shown to have a Bender doll.
• In the episode "Missionary: Impossible", Bender appears on the fundraising panel as a phone operator.

[edit] Production notes

• Bender's apartment number is 00100100, which when translated into ASCII, is the $ symbol.
• Creator Matt Groening admits to naming Bender after John Bender, a character in film, The Breakfast Club.[1]

v • d • e Futurama
Media
Episodes • Comic books • Video game • Bender's Big Score
Characters
Fry • Leela • Bender • Professor Farnsworth • Doctor Zoidberg • Hermes • Amy Zapp Brannigan • Kif Kroker • Nibbler • Cubert • Calculon • Mom Recurring human characters • Recurring robot characters • Recurring alien characters • Secondary characters
Universe
Planets: Amphibios 9 • Eternium • Omicron Persei VIII Alien races: Cygnoid • Decapodian • Neptunian • Omicronian Politics and religion: Earth Government • Robotology • D.O.O.P. Technology: Gadgets • Suicide booth • Planet Express Ship • Nimbus Other: Timeline • Blernsball • All My Circuits • The Scary Door • Slurm • Products • Locations • Animals