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Changed line(s) 81 (click to see context) from:
* IdenticalGrandson: A literal example, [[MyOwnGrand
to:
* IdenticalGrandson: A literal example, [[MyOwnGrandexample. He actually ''is'' his own grandfather. He also bears a strong resemblance to Professor Farnsworth, despite being a thousand years of generations apart.
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** SurpriseIncest: Since his presumed grandfather died, he assumes neither him nor his fiancee who's coming on them are his relatives. [[MyOwnGrampa He's half-right.]]
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* NiceJobBreakingItHero: He ruined {{Heaven}} for ''EVERYONE'', all just so he could tell Bender that he's happy where he is. There was nothing actually ''wrong'' with wanting to contact his best friend. He clearly didn't expect Yivo to be such a {{Clingy Jealous G|irl}}uy and evict everyone for "cheating on him" with another universe.
** Or for Bender to use the letters he sent through the rift to create hypermatter weapons with which to attack Yivo and attempt to destroy heaven.
** Or for Bender to use the letters he sent through the rift to create hypermatter weapons with which to attack Yivo and attempt to destroy heaven.
to:
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: NiceJobBreakingItHero:
** He ruined {{Heaven}} for ''EVERYONE'', all just so he could tell Bender that he's happy where he is. There was nothing actually ''wrong'' with wanting to contact his best friend. He clearly didn't expect Yivo to be such a{{Clingy Jealous G|irl}}uy CrayJealousGuy and evict everyone for "cheating on him" with another universe.
**Or for For Bender to use the letters he sent through the rift to create hypermatter weapons with which to attack Yivo and attempt to destroy heaven.
** He ruined {{Heaven}} for ''EVERYONE'', all just so he could tell Bender that he's happy where he is. There was nothing actually ''wrong'' with wanting to contact his best friend. He clearly didn't expect Yivo to be such a
**
Changed line(s) 127,128 (click to see context) from:
* OnlyFriend: He's the only person Bender considers a friend. Whenever he chants "Destroy all humans" in his sleep, he always whispers "Except Fry." under his breath.
** Similarly, if anyone shows a notable degree of sympathy for Zoidberg, it's often him.
** Similarly, if anyone shows a notable degree of sympathy for Zoidberg, it's often him.
to:
* OnlyFriend: He's the only person Bender considers a friend. Whenever he chants "Destroy all humans" in his sleep, he always whispers "Except Fry." under his breath.
**breath. Similarly, if anyone shows a notable degree of sympathy for Zoidberg, it's often him.
**
* SurpriseIncest: Since his presumed grandfather died, he assumes neither him nor his fiancee who's coming on them are his relatives. [[MyOwnGrampa He's half-right.]]
Changed line(s) 140 (click to see context) from:
* TemporalParadox: In a what-if scenario, Fry not getting frozen causes this, which eventually leads to [[RealityBreakingParadox that timeline collapsing in on itself.]] This is because if he's never frozen, he'd be able to go back and [[MyOwnGrampa be his own grandfather]].
to:
* TemporalParadox: TemporalParadox:
** In a what-if scenario, Fry not getting frozen causes this, which eventually leads to [[RealityBreakingParadox that timeline collapsing in on itself.]] This is because if he's never frozen, he'd be able to go back and [[MyOwnGrampa be his own grandfather]].
** In a what-if scenario, Fry not getting frozen causes this, which eventually leads to [[RealityBreakingParadox that timeline collapsing in on itself.]] This is because if he's never frozen, he'd be able to go back and [[MyOwnGrampa be his own grandfather]].
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* IdenticalGrandson: A literal example, [[MyOwnGrand
** SurpriseIncest: Since his presumed grandfather died, he assumes neither him nor his fiancee who's coming on them are his relatives. [[MyOwnGrampa He's half-right.]]
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%%* ParadoxPerson
to:
* ParadoxPerson: He's a temporal anomaly due to [[MyOwnGrampa becoming his own grandfather]], making him the only person in creation without a Delta Brain Wave. [[spoiler:Taken literally with his duplicate Lars Fillmore, who was created via TemporalParadox.]]
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* TemporalParadox: In a what-if scenario, Fry not getting frozen causes this, which eventually leads to [[RealityBreakingParadox that timeline collapsing in on itself.]] This is because if he's never frozen, he'd be able to go back and [[MyOwnGrampa be his own grandfather]].
** [[spoiler:Lars Fillmore's existence in a nutshell-Fry ended up interfering with his own past self for pizza, resulting in the two becoming separate beings. This is only achieved through a literal TimeyWimeyBall, and it means Lars is doomed to die in order to correct the paradox.]]
** [[spoiler:Lars Fillmore's existence in a nutshell-Fry ended up interfering with his own past self for pizza, resulting in the two becoming separate beings. This is only achieved through a literal TimeyWimeyBall, and it means Lars is doomed to die in order to correct the paradox.]]
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* KavorkaMan: Fry is portrayed as an unattractive loser and yet he still manages to attract plenty of very attractive women.
Changed line(s) 136 (click to see context) from:
* TeenyWeenie: Poor Fry, guy can never catch a break. Ever. According to Amy and Leela, due to selective genetic engineering being rampant by the 31st century, Fry's normal "equipment" apparently doesn't stand the test of time. PlayedForLaughs by Bender, who occasionally makes "small" jokes at Fry's expense (who, of course, insists it's [[CompensatingForSomething "huge"]]).
to:
* TeenyWeenie: Poor Fry, guy can never catch a break. Ever. According to Amy and Leela, due to selective genetic engineering being rampant by the 31st century, Fry's normal "equipment" apparently doesn't stand the test of time. PlayedForLaughs by Bender, who occasionally makes "small" jokes at Fry's expense (who, of course, insists it's [[CompensatingForSomething "huge"]]). So he might just be small by the future's standards or maybe Bender was just being a jerk.
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Changed line(s) 299 (click to see context) from:
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's evil, but ''usually'' not as evil as the current antagonist. Also, there are moments when even he is hesitant or shocked by something. During "Time Keeps On Skippin'", he was the one who tried to point out the danger of chronitons, and in "Love And Rocket", he actually looked unnerved on seeing the Lovey Bear "Hospital".
to:
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's evil, but ''usually'' not as evil as the current antagonist. Also, there are moments when even he is hesitant or shocked by something. During "Time Keeps On Skippin'", he was the one who tried to point out the danger of chronitons, and in "Love And Rocket", he actually looked unnerved on seeing the Lovey Bear "Hospital"."Hospital" and in "Spanish Fry" he expressed disgust when the porno dealing monster says that he video tapes his clients so he can blackmail them later.
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* JerkAss: She isn't always this but she does have moments where she can be this, treating others(often Fry) like utter crap and hurting people.
to:
* JerkAss: She isn't {{Jerkass}}: Not always this but she does have moments where she can be this, treating others(often Others (often Fry) like utter crap and hurting people.
Changed line(s) 329 (click to see context) from:
* {{Jerkass}}: In "A Pharaoh to Remember", Bender, Leela and Fry are trapped on a ancient Egyptian planet where Bender encourages the overseers to whip the slaves (which include Leela and Fry) more and work them harder. This goes on to where he starts ordering people worked to death to construct a monument to himself.
to:
* {{Jerkass}}: In "A Pharaoh to Remember", Bender, Leela and Fry are trapped on a ancient Egyptian planet where Bender encourages Bender's callousness reached such extremes at times it led even the overseers Robot Devil himself to whip the slaves (which include Leela and Fry) more and work them harder. This goes on to where he starts ordering people worked to death to construct a monument to himself.be taken aback.
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Changed line(s) 105 (click to see context) from:
* MadeOfIron: His incredible list of injuries aside, he also mentioned having had three heart attacks (due to excessive soda consumption), by the time he was in high school.
to:
* LoveAtFirstSight: Fry says that he fell in love with Leela the first time he met her. He doesn't admit it until the third season (because he wasn't able to articulate his thoughts) and it becomes a regular theme in the show from then on.
* MadeOfIron: His incredible list of injuries aside, he also mentioned having had three heart attacks (due to excessive soda consumption), by the time he was in high school. He also has another one when Bender haunts him to try and kill him as part of deal with the Robot Devil. He survives this one as well.
* MadeOfIron: His incredible list of injuries aside, he also mentioned having had three heart attacks (due to excessive soda consumption), by the time he was in high school. He also has another one when Bender haunts him to try and kill him as part of deal with the Robot Devil. He survives this one as well.
* JerkAss: She isn't always this but she does have moments where she can be this, treating others(often Fry) like utter crap and hurting people.
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* WorkingWithTheEx: She and Fry were married, for all of the time it took her to file for divorce.
to:
* WorkingWithTheEx: She and Fry were married, for all of the time it took her to file for divorce. Also later on she says that Fry and her's relationship is on again and off again.
Changed line(s) 253 (click to see context) from:
** He sells his firstborn son to the Robot Devil in "The Beast With A Billion Backs" in exchange for an army to wage war on Heaven and shows no emotion as the child cries for help. This is so evil it scares / impresses the Robot Devil.
to:
** He sells his firstborn son to the Robot Devil in "The Beast With A Billion Backs" in exchange for an army to wage war on Heaven and shows no emotion as the child cries for help. This is so evil it scares / impresses the Robot Devil. He even says "No backsies."
Changed line(s) 329 (click to see context) from:
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Often. In "Xmas Story" all the others ere surprised when Bender says he wants to "volunteer" at a liquor kitchen for homeless robots. It turns out he just wants to pose as a homeless robot to get free booze.
to:
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Often. Much more often than the previous trope. In "Xmas Story" all the others ere surprised when Bender says he wants to "volunteer" at a liquor kitchen for homeless robots. It turns out he just wants to pose as a homeless robot to get free booze.
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* CatchPhrase:
** "Awwwww." Said when she finds something cute, endearing or touching.
** "Oh, Lord." Said when she's annoyed, fed up or exasperated by someone (usually Fry or Bender) but not angry enough to get violent.
** "Awwwww." Said when she finds something cute, endearing or touching.
** "Oh, Lord." Said when she's annoyed, fed up or exasperated by someone (usually Fry or Bender) but not angry enough to get violent.
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Changed line(s) 157 (click to see context) from:
* ActionGirl: Easily the most badass person on the crew.
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* ActionGirl: Easily the most badass person on the crew. She is strong, tough, and highly skilled in martial arts.
Deleted line(s) 161 (click to see context) :
* {{Badass}}: Strong, tough, highly skilled in martial arts.
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* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: She's an intern at Planet Express, but never seen to do actual work there. It's later revealed that Professor Farnsworth keeps her around because she has the same blood type as him.
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* AttractiveBentGender: In "Neutopia" ("[[BrainlessBeauty Now when I say stupid things guys all laugh and buy me stuff.]]") Not that he wasn't good-looking.
to:
* AttractiveBentGender: In "Neutopia" ("[[BrainlessBeauty Now when I say stupid things guys all laugh and buy me stuff.]]") Not that he wasn't good-looking.]]"). While he's always a pretty good-looking guy, he's an absolute bombshell as a woman.
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natter, and the Zoidberg part is already mentioned many times below (see Genius Ditz, Not That Kind Of Doctor, Crippling Overspecialization...)
Changed line(s) 33,34 (click to see context) from:
* BunnyEarsLawyer: In "Near Death Wish", Fry wins Delivery Boy of the Year!
** His competition were all children who also happened to have been killed while delivering packages, meaning he was the only candidate left.
** His competition were all children who also happened to have been killed while delivering packages, meaning he was the only candidate left.
to:
* BunnyEarsLawyer: PlayedForLaughs. In "Near Death Wish", Fry wins Delivery Boy of the Year!
**Year! His competition were all children who also happened to have been killed while delivering packages, meaning he was the only candidate left.
**
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** Inverted, he convinced himself he hated the past and his family because he knew he could never go back. It was even a plot point in the film Benders Big Score.
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** He has his doctorate in art history and in later seasons he's shown to be a competent doctor for aliens, not humans.
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**He has his doctorate in art history and in later seasons he's shown to be a competent doctor for aliens, not humans.
