List of recurring alien characters from Futurama
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- This article discusses alien recurring characters. For robotic recurring characters, see List of recurring robot characters from Futurama. For recurring human characters, see List of recurring human characters from Futurama.
Futurama has a large number of alien recurring characters which help add comic energy to the series.[1] Futurama's alien recurring characters are listed here.
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[edit] Brain Slugs
The Brain Slugs are small, gelatinous, fist-sized aliens that attach themselves to human heads and act as mind-control devices, reducing their hosts to a zombie-like state. Aside from the obvious visual fact that the person has a Brain Slug attached to them, the Brain Slugs further betray their hosts' possessed state by speaking through their hosts in the third person ("Hermes enjoyed it" being just one example) and in a monotone voice. They may be a homage to Robert A. Heinlein's slug-like parasites featured in The Puppet Masters. Their first appearance shows them as sponsors of the political Brain Slug Party, favoring "unreasonably huge subsidies to the brain slug planet". Their plan for the working man is to attach brain slugs to him ("A Head in the Polls").
They are later featured in the episode "Raging Bender" when Hermes returns from vacation with a brain slug attached to his head. He orders the rest of the Planet Express crew to "go to the Brain Slug planet and walk around not wearing any helmets". Seeing through this ruse, the crew instead goes to the movies. Later Hermes attempts to trick them by giving them brain slugs claiming they are promotional hats. At one point, the brain slug is knocked off, freeing Hermes until Bender "helpfully" replaces it. Hermes characterizes his brain slug experience as a "nightmare". His brain slug, however, once reattached, thanks Bender for picking him up off the cold floor. Another brain slug attaches itself briefly to Fry's head but soon dies of starvation. According to the episode's DVD commentary, this was due to Fry's lack of intelligence rather than his lack of the Delta Brainwave (as mentioned in "The Why of Fry"). Using a garlic shampoo is suggested as a protective measure: its usefulness is unclear, but it is likely a reference to garlic warding off vampires.
According to creator Matt Groening, the brain slugs were originally going to make people smarter.[citation needed]
[edit] Brainspawn
An evil race of flying telepathic brains that came into existence a few milliseconds after the Big Bang. Their main enemies are the Nibblonians. Their eons-long goal is to destroy all other intelligent life, since the thoughts of other beings "screech at them like the forced laughs of a billion art-house movie patrons." Their method of operation is to swarm a planet, using their "stupefaction fields" to render all inhabitants too stupid to resist. This leaves them free to take the planet's collected knowledge, after which they destroy it. The Brainspawn's leader personally killed Earth's dinosaurs.
Fry is uniquely immune to the effect (due to becoming his own grandfather in the episode "Roswell That Ends Well", thus meaning he doesn't have the Delta Brainwave which the Brainspawn attack), and manages to drive them from Earth ("The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"). No one affected by the Brainspawn's stupefaction field remembers these events, and Fry is unable to convince anyone of what has happened.
Later, under the direction of the Nibblonians, Fry plants a "quantum interphase bomb" on the Brainspawn's space station/knowledge repository, the "Infosphere", sending it and the Brainspawn to an alternate dimension from which, the Nibblonians believe, there is no escape ("The Why of Fry"). Nibbler, using a previously unknown ability to erase human memories, makes Fry forget this second adventure. Fry apparently remembers the first Brainspawn invasion, stating "I remember the square dancing stomachs, although that might have been a Mylanta commercial.... Wait! I do remember that, everyone told me I was crazy!"
In the DVD commentary for this episode, it's mentioned that the Brainspawn may have been inspired by the movie Fiend Without a Face, which features invisible, flying, tentacled brains that kill by sucking out the victim's own brains.
[edit] Elzar
(Voiced by John DiMaggio) - A famous four-armed Neptunian chef, with his own New New York restaurant ("Elzar's Fine Cuisine", a regular set-piece in the series), and television show. Elzar is a parody of the celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, while his physique is a nod to the four-armed television chef Gormaanda of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Elzar is crass and unpleasant, and has a very high opinion of himself. He never passes up an opportunity to milk money from his customers and fans; in one instance, he recommends that the Planet Express crew try the pasta, boasting that it has a "real nice profit margin". He has also been known to steal from his own cash register on occasion.