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** When he lost his memory and convinced himself he was a neanderthal in "Fun on the Bun" , he waged war on modern day society, fought toe to toe with Leela and held his own and actually won the battle.
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**Inverted, he convinced himself he hated the past and his family because he knew he could never go back. It was even a plot point in the film Benders Big Score.
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**When he lost his memory and convinced himself he was a neanderthal in "Fun on the Bun" , he waged war on modern day society, fought toe to toe with Leela and held his own and actually won the battle.
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**His competition were all children who also happened to have been killed while delivering packages, meaning he was the only candidate left.
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* HeartIsAnAwesomePower: Who knew limbo skills had so many uses.
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* BewareTheNiceOnes: He was all mellow while he was fighting with Zoidberg to the death. But when Zoidberg cut his arm off, he screamed "You BASTARD!!! I'll kill you! YOU BASTARD!!!
to:
* BewareTheNiceOnes: He was all mellow while he was fighting with Zoidberg to the death. But when Zoidberg cut his arm off, he screamed "You "[[UnstoppableRage You BASTARD!!! I'll kill you! YOU BASTARD!!!BASTARD!!!]]"
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* {{Expy}}: In [[http://www.gotfuturama.com/Information/Articles/chat.dhtml this interview]], Groening says that he's like a [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons "robotic Homer Simpson"]].
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Changed line(s) 652 (click to see context) from:
* AsianAirhead: Literally every male character makes note of how good-looking she is, she's richer than God, and well-liked by everyone. She acts so ditzy that it's easy to forget that she was introduced as a graduate student in applied physics (and eventually gets her PhD.)
to:
* AsianAirhead: Literally every male character makes note of how good-looking she is, she's richer than God, and well-liked by everyone. She acts so ditzy that it's easy to forget that she was introduced as a graduate student in applied physics (and eventually gets her PhD.)[=PhD=]).
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** She started as very archetypal captain figure, the {{Straight|Man}} ActionGirl that was sorely needed to run a crew and company that were barely competent in their own individual rights, occasionally showing odd, questionable quirks that kept her safely out of MarySue territory. In each successive season (especially the ComedyCentral ones), the latter aspect of her personality became increasingly prevalent to the point of consuming the rest of it, sometimes outright resembling {{Chickification}}. One could almost say that Fry didn't win her love by becoming smarter, but rather from her [[TookALevelInDumbass becoming dumber]].
to:
** She started as very archetypal captain figure, the {{Straight|Man}} ActionGirl that was sorely needed to run a crew and company that were barely competent in their own individual rights, occasionally showing odd, questionable quirks that kept her safely out of MarySue territory. In each successive season (especially the ComedyCentral Creator/ComedyCentral ones), the latter aspect of her personality became increasingly prevalent to the point of consuming the rest of it, sometimes outright resembling {{Chickification}}. One could almost say that Fry didn't win her love by becoming smarter, but rather from her [[TookALevelInDumbass becoming dumber]].
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** As was "Holy Zombie Jesus!" and "Sweet Zombie Jesus" (both of which got edited when the show was put in reruns on Creator/CartoonNetwork, most domestic and international syndicated versions, and TBS, but can be heard on ComedyCentral, FOX, and on DVD and Netflix).
to:
** As was "Holy Zombie Jesus!" and "Sweet Zombie Jesus" (both of which got edited when the show was put in reruns on Creator/CartoonNetwork, most domestic and international syndicated versions, and TBS, but can be heard on ComedyCentral, Creator/ComedyCentral, FOX, and on DVD and Netflix).
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* TookALevelInBadass: Zoidberg seems to have become more competent after the show moved to ComedyCentral.
to:
* TookALevelInBadass: Zoidberg seems to have become more competent after the show moved to ComedyCentral.Creator/ComedyCentral.
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* UndyingLoyalty: Has become an important trait in the ComedyCentral seasons. In "The Tip of the Zoidberg", we see that the Professor was the first friend he ever had, and he swore never to leave his side [[spoiler:partly to help euthanize the Professor when his Hyper-Malaria flares up]]. In "The Six Million Dollar Mon", he holds onto Hermes' discarded body parts and restores him to normal when [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul he starts losing his humanity]], all because he thinks Hermes is a good friend (when in reality Hermes can't stand him).
to:
* UndyingLoyalty: Has become an important trait in the ComedyCentral Comedy Central seasons. In "The Tip of the Zoidberg", we see that the Professor was the first friend he ever had, and he swore never to leave his side [[spoiler:partly to help euthanize the Professor when his Hyper-Malaria flares up]]. In "The Six Million Dollar Mon", he holds onto Hermes' discarded body parts and restores him to normal when [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul he starts losing his humanity]], all because he thinks Hermes is a good friend (when in reality Hermes can't stand him).
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* TheStoner: Heavily implied in the ComedyCentral episodes more than the FOX ones.
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* TheStoner: Heavily implied in the ComedyCentral Creator/ComedyCentral episodes more than the FOX ones.
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* CameraFiend: Bender has a hobby of taking pictures of horrifying and/or disgusting events.
Changed line(s) 276 (click to see context) from:
** "We're boned"
to:
** "We're boned"boned."
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** When Bender takes a photo of something he usually says "Neat!"
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Changed line(s) 678 (click to see context) from:
* ReallyGetsAround: At least, until she gets together with Kif.
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* ReallyGetsAround: At least, until she gets together with Kif. Not only was she open to dating non-humans, but in some episodes, dated creatures that weren't even humanoid. She still brags about her "general sluttiness" though.
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** Oh my, yes [=/=] no.
** The second episode has him momentarily look worried on handing Fry over to Zoidberg for a check-up.
Changed line(s) 454 (click to see context) from:
* GrumpyOldMan: "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and buy a single piece of fruit with a coupon, and then return it, making everyone in line wait behind me while I complain!"
to:
* GrumpyOldMan: "Now if you'll excuse me, Completely willing on his part. "I don't have time for this! I have to go and buy a single piece of fruit with a coupon, and then return it, making everyone in line wait behind me while I complain!"
* TheLoad: It's pretty heavily implied in-universe that he's one for Planet Express. In "Future Stock", the company's stock skyrockets after he's ousted, only to plummet down to less than worthless once he's reinstalled, and in "The Late Phillip J. Fry" Leela manages to turn the company into a thriving business with him gone.
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* OmnidisciplinaryScientist
to:
* OmnidisciplinaryScientistOmnidisciplinaryScientist: he's skiled in robotics, chemistry, engineering and genetic engineering, at the very least.
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: By his own admission. He's a professor at Mars University, teaching a course on "The Mathematics of Quantum Neutrino Fields", which he just made up on the basis no student would take the course. When Fry ''does'' take the course, he's outraged.
-->''I don't know how to teach! I'm a ''professor!
-->''I don't know how to teach! I'm a ''professor!
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* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Until she hooks up with Kif.
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* AllGirlsLikePonies: According to Amy, she had an awful lot of ponies as a child. When she was de-aged and went back to Mars, a pony could be seen standing to the side in her room.
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Until she hooks up withKif.Kif (though in the episode they first get together in, she expresses a distaste for bad boys, instead wanting a good guy).
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Until she hooks up with
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* BirdsOfAFeather: Part of the reason she and Fry hooked up was because they shared similar interests, both being ditzy and rebellious. And unlike Leela, Fry's childish behaviour wasn't a turn-off for Amy.
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** Subverted in "The Bots and The Bees", when Bender accidentally fathers a second son. To his son Ben, Bender is a loving and supportive father.
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* FunnyRobot: GallowsHumor-BlackComedy-type-funny, but makes you laugh your ass off.
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* FunnyRobot: GallowsHumor-BlackComedy-type-funny, but makes you laugh your ass off.
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* FunnyRobot: GallowsHumor-BlackComedy-type-funny, but makes you laugh your ass off.
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[[Characters/{{Futurama}} You can return to the main character page here.]]
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[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder:Philip J. Fry]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Philip_J__Fry_8206.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"People said I was dumb, but I proved them!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/BillyWest
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
The main character. Fry is a decent, honest and fun-loving guy, but he's also immature, lazy, and not very bright. Once a pizza boy from the 20th century, he accidentally cryogenically freezes himself during a delivery run on New Years' Eve, 1999 and wakes up on New Years' Eve 2999. HilarityEnsues when he gets a job at Planet Express as a delivery boy, working for his closest living relative, distant nephew Professor Farnsworth.
* AcePilot: Surprisingly proves himself to be one whenever he takes control of a ship. All of his time playing video games payed off.
* {{Adorkable}}: Mostly due to his childish nature and his kooky mannerisms, and he's a Trekkie. He's not seen as particularly attractive in-universe, but he manages to date some fairly hot women at times.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Implied by Bender (who lives with him) with many off-hand insults/jokes that Fry masturbates frequently. A whole episode, "Spanish Fry", featured one long RunningGag of Bender making jokes about this at Fry's expense.
* AllLovingHero: He's a pretty compassionate guy and has a tendency of bonding with his enemies.
* AmusingInjuries: Horrifically painful things happen to him on a regular basis (Bender slashing his throat, Bender strangling him for drinking his beer, Bender trying to run him over...)
* AngstWhatAngst: Lampshaded in-universe, his reaction upon learning he's woken up a thousand years in the future. Justified in that no one from Fry's time liked or even respected him and he had a miserable life as a delivery boy (though later episodes do show that his family did care about him, and Fry had a dog named Seymour who was loyal to him):
-->'''Fry''': My God, it's the future! My parents! My co-workers! My girlfriend! I'll never see any of them again!
-->''{{Beat}}''
-->'''Fry''': YAHOO!
* AscendedFanboy: When saving the cast of ''Star Trek''.
* AttractiveBentGender: In "Neutopia" ("[[BrainlessBeauty Now when I say stupid things guys all laugh and buy me stuff.]]") Not that he wasn't good-looking.
* AudienceSurrogate: During some of his FishOutOfTemporalWater moments.
* BadassAdorable: His (admittedly ''gross'') naivete keeps him from being too much of a hardened {{Badass}} (and lets him be likeable as just a regular guy) but he has a lot of really heroic and outstanding moments through the show.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: He was all mellow while he was fighting with Zoidberg to the death. But when Zoidberg cut his arm off, he screamed "You BASTARD!!! I'll kill you! YOU BASTARD!!!
* BewareTheSillyOnes: He may be a silly, goofy, naive ditz, but make him mad and you're ''dead meat''.
* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Inverted. A season 2 episode has Amy and Leela seeing Fry's [[UnusualEuphemism human horn]] and laughing at it. Whether this has anything to do with Fry's apparent lacklustre performances in the bedroom is unknown.
* BookDumb: He's a lazy, childish slacker who doesn't have much more knowledge regarding anything else outside of a small sector of nerdy interests. In one episode, he attends Mars University, ''just so he can drop out''. Despite all of this, he does manage to be quite clever at times, as well as pull off some remarkable feats and moments of clarity when given the right motivation.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: He ''loves'' living in the 31st century, due to always dreaming of going to space and being interested in what the future would look like, and never feeling like he had much going for him back in his own time. He still doesn't have much, but he enjoys his surroundings a lot more.
* BrooklynRage: Though he grew up in Midwood, Brooklyn, it takes a lot to get him angry. But when he does get mad...
* BuffySpeak: Occasionally lapses into this. "Like a balloon... and something bad happens!"
* BunnyEarsLawyer: In "Near Death Wish", Fry wins Delivery Boy of the Year!
* ButtMonkey: Not as bad of a case as Zoidberg or Kif, though.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In regards to his sensitivity. Early on in the show, there was actually a plot point in one episode that Fry was too masculine and dense to cry; this is a ''complete'' 180 of his personality later in the show, where he practically cries every other episode ([[HopelessSuitor usually over Leela]]). He also celebrated arriving in the future in the pilot, which is inconsistent with later episodes that depict him as missing his family.
* ChickMagnet: He has attracted several very good looking women, including Leela and Amy. His {{Adorkable}} nature and NiceGuy attitude probably have something to do with it.
* TheChosenOne: [[spoiler: His lack of the Delta Brainwave has made him the most important person in the universe, regularly saving it from certain doom.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Always.
--> '''Fry:''' Wait, I'm having one of those things... like a headache, with pictures.
--> '''Leela:''' An idea?
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass:
** He's actually quite competent when the chips are down.
** In "Law and Oracle", he joined the police force and actually made Detective... but got fired because he warned Bender that he was suspected of a future crime.
** "Fun on a Bun" [[TookALevelInBadass Take this trope to a new level]] where, after a freak accident, Fry loses his memories, is found by a secret society of Neanderthals (and is mistaken as one of them), leads them in a war against the far technologically advanced human civilization... and they got an [[CurbStompBattle easy victory]] [[RockBeatsLaser over them]]!
** He challenged [[ActionGirl Leela]] to hand-to-hand combat and holds his own quite well. This feat clearly [[{{Awesome/Futurama}} takes the cake on Badass]]!
** Fry is amazing at anything related to or involving video games. He's an excellent gunman on the Planet Express Ship and he completely owned the entire crew at a video game.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Fry is often accused of {{Flanderization}}, but his intelligence actually fluctuates depending on the episode, with the second episode already making him act like an idiot.
* DirtyCoward: In "The Series Has Landed" Fry gets a moon rover caught in a lunar dust pool. He declares "It's every man for himself!" and bails out, only to sink up to his neck in the very same dust. He immediately calls for Leela to save him. He gets called this in "War is the H-Word" when he, wielding the only charged phaser, blasts himself a hole to hide in. Though at the end of that episode, he does ride a bouncing ball to the peace meeting to save the life of his best friend.
* DisabilityImmunity: Due to his past-nastyification which caused Fry to become [[MyOwnGrandpa his own grandfather]], he's unique as the only sentient being in the universe without the Delta Brainwave, thus making him immune to the Brain Spawn's mental attacks. The Nibblonians refer to this as his "superior, but inferior mind". This later proves even more efficent when he [[spoiler:faces the Brain Spawn for a second time and saves a primordial, unborn creature from "the Dark One".]]
* DisabilitySuperpower: Not exactly a "superpower", but early on in the show, he once accidentally infected himself with a colony of space worms that actually ''improved'' his body and mind from the inside out, turning him into a suave genius ([[spoiler:much like his future self, Lars]]) and super-powering his muscles (enough to flip a very burly man over his shoulder with no effort). It also enabled him to play the notoriously difficult-to-master "Holophonor" instrument, which later [[ChekhovsGun comes back]] in a big way as the key to [[WillTheyOrWontThey finally]] [[RelationshipUpgrade win]] [[JustFriends Leela's]] heart.
* DisneyDeath: He has way too many to count. Arguably the first is when he was frozen in the year 2000, and his family assumed him to be dead. Averted in "Fun on a Bun", when he [[spoiler:is presumed dead after falling into a meat chopper]]. Granted, [[spoiler:he didn't die, but the implications before this revelation are quite macabre]].
** [[spoiler: Double Subverted in the series finale. He- yes, Fry himself and not a clone or something of the sort- ''finally'' dies for real via falling to his death from hundreds of stories. But, thankfully, TimeTravel saves the day before it's too late.]]
* TheDitz: Partly because he's a FishOutOfTemporalWater and partly because of that whole Delta Brainwave thing. In either case, he always seems to be a little slow on the draw.
** Here's an example from "All the Presidents' Heads":
--> '''Fry:''' Guess I better head over to my night job.\\
'''Leela:''' You have a night job?\\
'''Fry:''' Yup. It's exhausting, but I need the extra money to buy coffee so I can stay awake for my night job.\\
'''Leela:''' But--\\
'''Fry:''' Gotta go!
* DoggedNiceGuy: He chased comically after Leela. As time went on Leela returned more and more of his affection.
* DumbIsGood: For the most part. Sometimes his lack of intelligence causes him to be rather insensitive, but he's generally one of the nicest people you could ever meet. He's also one of the dumbest.
* TheEveryman: While he's frequently made to be ridiculously stupid, Fry is generally an average and relatable guy.
* {{Expy}}: He's pretty much like a younger [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]], although he's much less of a [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish]] {{jerkass}}.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: At first, but he quickly adapts. In fact, 'The Cryonic Woman' makes light of the fact that he adjusted ''very'' quickly and well to the future, and that he fits in better there than in the present.
* {{Flanderization}}: He started out as just an ordinary, kinda dumb 20th-century everyman. After accidentally [[HumanPopsicle getting cryogenically frozen for a thousand years]], he was just your average modern college dropout trying to adjust to an unrecognizable sci-fi future where everyone he ever loved was long-dead. Within a few episodes of the pilot, his below-average intelligence started getting more pronounced until he was too stupid to be real, even by modern standards.
* FluffyTamer: A bone vampire with acidic spit and urine, razor sharp talons, enormous strength and an insatiable lust for bones, that loved him to bits and acted like a puppy around him.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Phlegmatic
* FriendToAllLivingThings : Has been shown to inspire an amazing loyalty and connection with all of his pets, ranging from his old dog, Seymour, who waited for him to get back for 12 years, to his hamster that was still loyal to him after he put it through astronaut training, to a narwhal that he taught to eat and live again, to...
* FoolForLove: Fry does genuinely love Leela, but his childishness puts her off, regardless of how hard Fry tries. Not helping matters is that Fry's attempts to impress her are equally childish, or poorly thought out.
* FutureBadass: [[spoiler:Lars Filmore was a time sphere-created duplicate of Fry who spent several years in the past and became older, wiser and more competent as a result]]
* GeniusDitz: Sometimes he does things ridiculously well to the point of brilliance (e.g. writing a symphony (once he got the hands to play it), driving the ship and shooting at a chasing car of robot mafia at the same time, and re-arranging an entire galaxy with a gravitational array to write Leela a love message).
* GenreSavvy: Best exemplified when he prevents the Omicronian invasion of Earth. Generally speaking, if the events play out like a video game or a sci-fi movie or television show, Fry knows just what to do.
* TheHeart: He's pretty much singlehandidly responsible for keeping the Planet Express crew together.
* TheHero: Being an impulsive {{Cloudcuckoolander}} and IdiotHero has not stopped him. He tends to have the most focus, often saves the day (even if accidentally) and most importantly of all, is the one who drew the RagtagBunchOfMisfits together.
* HeroicSacrifice: A lot, every one to protect Leela [[spoiler:but the only time that killed him was in ''Rebirth''. And technically the time it killed him in Bender's Big Score.]]
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Bender.
* HiddenDepths: Despite being TheDitz, and having a superior/inferior brain, and often doing very stupid/suicidal things, when given the opportunity, he's pretty darn capable. This is perhaps best demonstrated in "Bender's Big Score", when [[spoiler:he spends years working his way up to assistant director of an aquarium back in the year 2000ish before returning to the year 3000ish as the suave, competent, charming Lars]].
* HollywoodDateless: In a sense, before taking many [[RelationshipUpgrade Relationship Upgrades]] with Leela in later seasons. Before all that, he often complained about why no woman would date him. But, he's clearly not as hopeless as he claims, having successfully picked up and slept with plenty of women over the show's run (still, they all admit he's... "meh" in bed).
%%* HonorBeforeReason
* HumanPopsicle Spent 1000 years as one, [[spoiler:even longer after time travel screws with things in TheMovie]].
* IdiotHero: "No I'm... doesn't!". He shows some awareness of this, and tends to move forward in spite of it. As he himself says in "The Duh-Vinci Code", "There's always going to someone smarter than you, so the only way you can be happy is to make the most of what you've got!"
* IgnoreTheFanservice: At one point he turns down an offer to shower with Leela and Amy because he's too busy spying on Bender.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Before finding out he was to be the savior of the universe. (Funny - he has a dead end job, sorta, but he still managed to rack up a list of one-of-a-kind adventures.) Oddly, he continues to have this mindset even after saving the world about a half a dozen times.
* IKnowMortalKombat: Somewhat useful even ''outside'' the WhatIf episode where they're being invaded by Nintendians. (That one time he blew up a Space Pirate ship with an arcade console-style targeting mechanism, for example, in 'Godfellas'.) Ironically, if the first episode is any indication, he actually kinda sucks at videogames, an idea reenforced by the fact that he apparently never got the last ship in ''SpaceInvaders'' when he was a kid.
* IncestIsRelative: Incest ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice twice]]''. First with his grandmother in the past, conceiving ''[[StableTimeLoop his own father]]'' in the process, making him his own grandson. Then later (in the 6th season episode "The Prisoner of Benda") when his mind was in Zoidberg's body he had sex with Leela while she was in ''in Farnsworth's body''. Though Farnsworth is a very distant descendant of Fry, the two have acknowledged each other as family since the beginning of the series. It was the first time Fry had sex with somebody ''he knew at the time was related to him''. Neither Zoidberg nor the professor experienced this because their minds were in other characters' bodies too. It was a body/mind-swapping episode.
* InformedFlaw: From all the comments about Fry's physique over the years, and all the injuries he's taken at Planet Express, he should really be a physical wreck, and badly out of shape. You'd never tell from looking at him.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He has on a couple occasions unintentionally hurt one of his companions' feelings.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Many, but especially [[spoiler:in the first movie]]. When you stack it up, that example becomes Fry wanting Leela to be happy [[spoiler:on top of Lars wanting Leela to be happy.]] It's super-confusing when you work it out.
* IronButtMonkey: He's very resistant to the huge amounts of AmusingInjuries he receives. He get slammed into a wall at full speed by those transport tubes, surviving a fall from a helicopter without deploying his parachute, eating a big heaping bowl of salt, three cola induced heart attacks in high school. And those are the ones that don't involve super-advanced medicine or symbiotic worms.
* JumpedAtTheCall: He was overjoyed at the concept of working for Planet Express, despite having spent the last several hours trying to avoid being a delivery boy. He also told Nibbler he'd willingly help if the Nibblonians ever needed him again.
* JustFriends: With Leela to the point where people are getting tired of the WillTheyOrWontThey It has been shown/implied that they do get together in the end.
* KindheartedSimpleton: This trope may well be called ''The Fry''.
* TheKirk: He will ''freak out'' when presented with a life-threatening situation, though.
* LastNameBasis: From everyone, including his own great-great-[...]-great-grand-nephew.
** {{Lampshaded}} in one episode, when the TV mentions "Turanga Leela":
--->'''Fry''': ''"Turanga"?''
--->'''Amy''': That's her name, Philip!
--->'''Bender''': ''"Phillip"?!''
* {{Leitmotif}}: For some reason, Katrina and the Waves' "Walkin' on Sunshine". Even played at his funeral. On bagpipes. And it's his ringtone. And yet he can never get beyond the first verse (because it blows out Billy West's vocal chords).
%%* LethallyStupid
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: Literally unfrozen in 3000, he adapted readily to his new environment and picked up a few skills; and his (rather spotty) knowledge of how things worked in the past has helped out the crew a few times.
--> '''Professor:''' Tell us of this 'the wheel'!
* LimitedWardrobe: Almost always wears his combination of red jacket, T-Shirt and jeans which is a tribute to James Dean. It's a bit out of style in the 31st century. More impressive is the fact that his outfit has been destroyed or otherwise unrecoverable at the ends of some episodes, so he might be getting replacements somewhere. He evidently only owns one outfit at a time.
* LoserProtagonist: The opening alone has him get ridiculed by children, yelled at by his boss and dumped by his girlfriend. While he's still not much in the year 3000, he's at least content with his life and has found several friends... and Zoidberg!
* MadeOfIron: His incredible list of injuries aside, he also mentioned having had three heart attacks (due to excessive soda consumption), by the time he was in high school.
* ManChild: Although he mans up pretty quick in a crisis.
--> '''Fry:''' "At last, war has made me into a man. ''Wheeee!"''
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Feminine Boy to Leela's Masculine Girl.
* MeaningfulName: After Phil Hartman (the original intended voice of Zapp) was murdered, production gave Fry his first name in his honor.
* MoralityPet: For Bender.
--> '''Bender''': All those times I said "Kill all humans," I'd always whisper "except one". Fry was that one. And I never told him so!