Elzar's favorite cooking implement is his Spice Weasel, a mustelid-like creature which propels a cloud of spices from its snout upon having its body squeezed, which he uses to "knock it up a notch", with his customary "Bam!" The phrase "knock it up a notch," is a parody of Emeril's catchphrase "kick it up a notch"; Emeril is also famous for yelling "Bam" when adding spice to his dishes. It should be noted that Elzar, like the spa worker Heather in the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", is a full grown example of the race Robot Santa has enslaved as his "worker elves." A few others of Elzar's size are seen in "Little Neptune," a parody of "Little Italy," insinuating that Neptune was once something of a gourmet Italy-like planet before the appearance of Robot Santa. He is also one of the few Neptunians seen not holding another's hands.
[edit] Horrible Gelatinous Blob
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - Horrible Gelatinous Blob (HGB) is a three-eyed, green, translucent, ill-tempered alien. He contemptuously refers to humanoids as "solids" and ridicules their one-way digestive system. He first appears in a Planet Express television ad in "The Series Has Landed" in which he devours an employee who uses a rival delivery company. He then rewards an employee who uses Planet Express by devouring him as well. He also makes a brief appearance in "The Problem with Popplers" as a customer at Fishy Joe's. Later, he is one of the unsatisfied customers on Cubert's and Dwight's paper route, in which he tells the crew that he will "accept their apology when you kiss my ass. Which I don't have!" He beats Hermes and Professor Farnsworth close to death, though he later apologizes, indicating his temper was due to stress at work and an infamiliarity with new technology. Mr. Blob is later revealed to be a stock trader at the InterGalactic Stock Exchange, though he claims he works in a plant in the paper route episode, in orbit around Earth. He joins the group of fathers in F.A.R.T., which stands for 'Fathers Against Rude Television'. This happens in the episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV".
He has a son named Brett Blob. Brett regularly bullies Cubert and Dwight; Brett uses a miniature black hole to reduce their lunches to a singularity as seen in "The Route of All Evil". It is also revealed in this episode, and demonstrated on Brett, that beings of the HGB's species are weak against salt like the average slug.
Two members of his species are briefly shown embracing within sight of the Eiffel Tower in the episode "Love and Rocket", which has a Valentine's Day theme.
In the year 3000, his face is shown on the 20 dollar bill, as seen in Bender's Big Score.
The weather forecast is presented by a blob referred to as Entity Hal as seen in Futurama comic #10: The Big Sweep.
Persons and objects devoured by the Horrible Gelatinous Blob (or others of his species) can be seen suspended within his protoplasm. The process of recovery is implied but unclear.
The Horrible Gelatinous Blob was featured as a squishy toy marketed by Dark Horse Comics featuring either Fry, Leela, Bender or Professor Farnsworth floating inside.[2]
[edit] The Hyperchicken
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - The Hyperchicken (his actual name is undisclosed) is a 6-foot-plus blue/green rooster-like attorney with a pince-nez perched on his beak. He has a Southern accent that seems to be a mix between Foghorn Leghorn and Atticus Finch and describes himself as "a simple hyperchicken from a backwoods asteroid". His first appearance is in "Brannigan Begin Again".
The hyperchicken is a terrible lawyer, and routinely loses cases for the main characters. He does win the case against Zoidberg as the prosecutor in "A Taste of Freedom". In one case ("Insane in the Mainframe"), simply hiring him as a legal representative is grounds for Judge Whitey to accept a plea of insanity from Fry and Bender. At one point he is hired while imprisoned and awaiting a trial "for that there incompetence" ("The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz"). It is, however, interesting to note that in this instance, he manages to secure for Bender (who had been accused of vast levels of pollution, and as well as driving with a blood alcohol level of .08%, well below the legal limit for robots) a deal that requires him to only serve 5 hours of community service for the crime.