* MustHaveCaffeine: ''Generally'' doesn't try to chug down 300 cups a day, except for that one time, but he does like his coffee. He is also constantly drinking Slurm Soda (enough to turn green when a soda machine was installed) and in high school, used to drink a hundred cans of Cola a week, which lead to ''three'' coca-cola related heart-attacks.
* MustMakeAmends: Fry finds his old dog from the 20th century fossilized in a construction site. Feeling bad for abandoning it (despite not meaning to) he arranges for the professor to actually revive it. With Science!
* MyOwnGrampa: As a result of [[RoswellThatEndsWell time travelling to 1947 Roswell.]]
* NaiveNewcomer: Usually catches up quick, though.
* NiceGuy: Probably the nicest character on the series and the only one to treat Zoidberg decently, according to him.
-->He was the only one of you who never struck me!
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: He ruined {{Heaven}} for ''EVERYONE'', all just so he could tell Bender that he's happy where he is. There was nothing actually ''wrong'' with wanting to contact his best friend. He clearly didn't expect Yivo to be such a {{Clingy Jealous G|irl}}uy and evict everyone for "cheating on him" with another universe.
** Or for Bender to use the letters he sent through the rift to create hypermatter weapons with which to attack Yivo and attempt to destroy heaven.
** His attempt at a HeroicSacrifice ends up kickstarting the plot of "The Sting" because [[spoiler:by using his body as a shield, the bee stinger winds up having to go through two bodies and Leela gets pierced by the tip, injecting her with all the venom. Had he not got in the way, she would just have been impaled like he was, which could be fixed with surgery]]. Of course he had no way of knowing that would happen so it was still noble.
* NonActionGuy: Usually, right up until the chips are down.
* OddFriendship: Fry seems to be able to befriend just about anyone.
* OnlyFriend: He's the only person Bender considers a friend. Whenever he chants "Destroy all humans" in his sleep, he always whispers "Except Fry." under his breath.
** Similarly, if anyone shows a notable degree of sympathy for Zoidberg, it's often him.
* OnlySaneMan: His idiocy aside, he is a lot more normal than most in the show.
%%* ParadoxPerson
* ReallyGetsAround: Not nearly as much as Amy, but there's a pretty good-sized list of wom- er, ''females'' he's gotten with. Some of them weren't even human! Like the [[CargoShip radiator girl from the Radiator Planet]]... which [[SubvertedTrope turned out to just be a radiator]].
* RedheadedHero: He's the main character and has red hair.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He's surrounded by aliens, mad scientists and robots. And he's just a working-class guy from Brooklyn.
* RipVanWinkle or ColdSleepColdFuture, either one.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Sensitive Guy to Bender's Manly Man.
* TheSlacker: Even after coming to the future, he spends much of his time sitting on the couch and drinking beer.
* StableTimeLoop: His immediate family tree.
* TakingTheBullet: He always does this for Leela.
* TeenyWeenie: Poor Fry, guy can never catch a break. Ever. According to Amy and Leela, due to selective genetic engineering being rampant by the 31st century, Fry's normal "equipment" apparently doesn't stand the test of time. PlayedForLaughs by Bender, who occasionally makes "small" jokes at Fry's expense (who, of course, insists it's [[CompensatingForSomething "huge"]]).
* ThisLoserIsYou: A lazy, dimwitted everyman who serves as AudienceSurrogate.
* TimeAbyss: He has been frozen for a period of 2000+ years, and with the events of ''The Late Phillip J. Fry'', he may be one of the oldest living beings (chronologically).
* TookALevelInDumbass: In the earliest episodes, where he was supposed to be a FishOutOfTemporalWater and stories would mostly focus around him adapting to life in the 31st century, he was a fairly average guy with a dash of Cloudcuckoolander and a few moments of genuine cleverness. As the show progressed, he adapted to his surroundings much faster than the writers intended, and so he devolved into a gibbering manchild unless the writers needed him to say something profound.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Pineapples. He also loves anchovies on his pizza. Too bad they went extinct while he was frozen.
* TrueCompanions: If his friends are in trouble, he'll stop at nothing to save them.
* UnfazedEveryman: More-so before he was {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed into the IdiotHero.
* UnluckyEverydude: "I've run over black cats who were luckier than me."
* UnreliableNarrator: Fry's jaundiced views of his 20th century life are gradually revealed to be signs of his own immaturity. [[spoiler:Notably, The Why of Fry and Bender's Big Score show how much his family really loved him, and an early script of The Cryonic Woman had Fry's mother, not his girlfriend, follow him to the future.]]
* TheWatson: Fry is generally the one to ask questions, ranging from TechnoBabble to questions about someone's BackStory.
* WholeCostumeReference: He is dressed like Jim Stark from ''RebelWithoutACause''. Which puts him in the same company as [[VideoGame/FatalFury Terry Bogard]]...
* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Leela. Tends toward they Will, in the end, but that it'll be difficult for them to get there.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Captain Turanga Leela]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Turanga_Leela_314.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Look, I don't know about your previous captains, but I intend to do as little dying as possible."]]
-->Voiced by: Katey Sagal
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
Leela is everything Fry isn't. Smart, strong, level-headed, a mutant, and a woman. So it's no surprise she ends up being the girl of his dreams. Leela was abandoned as a baby and grew up in an orphanarium. For the longest time she believed she was an alien from an unknown planet, but later found out she was a sewer mutant native to Earth. She is the conscience of the group, and is often prone to nagging them and expressing her outrage at their various immoral actions (though RuleOfFunny dictates that she is in many ways as bad as Fry and Bender).
* ActionGirl: Easily the most badass person on the crew.
* ActionGirlfriend: To Fry.
* AdamAndEvePlot: Leela was suckered into one by Alcazar who tricked her into believing they were the last of her supposed alien species. Later happened again with [[spoiler:Zapp Brannigan]] who managed to convince her that they were the last two humans alive, on a literal Garden of Eden like planet, [[spoiler:later discovered to be Earth]].
* AnimalNemesis: In "Möbius Dick".
* {{Badass}}: Strong, tough, highly skilled in martial arts.
* BadBoss: A mild case - as captain of the Planet Express ship, she often puts pride or personal grudges over the safety of her crew.
* BalloonBelly: During the FreakyFridayFlip, Amy gorges herself and fattens up Leela's body. Leela was not amused.
---> '''Leela''': Fry! Help! She's turning me into a parade float!
* BizarreAlienBiology: In the original series she was pretty much a one-eyed human. The movies added elbow talons (she trims them normally), a singing boil on her posterior, a mention that she lays an egg every few months, and temporarily a bunch of tentacles.
* BullyHunter: Leela will kick the crap out of anyone who treats kids poorly.
* BoobsOfSteel: Leela is probably the toughest person in the series. She's also among the bustiest.
* {{Cyclops}}: Her single eye doesn't seem to be much better than a normal one, though, and she usually wears contacts.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: To Fry (being his boss) for the first few episodes. After that, he adapts and stops being a Fish Out of Temporal Water, though she still takes on this role from time to time.
* CuteMonsterGirl: A beautiful one-eyed woman descended from a race inflicted with all kinds of BodyHorror. Her parents and people are formerly human, subterranean mutants and the fact that she happened to be born looking almost human is why they were able to pass her off as a Human Alien and send her to the surface world for a better life than they could give her.
* CutenessProximity: Leela is often a victim of this, even in the presence of animals that are generally not that cute, such as the muck leech on Mars in Into the Wild Green Yonder. A muck leech who turns out to be evil. It annoys the Nibblonians when she does this to them as well.
* DeadpanSnarker: Mainly when dealing with Zapp.
* DependingOnTheWriter: A lot of episodes (mostly the earlier ones) established her as a calm, sensible, unimpulsive woman who [[ActionGirl could defend herself in a pinch.]] Some episodes and the movies make her into a reckless, angry girl who would use violence as much as possible. Both make sense for her, really. She tries to conduct herself professionally for the sake of being the ship's captain but deep down, she harbors a lot of personal issues stemming from her origins and her life growing up. She has a lot of control but can be pushed easily as well.
* DoorstopBaby: Complete with bracelet and undecipherable Alienese note.
* DrivenToSuicide: One of the few serious examples in the show. Towards the end of "The Sting" she becomes so distraught over her inability to separate reality from her own dreams caused by the guilt she feels that she decides the only way out is to eat enough space honey to fall into a perpetual sleep. Luckily, Fry manages to talk her out of it and then [[spoiler:it turns out most of the episode was just AdventuresInComaLand and she wakes up for real]].
* {{Flanderization}}:
** She started as very archetypal captain figure, the {{Straight|Man}} ActionGirl that was sorely needed to run a crew and company that were barely competent in their own individual rights, occasionally showing odd, questionable quirks that kept her safely out of MarySue territory. In each successive season (especially the ComedyCentral ones), the latter aspect of her personality became increasingly prevalent to the point of consuming the rest of it, sometimes outright resembling {{Chickification}}. One could almost say that Fry didn't win her love by becoming smarter, but rather from her [[TookALevelInDumbass becoming dumber]].
** Leela's love for violence was played up later in the show and in the movies. Before than she just got irritated a lot and would sometimes react by punching people. In the movie, ''Bender's Game'', the professor has to put a shock collar on her to stop her from hitting and it doesn't even work. In fact, she starts to like the electric shocks because of her newly-formed association with them and violence. [[TooKinkyToTorture At one point, we see her moaning suggestively and repeatedly]].
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Choleric.
* FourStarBadass: In ''Bender's Big Score'', Leela steps up to take command of the Earth fleet after a surprise attack leads the ''Nimbus'' to be shot down just seconds into the battle. The trope later subverted somewhat as she ''does'' fail just as badly in the end, after realizing how hard it is to actually command a fleet. Hermes and Farnsworth take over and save the day though.
* FreakinessShame: Leela is extremely sensitive about her huge single eye, due in large part to being made fun of while growing up in the Orphanarium. Fry had always been attracted to Leela, eyeball and all. In fact, when Leela gets a prosthetic second eye in "The Cyber House Rules", Fry is the only one who objects, saying that [[FreakyIsCool he liked her better the way she was]].
* FriendToAllChildren: Being a former orphan herself, she's very kind to current kids at the orphanage.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: She's a known animal lover.
* GagBoobs: When she complained that the professor was investing too much in ship's speed and too little in ship's security, the professor replied that he does not complain when she changes her things. Leela replied that those things won't kill anyone... and Scruffy gets a severe hurt when he hits his head on the ship, because he was very DistractedByTheSexy. Well, he may get hospitalized, but it was worth it!
* GranolaGirl: An environmentalism who loves the animals and nature.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: When it comes to certain animals, such as space bees or bloodsucking leeches [[spoiler:aka "Dark Ones"]].
* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: As described by Zapp Brannigan himself. "Set co-ordinates for 36-24-36, aka Leela".
* InformedAttractiveness: She has men falling for her pretty often, but this is shown to be subverted as often as it's played straight. It depends largely on the episode.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She can be snarky and a bit of a jerk sometimes, but she is a good person underneath it all.
* JustFriends: With Fry to the point where people are getting tired of the WillTheyOrWontThey It has been shown/implied that they do get together in the end. The end of "Overclockwise" pretty much confirms that Leela and Fry ultimately have a happy ending.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Masculine Girl to Fry's Feminine Boy.
* MeaningfulName: Turanga Leela is a reference to the "Turangalila-Symphonie", a piece of music most famous for prominently featuring the ondes Martenot, forerunner of the classc sci-fi staple the theremin. Also, in the case of purple-haired Leela, "Lila" means "purple" in German.
* MoodSwinger: When she thought Fry stood her up and died in an explosion in "The Late Philip J. Fry":
-->'''Leela:''' [[IFeelAngry I'm so angry. I mean, I'm so sad. But I'm still pretty angry. But also sad.]] ''(to Hermes)'' Can I be both?\\
'''Hermes:''' It's what he'd want.\\
'''Leela:''' Then that's what I am! ''(angrily kicks the television and sadly cries)''
* MsFanservice: She's very busty, her standard outfit consists of skin-tight tanktop and pants, her other "ordinary" outfits (such as formal dresses and swimsuits) invariably have a midriff window showing her belly button, and she's the most likely to be seen wearing strange, Stripperiffic outfits.