The hyperchicken keeps his children in a suitcase and is seen crowing on top of a courthouse ("A Tale of Two Santas"). In "A Tale of Two Santas," he randomly pecks one of the witnesses, having mistaken her for corn. The hyperchicken often exclaims "I'm just a simple country hyperchicken", a reference to James Stewart's quip from Anatomy of a Murder, in which he repeatedly claims "I'm just a simple country lawyer..." The hyperchicken is a parody of incompetent attorneys from movies such as My Cousin Vinny and indeed the hyperchicken's lack of legal skill while consistently being hired to represent main characters bears similarity to Lionel Hutz from Groening's other series The Simpsons. The Hyperchicken's dress and demeanor are reminiscent of Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch. His physique resembles the Blue Finch.
[edit] Hypnotoad
The Hypnotoad is a large toad with oscillating, multicolored eyes which emit a loud, ominous buzzing noise. It has the power to hypnotize almost any living thing at will, even mass numbers of creatures.
The Hypnotoad first appeared in the episode "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", where it wins a pet show by hypnotizing sheep to herd themselves into a pen, the event judges into giving it a perfect score, and finally the audience into applauding mechanically. A running gag in the series is that the Hypnotoad has its own television show, Everybody Loves Hypnotoad, in which it hypnotizes the audience (first seen in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV"). In Futurama: Bender's Big Score, the Hypnotoad punishes a producer for preempting its show by forcing him to commit suicide. Included as a special feature in the DVD release of the movie is a full 22-minute episode of Everybody Loves Hypnotoad[3][4][5] in which all of the credits for the show are attributed to the Hypnotoad itself and the show's content consists almost entirely of footage of the Hypnotoad staring into the camera, occasionally intercut with a laugh track or shots of the exterior of various locations to indicate a scene change. The finale of the show consists of a voiceover telling the audience that they will wake up remembering nothing and feeling refreshed, then counting to 50 while the screen gradually fades to white. This purportedly explains why the sitcom within a sitcom remains so popular.
As revealed in commentaries, the loud noise made by the toad is a stock sound dubbed "Angry Machine," which was originally used by the editors to remind themselves to replace it with a more appropriate sound effect (serving as a sort of aural lorem ipsum).
[edit] Kif Kroker
He is a shy Green alien that serves on the D.O.O.P starship Nimbus under Zapp Brannigan's command and is currently married to Amy Wong. He first met Amy Wong on the space cruiser called The Titanic, which was sucked into a black hole, compressing thousands of people into a singularity.
[edit] Lrrr
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - Pronounced [lərː], he is ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8, located 1,000 light years from Earth. On numerous occasions Lrrr has threatened to destroy the Earth as a whole, as well as members of the Planet Express crew personally. Lrrr is something of a parody of all clichéd "green-skinned space invaders". His wife is Ndnd, and the two appear to enjoy a relationship which goes through periodic love-hate cycles. Ndnd once mentions that Lrrr was previously married, though his first wife has never been seen.
Lrrr and his inner circle are devout fans of 20th and 21st century Earth television which, due to the distance of their planet from Earth, they can watch "live", though Lrrr has a violent hatred of animated shows. It is implied that he is not a fan of Joey from Friends, and indeed that he completely fails to grasp the idea behind the show ("Why does Ross, the largest friend, not simply eat the other five?"). He purchases Fry's nose on the black market as an aphrodisiac named "Human Horn" in the episode "Spanish Fry". It is revealed in this episode that Omicronians (or at least Lrrr and Ndnd), when engaging in sexual intercourse, pose a danger to anyone within a 500 meter radius, although the exact reasons for this are not given, perhaps the sight of the act is damaging. Whenever he is seen onscreen, Lrrr tries to appear threatening and powerful, but his intimidating appearance is always foiled by him performing some banal and humorous activity, such as adjusting a slanted painting or scratching his buttocks on live television.
Lrrr also has a soft spot for animals, which he tries to hide with his threatening persona. However, Ndnd states that the reason she fell in love with him was because of his sensitive, poetic side. He apparently cried when he accidentally stepped on a tinklebunny and nursed it back to health and wrote a poem for Ndnd when they were dating. He also stopped a park ranger from tranquilizing a sasquatch in the episode "Spanish Fry", later composing a short eloquent speech about animal diginity before breaking into tears.
Lrrr, like others of his species, is very tall and strong relative to Earthlings and large enough to consume an adult human in one bite. This was demonstrated in the episode "The Problem with Popplers" when he swallows the hippie character Free Waterfall Jr., becoming very high or intoxicated immediately following his "meal" ("Whoa, that hippie's starting to kick in"). It is also revealed that Omicronians have difficulty distinguishing one human from another; indeed, Lrrr is even all too ready to accept a disguised ape as an edible sacrifice in place of Leela in the aforementioned episode. His skin is considerably tougher than human flesh and is left unmarked by a fired tranquilizer dart.
He is often criticized for his eating habits by Ndnd, who claims that he has eating habits stereotypical of unhealthy American diets (excessive amounts of ketchup or salt).
Lrrr also appears in a fantasy sequence in "Anthology of Interest II" as the ruler of planet Nintendu 64, piloting a spaceship resembling those in the computer game "Space Invaders".
[edit] Morbo
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche[6]) - Morbo is the human hating anchor for √2 News, Entertainment and Alien Invasion Tonight, Good Morning Earth, and other shows on the √2 Television Network.[6] Morbo's character design is based on the aliens from the 1957 science fiction movie Invasion of the Saucer Men.[citation needed]
Morbo claims to be a scout for an upcoming alien invasion, but does not bother to be subtle about it and frequently comments on his species' extremely violent invasion plans. He also expresses his contempt for humans on a regular basis, even during live news broadcasts. His co-host, Linda seems blissfully unaware of this and usually responds with an empty-headed laugh to Morbo's contempt. He also cares little for loss of human life in the news.
Morbo has a great love for Lipps Inc's 1980 hit song "Funkytown", and apparently has something hideous where his chest is. The physical structure of his skull is different than humans as in "Crimes of the Hot"; his head inflates and deflates like a balloon when he pants from the heat (however, in "The 30% Iron Chef", X-rays show that his skull is the reason his head is shaped as it is). He is good friends with President Richard Nixon's head. In the episode "A Head in the Polls", Morbo is the mediator of the debate and refers to the candidates as "Puny human number 1, Puny human number 2, and Morbo's good friend, Richard Nixon."
He has a wife, Fawn, of the same species, mentioned in "The 30% Iron Chef" and seen briefly in "Three Hundred Big Boys" and "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings". Morbo speaks to her with his characteristic hostility, as when she was adjusting his bowtie in Three Hundred Big Boys and he whispers "Stop it. It's fine ... I will destroy you!", but she pays no attention. When asked "How's the family?" by Nixon's head, he casually replies "belligerent and numerous."
On the DVD commentaries for Futurama, Maurice LaMarche often points out that two of the characters he voices, Morbo and Lrrr, "sound nothing alike", as a running gag. LaMarche asserts that Morbo, being a newscaster, has better diction. A season one commentary stated that the pitch of Morbo's voice was digitally altered lower than LaMarche's original recordings, and that in subsequent episodes, LaMarche simply read the voice lower to match the- as David X. Cohen referred to it- "sub-human level" of the altered tone.
He has stated that kittens give him gas, implying that they are an occasional part of his diet.
[edit] Ndnd
(Voiced by Tress MacNeille) Ndnd, pronounced [əndʊndə], is Lrrr's current wife. Ndnd often accompanies Lrrr on his trips to Earth. She is most often seen arguing with Lrrr and complains about the lack of romance in their marriage in the episode "Spanish Fry". There is a recurring joke between Ndnd and Lrrr resembling The Honeymooners where Lrrr says to Ndnd "One of these days, Ndnd, bang, zoom, straight to the third moon of Omicron Persei 8!"