* NaiveAnimalLover: In "The Sting", she gets Fry killed (although it's just a dream) by bringing a killer space bee aboard the Planet Express because "it's so cuuuutteee!" In "Bender's Game", she refuses to save her friends from a giant worm called the Tunneling Horror because she has just vowed to never kill another living thing.
* NameOrderConfusion: Both Leela and her parents use a reversed naming convention, having their surname placed before their personal name. When referring to each other however, they only ever use seem to their personal names, unless giving a FullNameUltimatum.
* NotSoAboveItAll:
** For instance, in one episode, rather than pay a nominal parking fee for a Hollywood premiere she flies around for hours before landing on the La Brea Tar Pits... which is ''exactly'' the sort of thing she usually scolds Fry and Bender for.
** In "A Head in the Polls", after she spends the whole episode encouraging Fry to take an interest in politics and the electoral process:
--->'''Farnsworth:''' I can't believe it. [[DecidedByOneVote He won by a single vote.]]\\
'''Bender:''' Well it ain't my fault. I'm a non-voting felon, thank you.\\
'''Fry:''' Well it's not my fault either 'cause I forgot to vote.\\
'''Leela:''' Oh, crud! I ''knew'' there was something I meant to do today!
** She calls Fry a baby for whining about how the career chip hurt when inserted. Two seconds later, she does the same thing.
* OldShame: InUniverse example, having sex with Zapp is become this to her.
* OnlySaneWoman: Easily the most level-headed person, compared to Fry, Bender and the others.
* OrphanageOfFear: The "[[PerfectlyCromulentWord Orphanarium]]" where she grew up seems to be an odd mixture of this and OrphanageOfLove--it was (and still is) dirt-poor and she was picked on constantly, but the Warden seems like a nice guy... sort of.
-->'''Leela:''' Mr. Voggle, remember me?\\
'''Mr. Voggle:''' Leela. ''You're worthless and no one will ever love you!''\\
''(both laugh and hug)''\\
'''Leela:''' You used to say that all the time!\\
'''Mr. Voggle:''' Those were happier days.
* RadiationImmuneMutants: As a Mutant, she can plunge into a lake of toxic waste, swim around in it, and it won't do a thing to her.
* RubberForeheadAlien: [[spoiler:An InvokedTrope in her case; her parents tried to pass her off as one so she might have a better life than a sewer-dwelling mutant.]]
* {{Shorttank}}: She's the tomboyish female co-star.
* ShoutOut: Her name is an homage to a piece by 20th-century composer Olivier Messiaen, the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangal%C3%AEla-Symphonie Turangalîla-Symphonie]]."
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: She seems to get her fair share of slapstick in later seasons. She's been hit on the head, electrocuted, sucked by a leech, attacked by an octopus and smashed into a wall by a door.
* SoapBoxSadie: Occasionally, and in the sense that it forms an episode's A-plot.
* TheSpock: Levelheaded, predictable ActionGirl.
* StatuesqueStunner: She's much taller than the rest of the Planet Express crew, even meeting Fry (who probably stands at or around six full feet) at eye-level.
* StepfordSmiler: Describes her method of coping with her tragic life by apologizing for a brief grief-stricken outburst and explaining that "usually I keep my sadness pent up inside where it can fester quietly as a mental illness."
* StraightMan: The serious, no-nonsense girl who provides the setup for most of Fry/Bender's jokes. She's also this to pretty much everyone in the main cast.
* SuperWristGadget: "This thing I wear on my wrist".
* TankTopTomboy: The level-headed, action-oriented leader of the Express crew. A tank top is her default outfit.
* TeamMom: So much that she follows Fry and Bender into the army so they won't get hurt.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Tomboy to Amy's Girly Girl.
* TomboyishPonytail: Obviously. She provides the page image.
* {{Tsundere}}
-->'''Leela''': "Fry, you ''idiot''! You noble ''idiot''!"
* ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: You may be able to sell SchmuckBait to Fry with ease, but not with her around.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Fry.
* WorkingWithTheEx: She and Fry were married, for all of the time it took her to file for divorce.
* WomenAreWiser: She's generally the one to talk Fry and Bender down from some crazy scheme. This is sometimes averted though, as Leela is generally more stubborn and short tempered than Fry, while Fry is typically the more moral and laid back one.
* WomanScorned: Let's just say you don't want to be on her bad side.
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: She has purple hair, though it might be justified. She is a mutant.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Bender Bending Rodriguez (Bending Unit 22)]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Bender_Bending_Rodriguez_5762.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"I'm Bender, baby! ''Please'' insert liquor!"]]
-->Voiced by: JohnDiMaggio
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
A loudmouthed, kleptomaniac, misanthropic robot who also happens to be Fry's best friend. Despite his abrasive personality, has been known to PetTheDog on occasion. Bender drinks constantly, because his fuel cells are powered by alcohol. He also smokes constantly because he thinks it makes him look cool.
* AbusiveParents:
** When he adopts twelve orphans for the government stipend.
** He sells his firstborn son to the Robot Devil in "The Beast With A Billion Backs" in exchange for an army to wage war on Heaven and shows no emotion as the child cries for help. This is so evil it scares / impresses the Robot Devil.
* AGodIAm: In "Godfellas". He didn't like it much, mainly because his worshippers kept bothering him, then wiped themselves out with nukes.
* AccidentalHero: When an evil little girl defeated him in a tap contest, Bender swore that some day he would dance tap over her grave. The girl had a heart attack and died to everyone's sorrow -- except Bender, who did not want to wait, and danced tap ''over her dead body''. [[spoiler:The rhythmic hoofing over her heart resuscitated it, and her life was saved.]]
* AndIMustScream: Bender's head was stuck in the ground of Roswell for over 1000 years. [[AngstWhatAngst He was enjoying it until Planet Express found him again.]]
* AntiHero: Bender is a NominalHero. According to the Robot Devil, they looked around and couldn't find a robot worse than him. Yet, he is one of the protagonists and also has quite a few PetTheDog moments.
* AntiRoleModel: Parodied in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV", where Bender acts like himself on a TV show. Bender is an anti-role model (since he has no redeeming qualities) whom young viewers treat as a role model. At one point on the show, he says, "Try this at home, kids!" (while a brief disclaimer flashes across the bottom of the screen saying not to try it at home), and then he sets himself on fire. Later in the episode, he protests his own presence on TV and the blame placed upon him. Note that the proverbial last straw for Bender here is that the children who emulated his behavior stole his stuff.
* AntiVillain: Most of the time he's an alcoholic whore-mongering lunatic with no reservations about any criminal activity you care to name, including adopting ten kids in a welfare scam and then try to ''sell them as meat'' when he gets tired of them. But when he cares to be, he can be very heroic and a pretty good friend.
* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: in "Overclockwise" [[spoiler:although it doesn't last.]]
* AttentionWhore: He'll act out (to varying degrees of violence) if he feels his friends are neglecting him.
* AttractiveBentGender: In 'Bend Her', Bender gets a sex change as part of a scam and ends up being the target of several romantic advances from male robots, notably Calculon.
* AxCrazy: Repeatedly has questioned his sanity, often has an extremely homicidal behavior, especially toward humans. In "The Honking", he strangled Fry simply by drinking his last beer.
* BodyBackupDrive: Averted. Bender thought he had this type of immortality but discovers he was built without a backup unit. Fortunately (or not) he never needed to use his backup unit before discovering he does not have one.
* TheBigGuy: He's well aware that he's this, but usually goes out of his way to avoid getting pigeonholed (or, less tactfully, he's too lazy to do typical Big Guy stuff).
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: "[[TropeNamer I prefer extortion]]. [[XtremeKoolLetterz The 'X' makes it sound cool.]]"
* BlondeGuysAreEvil: After undergoing reverse fossilization in [[WhatIf ''Anthology Of Interest II'']], Bender is turned into a blonde human. It was insisted he was designed this way because, as WordOfGod put it, "[[AcceptableTargets blonde men are more disgusting]]".
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: When it comes to interacting with humans, he seems to only have a very basic understanding of their limits while missing the fact that approaching those limits is painful. Thus, he's served up a dish of capers and salt (think mashed potatoes except... not), but makes sure that the amount of salt is slightly below a lethal amount.
* CardCarryingVillain: Bender longs to be the TokenEvilTeammate, and his feelings are easily hurt at any implication that he's not the amoral, terrifying (yet [[ForTheLulz fun-loving)]] killing machine/[[OneOfTheseThingsIsNotLikeTheOthers folk singer]] he yearns to be. Comes up in "The Farnsworth Parabox" particularly.
--> '''Bender''' ''sulkily:'' "It's not fair! Somewhere [[AnotherDimension out there,]] there's an eviller Bender than me! ''I do my best dammit!"''
* TheCasanova: Bender's had more flings- with mostly fembots and the occasional human woman- than any of the other character, and he also easily gains admirers.
* CantHoldHisLiquor: Inverted. Due to being an alcohol-powered robot, if he doesn't get enough alcohol, he'll start to slur his words and stumble around, much like a human who's had too much alcohol. Bender even "grows" a five-o'clock-shadow made out of rust!
* CatchPhrase:
** "Bite my shiny metal ass!"
** More recently, "♫Let's ''go'' already!!♫"
** DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!
** "We're boned"
** "We're/I'm back, baby," and "Me, Bender".
** "It's gon' be ''fun on the bun''!"
** When someone mentions something like a kind of metal or wiring, he says "I'm 40% [X]."
* CigarChomper: Occasionally, because "they make [him] look cool."
* CordonBleughChef: He ''can'' cook just fine, and in fact the other characters have been eager to eat his cooking in the past, but he really shouldn't be allowed to [[LethalChef experiment]].
* TheCorrupter: Whenever Tinny Tim is involved, Bender tends to involve the kid in home invasions, attempted muggings or inducting him into the robot mafia. And that's without mentioning his antics on "All My Circuits".
* CripplingOverspecialization: When Flexo is almost crushed by an unbendable girder dropped on him by the Robot Mafia, the only way Bender can think of to save him is to try to bend it anyway; he doesn't know anything about lifting. [[spoiler:Fortunately, he's actually able to do it after applying some "Bend-Gay" to his arms.]]
* DeafComposer: Bender loves to cook, but can't taste his food. Which is terrible.
* DeathGlare: Often utilized, but for no real reason; Bender is consistently drawn, both in the series and in promotional images, with a [[http://turnlol.com/images/wallpaper-download-22703.html noticeably angry expression]], even if his present situation might not call for it. [[WordOfGod David X. Cohen]] often [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this in the DVDCommentary, claiming it always gives him a laugh.
-->'''Cohen''': See this drawing here of Bender's angry eyes? There's something so funny about him for no reason having that evil look...
* DirtyCoward: In one of the movies, he, Amy and one other character are trapped by a bunch of orcs in a castle. Bender tells the two ladies he has a plan, The next scene shows him holding them up in the and tells the orcs to take his friends first, just to give him one more second of sweet sweet life. In "Bendin' in the Wind," the crew is plunging off a cliff. Bender grabs a nearby cable, loudly declaring, "I'll save ME!" The rest of the crew is only saved by grabbing his legs just in time.
* DoAnythingRobot: Quite literally, but only when he feels like it. Seems Robots in the year 3000 are built for one purpose, but can adapt pretty well to others; Bender himself is Planet Express' resident cook. Bender sees it differently: everything he does is simply a different form of bending, which enables him to bend an entire brick wall (not on the list of approved bendables, apparently).
* DramaQueen: With a BodyBackupDrive, he is in fact immortal. So then why does he scream as a DirtyCoward when there is danger? Because nobody ever said he can't be a drama queen! (He discovered later that he does ''not'' have a backup unit, so when he dies... he dies.)
* DrivenToSuicide: Originally, as he explains in the pilot, he was proud of being a Bending Unit. He could bend a girder to a 90 degree angle, 60 degree, you name it. Then he found out that the girders he was bending were being used to build suicide booths. Depressed from this revelation, he tried to use one of the booths himself... Which is how he and Fry first met.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: The closest Bender has to a "mother" is the industrial robot who built him. Still, he gets kind of choked up when he gets an X-Mas card from "her" in one episode.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: "All those times I said, "Kill all humans," I'd always whisper "Except one." [sobbing] Fry was that one, and I never told him so!" In a later episode, he told Hermes that the latter was on his "do not kill"-list. Bender has shown times where he genuinely connects with Fry (and other humans too) and doesn't want to see any ill happen to them.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's evil, but ''usually'' not as evil as the current antagonist. Also, there are moments when even he is hesitant or shocked by something. During "Time Keeps On Skippin'", he was the one who tried to point out the danger of chronitons, and in "Love And Rocket", he actually looked unnerved on seeing the Lovey Bear "Hospital".
* EvilIsHammy:
--> "The [[NephariousPharaoh cruelty of the old Pharoah]] is no more! [[MeetTheNewBoss Let a whole new wave of cruelty wash over this lazy land!!!"]]
* ExoticEyeDesigns: Looks like typical CartoonyEyes, until you look closer and realize that he has ''square'' pupils. One gag had him playing back a recording, during which his pupils switched to the 'play' symbol.
%%* FauxAffablyEvil
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Sanguine
* {{Flanderization}}: His original character has been displaced by a jokey persona. Could be justified as CharacterDevelopment, as he's a far rounder character now. Before he met Fry, he had no real friends and worked in constructing suicide booths. Now he has multiple friends and he's lived out most of his dreams to some extent. It makes perfect sense that his personality would change over time. Confirmed by WordOfGod -- the electric shock from the pilot that removed his block on bending non-girder objects, ALSO removed all other inhibitions.
* GeniusLoci: A result of non-stop overclocking in "Overclockwise".
* GenreSavvy: Is the first member of the cast to realize that the Professor's catchphrase of "Good news, everyone!" is code for "I'm sending you on a mission that will kill you!"
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: For a CigarChomper like Bender, SmokingIsCool and EvilIsCool probably go hand-in-hand.
* {{Hammerspace}}: The compartment in his chest can seem to hold anything; beer, the keys to his apartment, a "gay-dar" detector, a tube of "Bend-Gay", and much more. Fry was able to fit in there once.
* TheHedonist: To an extent. It could be considered a form of GettingCrapPastTheRadar, since the networks wouldn't take kindly to his drinking, smoking, smut-reading and whore-mongering so much if he were human. Of course, he's a paragon of sobriety and chastity compared to Hedonismbot.
* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: Bender has no problem betraying his friends for some petty reason, and then helping again for some incredibly lame reason. For example, he once helped Zapp Brannigan capture Leela, and then helped her escape from prison... because, by helping her, his criminal record would still be higher than hers!
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Fry.
* HeroicComedicSociopath: On a good day.
* HesBack: "[[CatchPhrase I'm back, baby!]]"
* HiddenDepths: Has an interest in folk music, art (he has an odd argument with Planet Express Ship early in 'Love And Rocket'), cooking, and others that really seem out-of-place in a bending unit, much less a sociopathic whore-mongering criminal like Bender. Bender first met Fry whilst waiting in line for a [[DrivenToSuicide Suicide Booth]], having become depressed and suffer a crisis of conscience, upon learning that the girders he had been bending were used in their construction.
* HumongousMecha: In ''Anthology of Interest I'', and ''Benderama''.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** ''I Dated A Robot'': Complains all through the episode about Fry dating a robotic version of Lucy Liu. When he deletes her, Bender instantly starts making out with Lucy Liu's head.
** ''Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV'': Didn't care at all if his stunts on TV were imitate-able by his younger fanbase. At least until it was ''his stuff'' that wound up stolen from their acts. To which he joins the protest to get himself banned from TV.
** ''Proposition Infinity'': In addition to the above, all of a sudden he now fully supports human-robot relationships since he and Amy were dating. But when all said and done, he dumps Amy when he realizes he won't be able to date more then one girl.
** ''31st Century Fox'': Inverted in this case, he ignored Leela's complaints about fox hunting. But when he realized it was a robot fox. He's the one now protesting.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: With Amy in ''Proposition Infinity''; at least, until he discovers Amy wants a monogamous relationship and says "Hasta la vista!" Though course of he had been with one other human before, Lucy Liu to be exact.
* InformedAttribute: Played for laughs. He constantly brags about his lack of emotions but is probably the most emotional person in the series.
* IllTakeTwoBeersToo: Bender says "This calls for a drink!" and pulls out three beers, when there are three characters present. He then drinks all of them at once.
* ItsAllAboutMe: He loves to be the center of attention. On his worse days, Bender will refuse to acknowledge that anyone else's existence matters more than him ("My life and by extension everyone else's is meaningless").
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Towards Anglelyne in "Bendless Love". Another non-romantic example in "Bend Her": he backs out of a potentially hugely profitable scam because he doesn't want to hurt or humiliate Calculon, and does it by faking his own death in [[DeusAngstMachina the most over-the-top way possible]] because Calculon can handle "soap opera pain" better than anything realistic or commonplace.
* {{Jerkass}}: In "A Pharaoh to Remember", Bender, Leela and Fry are trapped on a ancient Egyptian planet where Bender encourages the overseers to whip the slaves (which include Leela and Fry) more and work them harder. This goes on to where he starts ordering people worked to death to construct a monument to himself.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Still, he isn't above a PetTheDog moment and can feel guilt for some of his harsher actions, and that doesn't even take into account [[TrueCompanions Fry and Leela really are to him]].
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Often. In "Xmas Story" all the others ere surprised when Bender says he wants to "volunteer" at a liquor kitchen for homeless robots. It turns out he just wants to pose as a homeless robot to get free booze.
* KarmaHoudini: On occasion, though there are instances where he has been punished such as being beaten up for trying to cheat in a Poker game, getting caught for stealing a priceless cigar (Even lampshaded by him "Alright closure!"), getting chased down by Music/{{Beck}} when he tried to scam him for a charity check. And losing a crown he tried to take from a king when he forgot it was in the king's compartment when Bender was within his body.
* KleptomaniacHero: Well, a hero who is also a kleptomaniac, although ''hero'' might not be the right term.
--> '''Bender:''' I love stealing, I love taking things~''
* LackOfEmpathy:
** Notable in that he ''is'' capable of love, but not empathy. For example, he loves Fry with all his heart, but in a completely narcissistic fashion, as he only cares about Fry being alive and present so that Bender can love him, not about Fry himself being happy.
** In the episode "I Second That Emotion", Prof. Farnsworth installs an Empathy Chip on Bender in order to teach him about empathy. It forces him to feel whatever emotions Leela is feeling at the moment. The episode ends with Bender not learning a thing and continuing to be a {{Jerkass}} and Leela learning to be more like a jerk.
* TheLancer: To Fry.
* LargeHam: He manages to upstage Calculon. Enough said.
* LaughablyEvil: The TokenEvilTeammate and easily one of the most hilarious, entertaining characters.
* LethalChef: Being a robot, [[GeniusBonus means he doesn't have a sense of taste]]. Although he does bake a perfectly edible cake. It seems his problem is that he likes to experiment.
* LivingForeverIsAwesome: As revealed in "Lethal Inspection", robots (ones made by Mom, at least) can simply BodySurf into a new body (he acted like they didn't because he's a drama queen), and jokes at humans being capable of (easily) dying. As it turns out, he doesn't have a backup chip, prompting him to be scared of his new found mortality, [[TimeAbyss which is, at most, a billion years]].
* LovableRogue: To the Planet Express crew, anyway. He even considers himself "the loveable rascal."
--> '''Leela:''' Bender, we didn't mind your drinking, or your kleptomania, or your pornography ring.
--> '''Zoidberg:''' In fact, that's why we ''loved'' you.
* TheMcCoy: He's quite impulsive. Also he usually doesn't do anything moral, but when he does it usually fits this trope.
* MeaningfulName: "Bending unit" — a robot who was manufactured for the sole purpose of bending metal objects. Also, one slang meaning of "bender" is "a bout of heavy drinking", which is appropriate for Bender since he runs on alcohol.
* MetaphorIsMyMiddleName: How his full name was established in the show.
* MoralityPet: The Planet Express crew, and ''especially'' Fry, are about the only people in the world who he would willingly put himself on the line (or not do something he wants to do) for.
* MultipleChoicePast: The circumstances of his "birth". WordOfGod once implied that the viewers were just seeing him getting new bodies built for him as he grew older.
* MustMakeAmends: In the same episode as the Fry example, Bender, in a fit of jealousy, kicked said dog's fossil into hot lava. After realizing what he did, he dove into the lava to save it - successfully, though his eyes melted afterwards.
* {{Narcissist}}: And how. in "The Farnsworth Parabox" he seemingly falls in love with an alternate gold plated version of himself, stating that he has finally found someone "as great as me"
* NiceJobFixingItVillain : His attempts to confirm Angleyne's sentiments for Flexo by impersonating him only caused her to go back to her ex-husband.
* NighInvulnerable: Of both the MadeOfIron and SpareBodyParts varieties.
--> ''"What does it take to ''kill'' me?"''
* TheNoseless: Though in one episode he says he ''does'' have one, he just never wears it.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: When he briefly becomes bored with kleptomania, having stolen ''everything'' in Alcazar's Palace:
--> '''Bender''': I think I might have finally stolen enough.
--> '''Fry''': *''Slaps him''* SNAP OUT OF IT!
* OlderThanTheyLook: When the series started, despite his adult appearance and habits he was only a few years old. But thanks to getting stuck in Roswell and LOTS of time travel, by this point he's older than any human alive. Without the time travel and other factors, however, "Overclockwise" stated his model is 12 years old.
* PetTheDog: Sometimes; the majority occurs in the comics.
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Despite being a Bending Unit, his laziness means we rarely see Bender actually bend things. It's later revealed in "Bendless Love" that his pent-up urge to bend caused him begin bending things in his sleep.
** Even Bender has this assessment of his skills:
--> '''Bender''': I need a calculator.
--> '''Fry''': You ''are'' a calculator?
--> '''Bender''': I mean a ''good'' calculator!
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: In one episode, Bender becomes a human. Since he never developed the concept of modesty, he didn't think to cover his crotch. Hermes does it for him.
* PsychopathicManchild: An alcoholic, amoral gambler who deals porn and has no qualms with selling children as dog food. He occasionally becomes incredibly childish, most notably in the Mom-centric episodes.
--> "Mom! Mom! Look at me, Bender! Hey-ho, I want attention!"
* PunnyName: "Bender" can also mean a drinking spree. So Bender is a bender who goes on benders.
* PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery: "I'm so embarrassed, I wish everybody else was dead!"
* RequiredSecondaryPowers: Bender's super strength and invulnerability are all side-effects of his ability to bend. He can also do anything as long as it's an extension of bending (like pumping, [[CripplingOverspecialization unlike turning]]).
* Really700YearsOld: And then some. It's subtle but post-Bender's Big Score he has actually existed for eons due to various time travel incidents where he goes into the past then waits until the present day (from where he came) arrives again. Even before that, as a result of the time traveling in Roswell That Ends Well, his head is over a thousand years older than his body (his head fell out of the ship just before they returned to the future).
* RidiculouslyHumanRobot: The poster boy for this trope. He himself considers robots as a separate race rather than man made tools. To be fair though, the robots in this series practically are.
* RobotBuddy: The best buddy of Fry, and the worst RobotBuddy ever.
* {{Sadist}}: He has no qualms when he has the opportunity to hurt someone, and is very implied to enjoy doing that.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Whenever his plans go awry or the cops show up:
--> '''Bender''': Cheese it!
* SecondLawMyAss: Or shiny metal ass, as he might put it.
* SecondPlaceIsForLosers: Really hates coming in anything below first place. Examples: Entering Zoidberg as a pet in a Pet Show and getting second place (which in his own words, "Is a fancy word for losing!"). And getting third in a cook-off contest. So much so he murders the top two winners just to get the first place trophy during the commotion with the neanderthals.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Manly Man to Fry's Sensitive Guy.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Bender has a Big Ego constantly at odds with his Small Name, as most vividly seen in "A Pharaoh to Remember". Pointing the latter out is one of his biggest Berserk Buttons.
* SmokingIsCool: Invoked.