[edit] Nibblonians
The Nibblonians are a powerful yet adorable race from the planet Eternium, which is located in the center of the universe. According to them, their race is ancient and powerful, having come into existence 17 years before the rest of the universe (how is unknown); as a result they are probably the most advanced race in the universe, so much so that they refer to the Big Bang as "not so big". The most advanced demonstration of their technology was the Quantum Interface Bomb which imploded the Brainspawn's Infosphere into another dimension. However their technology in some cases cannot compensate for their small stature, notably when several of their ships were forced to retreat in the face of three other aliens wielding chairs. It has also been shown that the Nibblonians know the meaning of life when Leela, after talking with Nibbler through a mental link, states "Then the meaning of life is!" Nibbler nods. Leela then continues "...then every religion is wrong!" In the episode "The Why of Fry", it is revealed that Nibblonians have very long life spans, in excess of 1000 years.
Nibblonians' eating habits are often considered disgusting by many that observe them, and somehow have a stomach capacity many thousands of times the size of their own bodies. They have been seen to eat whole live animals, and drink an entire swimming pool's worth of water. In the episode "Love's Labours Lost in Space" it's implied that a single Nibblonian ate all but two of every species on the planet Vergon 6. In the case of Nibbler, his strange eating habits may account for the fact that he excretes dark matter, which is extremely dense (according to Professor Farnsworth "one pound of which weighs over ten-thousand pounds") and according to Fry, one small sphere made by Nibbler weighs as much as a thousand suns. It's unknown if all Nibblonians have this trait, although it is implied when Nibbler states "we live long and are celebrated poopers". According to almost everyone else who encounters them, they are excessively cute, a fact which they find annoying.
Their arch-enemy is the Brainspawn. They believe Fry is the only hope of the universe in that he can stop the Brainspawn due to his lack of the Delta brainwave.
The three main Nibblonians in the series are Nibbler, Ken, and Fiona. Nibbler's shadow is seen in the pilot episode prior to Fry falling into the freezer and his eye stalk appears in the trash can when Fry places the Pizza box on the desk in front of him. He is formally introduced in "Love's Labours Lost in Space" and appears regularly in episodes after that. The others have appeared in the episodes "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" and "The Why of Fry", and in the direct-to-DVD film Bender's Big Score.
[edit] Fiona
(Voiced by Tress MacNeille) Fiona is the main female Nibblonian. She is never seen without her orange bow on her eyestalk. Both Ken and Fiona believe the Dave Matthews Band doesn't rock. She believes that the Nibblonians are a fierce species, and dismisses any claims of the Nibblonians being too cute with the Nibblonian phrase "aww niggle-snoosh". She also behaves like a cat when content, purring and rhythmically kneading.
[edit] Ken
(Voiced by Billy West) Ken is one of the two main male Nibblonians. His main difference in appearance with Nibbler is that he has a slightly larger head, and appears older than Nibbler. Ken's official tunic also sports triple epaulets (like Fiona's), in contrast to the double epaulets on Nibbler's seldom-shown Nibblonian uniform. Ken refers to Earth as the "homeworld of the pizza bagel", enjoys being petted, and sometimes expresses the fretful concern that the Nibblonians might in fact be cute.
[edit] Nibbler
The design, behavior and implied age of the Nibblonian race are likely references to characters in early animation, specifically the 1930s' cartoons of Warner Brothers' character Bosko, and Disney's Mickey Mouse.[citation needed] There are also distinct similarities of Nibbler to the everything-devouring multitudinous munchers in the R-rated animation feature Tarzoon, Shame of the Jungle.[citation needed]
[edit] References
- ^ Booker, M. Keith. Drawn to Television: Prime-Time Animation from The Flintstones to Family Guy, 115-125.
- ^ Futurama: Horrible Gelatinous Blob Squishy Toy. Dark Horse Comics.
- ^ DVD Talk Review: Futurama: Bender's Big Score
- ^ CHUD.com - A film site for the brilliant
- ^ Futurama DVD news: Press Release for Futurama - Bender's Big Score | TVShowsOnDVD.com
- ^ a b Salem, Rob (2007-11-24). The Futurama is near. The Toronto Star. Retrieved on 2008-03-20.
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