--> '''Bender:''' I need plenty of wholesome, nutritious alcohol. The chemical energy keeps my fuel cells charged.
--> '''Fry:''' What are the cigars for?
--> '''Bender:''' They make me look cool.
%%* SmugSnake
* SnarkyNonhumanSidekick: A robotic sidekick who indulges in vices from gambling to strippers and often remarks upon "his" desire to kill his friends.
* SociopathicHero: A megalomaniacal robot who is only after his personal stimulation. He is frequently shown stealing just about anything he can get his claws on, as well as indulging in all manner of other crimes and immoral behavior. A recurring joke is his apparent desire to "kill all humans." DependingOnTheWriter, however, he can also be a LoveableRogue and/or a ManipulativeBastard. At the very least, it's shown that "kill all humans" doesn't apply to Fry or (maybe) Leela and he's gone out of his way to save them.
* SpotlightStealingSquad:
** He had dozens of episodes focusing on him, whereas characters like Leela and Zoidberg only had a handful. In addition to that, almost every episode that didn't have him as the main character had him in a subplot, two of the movies had his name in the title (''Bender's Big Score'' had more to do with Fry and Leela), and the two that didn't had very long subplots involving him.
** Amy and Hermes are easily the most underused characters in the series. Season 6 tries to correct this by having one Hermes episode and two Amy episodes. The catch? Both the Hermes and one of Amy's episodes are centered on Bender.
* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Being a robot makes him stronger than a normal human, but exactly how strong he depends on RuleOfFunny or whatever the plot requires at the moment. On occasion, Leela is able to beat him up.
* SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids He was designed for bending struts, yet...
* TeamChef: Officially Planet Express' cook.
* TheTeamWannabe: Wanted to join the Harlem Globetrotters in "Time Keeps On Slipping".
* TheSlowPath: All backwards time travel he's done has had Bender waiting it out-see TimeAbyss.
* TimeAbyss: Due to hundreds of repeated one-way time travel, Bender would clock in at the thousands of millennia. This may be a ShoutOut to [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Marvin.]]
--> '''Fry:''' "Bender! What was it like to spend a ''thousand years'' buried in the sand?!"
--> '''Bender''' ''scowling:'' "I was '''enjoying''' it 'til '''you guys''' showed up!"
** The WhatIf Christmas episode seems to indicate he can last ''500 million years.''
** YoungerThanTheyLook: Before "Roswell that Ends Well", Bender was actually the ''youngest'' Planet Express member, being built a mere three years before his first appearance. If it weren't for time travel he'd be in his late teens by the series finale.
* TinCanRobot: Looks like a robot out of the 1950s, since he's supposed to be a industrial girder-bending robot. This has the added advantage of making him durable and fairly easy to repair, to the point that he has (or can easily acquire) [[SpareBodyParts replacement arms and legs]].
* TokenEvilTeammate: Even his best friend, Fry doesn't hesitate to call him evil. Though other characters have their shady moments as well, none of them is as openly (and proudly) callous as Bender.
* TookALevelInJerkass: Later episodes, particularly in the show's UnCanceled era, increased his sociopathic tendencies, where he goes so far as to commit outright murder and at one point even damns his own son to robot hell, something that disturbs [[EvenEvilHasStandards the Robot Devil]].
--> ''Bender goes to Robot Hell to strike a deal with the Robot Devil and get his army of the damned.''
--> '''Robot Devil:''' "I rather think we could strike a deal, Bender. I shall give you your army of the damned and in return I ask just one thing, just one itty-bitty thing; your first born son! ''laughs evilly''"
--> '''Bender:''' "Jus' a sec."
--> ''In a suburban neighbourhood, Bender approaches a small robot with a blue cap and shorts on.''
--> '''Robot:''' "Daddy! I knew you'd come back!" ''Bender gives the boy a huge hug''
--> '''Bender:''' ''to the Robot Devil'' Here ya go!
--> ''Bender boots his son out of a window and into a vat of liquid which bursts into flames upon contact with the child.''
--> '''Robot Devil:''' "Wow! That was pretty brutal, even by my standards."
--> '''Bender:''' "No backsies!"
* TreasureChestCavity: He can hide all kinds of stuff inside his robot body - children, robot clowns, Fry... Recently he proved to have so much space available that a small doomsday device went off inside him and didn't damage him. But when it came to carrying around an entire castle's worth of loot he started to show difficulties.
* {{Troll}}: "Ha ha haw ha ha!... oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder. '''Haw ha ha haw ha ha!'''"
* UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist: "Bite my shiny metal ass." Most of the main cast have strong Jerkass tendencies (except for Fry and Zoidberg), but Bender is easily the worst.
* VillainProtagonist: He has committed many crimes, including outright murder.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Professor_Farnsworth_7838.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Why bother remembering anything? You're just going to forget it five minutes later."]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/BillyWest
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
Fry's great-to-the-umpteenth-power nephew. An inventor whose brilliance is hindered by his old age. Owns Planet Express, and manages to get ample screentime despite never accompanying the heroes on their missions.
* AbsentMindedProfessor: Extra credit goes to the episode "A Big Ball of Garbage", where he goes to an inventors' competition, realizes the invention he brought (the death clock) is the same one he showed last year, attempts to invent the same thing again after it's pointed out to him ("I need a new invention! Perhaps some kind of death clock..."), quickly creates a new invention (the smell-o-scope) to replace it, then only hours later... "Eureka!" "You built the smell-o-scope?" "No, I remembered that I'd already built it last year!"
* {{Angrish}}: "If anyone needs me I'll be in the angry dome!"
* BadBoss: He cheerfully sends the crew to very dangerous missions. And they're not his first crew.
* BadNewsInAGoodWay: "Good News, Everyone!"
** Lampshaded in ''The Beast with a Billion Backs'':
--> '''Farnsworth''': Now, I've often said "Good News!" when sending you on a mission of extreme danger. So when I say this anomaly is "Dangerous", you can imagine how dangerous I ''really'' think it is!
* BoomerangBigot: Towards {{robosexual}}ity.
* BrilliantButLazy: "I really should do something... but I ''am'' already in my pajamas". It's more a lack of motivation than outright laziness, though.
* BunglingInventor: He has had his share of bungled inventions, including a machine that made glow-in-the-dark noses while also producing an enormous amount of unusable toxic waste. Also, he nearly destroyed the fabric of space-time by creating and then artificially aging a team of genetically engineered basketball players.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He's undeniably crazy and unstable but also one of the best minds in the world, and possibly the universe.
* CatchPhrase:
** "[[BlatantLies Good news, everyone!]]"
** "Wah?"
** "But I ''am'' already in my pajamas" was nearly one but was discarded pretty soon.
** As was "Holy Zombie Jesus!" and "Sweet Zombie Jesus" (both of which got edited when the show was put in reruns on Creator/CartoonNetwork, most domestic and international syndicated versions, and TBS, but can be heard on ComedyCentral, FOX, and on DVD and Netflix).
** "''[[ArchEnemy WERN]]''[[ArchEnemy -STROM!]]"
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Thanks to his senility.
%%* ComedicSociopath:
* ConfusingMultipleNegatives: In "Roswell That Ends Well", he tells Fry that in the event that he was supposed to do anything that affects anything while in the past, "for the love of God, don't not do it!"
* CoolOldGuy: He has his moments.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Despite being one of the protagonists. After all, the Planet Express slogan is "Our crew is expendable, your package isn't!"
* DirtyOldMan: He has his moments, though he's more insane, forgetful, mean, and lazy than lecherous, as far as old man stereotypes go.
** His first concern on being de-aged to eighty-three is to bemoan that he'll need a fake I.D. to watch "ultraporn".
* DitzyGenius: Probably the greatest scientist in the universe, but incredibly senile.
* EccentricMentor: The ''very'' few times he has a good idea, he is this.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** He demands they not go after Space Bee honey, considering what happened to his last crew. And the crew before that one... Assuming he wasn't using ReversePsychology. And given a recording is found of his last crew saying he'd told them they weren't as good as the crew before...
** He killed Hitler while time traveling. Though considering he had previously been in favour of saving Hitler's brain and implanting it in a Great White Shark, it's unclear if his objection was to Hitler himself or if he had some ulterior motive (like a manner of death for Hitler which left his brain in better condition).
* {{Foil}}: As Fry's closest relative, he's almost the complete opposite of him in personality; the senile, amoral mad scientist to Fry's youthful idiocy. Occasionally their differences as family members are brought up.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Melancholic
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:Not to his insanity, but to his hate for his parents, which stems from the fact that they tried their hardest to deprive him of science as a child by moving to a farm. This is explained towards the end of the episode because he suffered from violent night terrors and his parents did everything they could to soothe his anguish, which included trying to under-stimulate him by moving away from the city and limiting how much research he could do.]]
* GadgeteerGenius: He ''is'' a brilliant inventor.
* GrumpyOldMan: "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and buy a single piece of fruit with a coupon, and then return it, making everyone in line wait behind me while I complain!"
* HollywoodSatanism: It's heavily implied.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: In one instance, honestly seemed to believe Bender was "gentle".
* IdenticalGrandson: Or Great-Nephew. He looked an awful lot like Fry in his youth, despite being an extremely distant nephew/[[spoiler:[[MyOwnGrandpa grandson]] ]]
* ImAHumanitarian: Several episodes have suggested the Professor will, given half a chance, eat people, starting as early as the second episode, wherein he buys the corpse of a Zuban pharaoh for the purpose of eating it.
* {{Jerkass}}: He agrees when Fry describes him as a "senile, amoral crackpot". He gleefully sends the crew to very dangerous missions (many of his previous employees died because of this). The Sting shows he's sent multiple crews on the same mission and each time they died, and also implies the Professor goads said crews into going by comparing them unfavourably to his previous crew.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He appears to share some level of friendship with the other members of Planet Express. He also cares about his clone, Cubert, treating him as though he were his biological son.
* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler: As revealed in ''Near-Death Wish'', Hubert has a younger brother named Floyd, who his parents raised so he would not end up like Hubert and end up in a mental institution for a good chunk of his life. He's never actually seen, but Bender recalls meeting a "homeless rodeo clown" named Floyd.]]
* MadeOfIron: For a man physically over one-hundred and sixty, he's amazingly durable... when the plot demands it. An exploding super-collider does no more than annoy him, for example, and the entire upper floor of Planet Express exploding doesn't do more than scratch him up a bit. However, on other occasions, his limbs can break at the slightest provocation. Or no provocation at all.
* MadScientist: [[spoiler:So mad he was sent to a mental institution for twenty-five years when he was young.]]
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Senile to the point of insanity, but mostly harmless. Has a penchant for creating doomsday devices, only keeps Amy around because she's his blood type, tries to harvest Leela's organs, is implied to be a cannibal, implanted Hitler's brain in the body of a shark, killed people for their stem cells, has been frequently cited for public nudity, and frequently, knowingly sends his crew on life-threatening adventures without warning, to the point of hiring replacements even before their demises are confirmed. In his youth, he created the modern robot, an ecological disaster.
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: After inventor Philo Farnsworth, a pioneer of television who created the first fully electronic television system.
* NoNudityTaboo: It is said that nudity is acceptable in the future, but the Professor seems to embrace his nakedness far more than other characters, [[FanDisservice to the audience's horror]]
* OhMyGods: "Buddha! Zeus! God! One of you guys do something! Help! Satan! You owe me!"
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist
-->'''Hermes:''' Professor, can you wire my brain directly into the main Battle Net?
-->'''Professor:''' I can wire anything into anything! ''I'm the Professor''!
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: When asked what field he hopes to win a Nobel Prize in, he responds "I don't care. They all pay the same".
** He has ''several'' doomsday weapons simply lying about his lab:
-->'''Farnsworth''': I suppose I could part with one and still be feared.
* OpaqueNerdGlasses: A pair of Nerd Glasses, and indeed his eyes are never seen in the series. Subverted in one episode where he needed his "reading glasses" — and put on a pair several times thicker than his already fairly enormous glasses (to the point that they looked like glass cylinders). At least somewhat of a Justified Trope: Professor Farnsworth is 160 years old. Anyone's vision would become pretty bad by that age.
* ParentalSubstitute: Implied to be this to Leela. The first two times she almost got married, he was the one to give her away.[[note]]The first time she didn't know her real father yet, the second time he couldn't because mutants aren't allowed on the surface[[/note]]
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Though "hero" is definitely pushing the term...
** He's specieist against sygnoids, for no clear reason, and has at least one Martian's skull as a mug, dismissing their complaints about the disrespect as "whining".
** Farnsworth also has a infrequent habit of making incredibly sexist remarks, usually directed at Leela. For example, dismissing her demand to fly the ship when looking for his escaped gargoyle Pazuzu because he wasn't "trying to find the quickest route to the mall".
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: On the surface, Farnsworth appears 80 or 90 years old but is actually in his 170's. Understandable, considering that this ''is'' the distant future.
* RetiredBadass: Although weak and scrawny now, it was shown in "Tip of The Zoidberg" when he was younger Hubert was pretty badass, as he almost singlehandedly killed a giant space yeti.
* RobotMaster: He created the robot that all modern robots are based on.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: He even has a "crochety grandpa discount card" (which expired, despite being good for a lifetime), and once uttered the line "I don't have time for this! I have to go buy a single piece of fruit with a coupon and then return it, making everyone wait behind me while I complain!" In fact, when he receives an award in ''Crimes of the Hot'', he is absolutely nonchalant and entitled about it.
--> "[[CrowningMomentOfFunny Thank you. I deserve this.]]"
* SeniorSleepCycle: He once fell asleep while skiing and woke up at the lodge with a bronze medal around his neck.
* SitcomArchnemesis: Ogden [[strike:Wernstrom]] '''''[[SayMyName WEEEEEEERRRRRRNSTRRROOOM!!]]'''''
* TheSpock: He has absolutely no problem sending his crew on missions to almost certain death. Unlike other examples though, this is simply due to his being insane and evil.
* TheyCalledMeMad: "Even I laughed at me when I invented this cross-species analyzer! But I guess I showed myself!"
* TokenEvilTeammate: Given his near-total lack of regard for human life and number of Doomsday devices, one could make a case for Farnsworth being this.
--> '''Leela:''' Has anybody seen Fry?
--> '''Bender''' ''(shaking his head):'' '''I''' didn't kill him. Professor?
--> '''Professor''' ''(absent-mindedly):'' No. I've been busy.
* WhatBeautifulEyes: According to Mom, although the audience [[TheUnreveal never actually sees]] what they look like under his glasses.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: John A. Zoidberg, M.D.]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Dr__Zoidberg_8742.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"You lost the woman of your dreams, but you still have Zoidberg. YOU '''ALL''' STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/BillyWest
-->Debut: ''"The Series Has Landed"''
A lobster-like alien who serves as the doctor at Planet Express, and lives in Professor Farnsworth's walrus tank (and sometimes in a dumpster out back). He's not very good at his job, and has secret ambitions to be a comedian. Unfortunately, he's not very good at comedy either. In fact, he's not very good at ''anything'' except annoying the fellow crew members. Coasts by on freeloading off others, being pitied for his ''naivete'' and occasionally being the hero.
* AmbiguouslyBi: He didn't seem to mind when he thought President Truman was coming onto him in "Roswell That Ends Well". Later in "Beast With A Billion Backs" he seems rather...interested when describing men thrusting their sweaty naked bodies against [[ItMakesSenseInContext slices of delicious cake.]]
* AmbiguouslyJewish: He fulfills many, many Jewish stereotypes but is never exactly confirmed.
* AmusingAlien: A lobster-esque alien
* AscendedExtra: Unlike Bender, who was fully expected to be the popular one, Zoidberg's popularity crept up on the show with lobster-like tenacity.
* BackAlleyDoctor: His medical credentials are questionable at best, and he regularly shows gross ignorance about human biology. His connections with the Professor are the only reason he has a position as the staff doctor, and the crew suffers for it regularly.
* BerserkButton: Zoidberg does the cutting, and you better not forget it!
** Also, don't cross him. Zoidberg is relentlessly loyal, but betray him and he'll cut you.
-->''You're lucky to have Zoidberg as a friend. But cross me, and I'll turn on you like ''that!''''
* BewareTheSillyOnes: He rivals Fry in this department. When angered, Zoidberg shows how dangerous a starving lobster monster can be when his claws can cut through metal or bone with no effort.
* BigEater: Whenever he's not rummaging through garbage cans. He destroys an entire buffet table in "Roswell That Ends Well"
* BizarreAlienBiology: He has redundant organs, ink glands, a mating crest and went through close to a dozen stages of growth in the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles". He's also got three hearts (originally four, but one was removed) and two different kinds of stomachs. He also keeps has a brain in his rump.
* BorschtBelt: As part of his role as [[SpaceJews Space Jew]], he's also a classic Borscht Belt-style comedy character.
%%* BumblingSidekick
* ButtMonkey: The most common recipient of the trope. In one episode Leela crashes the Planet Express ship through the roof. Hermes turns to Zoidberg and promptly docks his pay.
* CatchPhrase: [[Film/TheThreeStooges WOOP WOOP WOOP!]]
* TheChewToy: "Don't forget, you still have Zoidberg! YOU ALL STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG!"
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Zoidberg is neck and neck in the running with Fry when it comes to this trope. Which makes sense, what with him being the token alien and Fry having a unique form of brain damage.
* CripplingOverspecialization:
** When it comes to medicine and surgery, Zoidberg is actually ''brilliant''... as long as he's operating on aliens or dealing with alien diseases. Unfortunately, since he's on Earth and surrounded by humans, all that knowledge is nearly useless and thus he often does more harm than good.
** In "The Duh-Vinci Code", he gets to use his doctorate for once. However, that doctorate is in art history...
** It's implied he suffered some brain damage when he was younger [[spoiler: from a Tritonian Yeti nearly biting through his skull]]; prior to that, his comments were completely rational, and afterwards he forgets what he said and is less coherent.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass:
** When he's sufficiently angered, he is capable of kicking serious ass. Isn't that right, Clamps?
** The first season alone gives Zoidberg a few moments of awesome, managing to plug a hole in a door, keeping the gang safe from the angry Trisolians, or managing to hold a heavy bulkhead door open with one claw.
* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: Though his mouth parts are smaller than those of most Cthulhumanoids in fiction.
* DeathBySex: His species apparently dies after mating season. Which leads to FridgeLogic when Fry has sex in his body and if just fine. It's possible though that like with some real world species, rather than dying directly from sex the male of his species is killed by the female.
* DesperatelyCravesAffection: No one really cares about him and is always desperate for friendship and attention.
* ExtremeOmnivore: Eats just about anything that will fit in his mouth, including a very moldy sandwich and golf balls (which he thinks are "gritty, tasteless eggs").
* FirstNameBasis: Nowadays everyone calls him by his last name, but he was quite popular with the first Planet Express crew who called him by his first name. In a FriendshipMoment at the end of "The Tip of the Zoidberg", the Professor calls him "Johnny". [[FriendshipMoment This also happens]] when [[spoiler:Carol]] is talking to Johnny and vise-versa.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Phlegmatic
* {{Flanderization}}: His original schtick was that he was an alien doctor that knew nothing about human anatomy. The later episodes have him as a poor, disgusting, incompetent mooch who serves as the show's [[ButtMonkey walking punchline]].
* FormerlyFit: According to the flashbacks in "The Tip of the Zoidberg" he used to be quite slim looking.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: He works for Planet Express but all of his co-workers hate him, though he's mostly oblivious of it. Fry and Professor Farnsworth are usually the only ones to refer to Zoidberg as a friend.
* GeniusDitz: Despite being an incompetent doctor who knows absolutely nothing about the Human Anatomy, we later find out that he IS a doctor - [[NotThatKindOfDoctor of Art History]]. What's more impressive is that there were a couple of occasions where Zoidberg actually performed operations successfully. Impressive, considering he doesn't actually have any medical training. He may not know anything about human anatomy but he is a terrific alien Doctor.
* HonorBeforeReason: As shown in the episode "The Tip of the Zoidberg", Zoidberg was a remarkably successful doctor working for Mom and could have lived a life of comfort had he stayed on her payroll. Instead, in return for the Professor saving his life from a yeti, Zoidberg decided to stay with him [[spoiler: and euthanize him in the event he contracts Hyper Malaria]], making him the poverty-stricken man he is today.
* InnocentAliens: He thinks most doctors are poor.
* IJustWantToHaveFriends:
** He cares more about friends than money or fame, as seen in "The Tip of the Zoidberg", where he remained with the Professor, his friend, instead of staying working for Mom, which could have made him rich. His decision to remain with his friend cost him a life of wealth. He doesn't seem to care (or at least, he doesn't realize his decision threw him into poverty), although he does cry from time to time over being poor.
** One episode has him spell this out explicitly. After having a bag of mob money dropped in his dumpster, he takes off to Mars Vegas (where the rest of the Planet Express crew are vacationing), sits down at the roulette table and bets his entire pot... and wins... then bets everything again and wins ''again'' (coming out to over $10,000,000,000; he started with $8,000,000) in an astonishing swing of good luck. He buys drinks for everyone, they all cheer, he sets up another spin... and loses it all in one shot. Amy admonishes his behavior, to which he responds that he's okay with it and was satisfied to make everyone around him happy, if even for a brief moment. Then he calmly stands up and walks out of the casino with dignity.
* JerkassBall: He comes off as pretty friendly and nice for the most part but he feeds off nasty things (in fact, in the video game is implied that he has eaten humans) and has taken deplorable actions: framing Fry for breaking the Professor's bottle, or [[KickTheDog severing Fry's right arm]] in a fight over a female of his species. Subverted, when he immediately felt guilty and tried to ''kill himself'' over the former, and apologized and made up for the latter.
* KickTheDog: When he severs Fry's right arm in a fight over a female of his species. After several failed attempts, he did fix the arm.
* LastNameBasis: Doctor John A. Zoidberg, known simply as Zoidberg.
* LethallyStupid: It's implied that he killed many of his patients due to incompetence.
* LetsGetDangerous: Kicks Clamps' ass in ''Silence of the Clamps'' after he threatens his job at Planet Express and is about to clamp Bender [[spoiler:or who they thought was Bender]]. And as previously mentioned, saving the Professor's life in "The Tip of the Zoidberg".
* TheMillstone: To the Planet Express crew. He is the company's doctor, but a terrible LethallyStupid doctor with no clue about how human anatomy works.
* MoralityPet: To MOM, of all people. Zoidberg is the only person she treats with genuine respect, heck they even address each other by first names and she has offered to give him his own lab fully staffed. He's also this to Robot Santa who tries to kill everyone for being naughty, except Zoidberg, who has been very good and gets a pogo stick. Seems that Zoidberg's lot in life is to be treated as a ButtMonkey by everyone except those who already treat ''everyone else'' as a ButtMonkey.
* MundaneLuxury: Given the way he lives, the simplest of things can easily be the most amazing of triumphs.
--> "What's this? Two meals in one week?"
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: TropeNamer, which somehow ''helps'' him in at least one case (robot Santa seems to consider him morally upright, despite participating in several of the gang's antics that he doesn't overlook for anyone else).
* NiceGuy: Despite his odd habits and and lack of knowledge about human anatomy, Zoidberg is one of the more morally positive characters on the show. It's been shown he's willing to sacrifice his own happiness on multiple occasions to help others. He gives up a potentially luxurious life for Farnsworth, a loving relationship with a woman in order to give her a sense of smell, and a literal fortune in order to show people a good time. Not only that but he'll risk life and limb for his friends, such as backstabbing a muderous robot Santa Claus and saving professor Farnsworth from a yeti. Not only that but Zoidberg is perhaps the only person on Earth who meets said Robot Santa's impossibly high standards for good behaviour.
* NotThatKindOfDoctor: In ''The Duh-Vinci Code'', it turns out that Zoidberg's doctorate is in art history... Though it was later established he's one of the best doctors around when it comes to alien anatomy.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Though it would be hard to guess how old he looks (He is a crab like alien after all) he's known the professor since 2927, putting him somewhere past his ''late 80s''.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: "The Cryonic Woman" shows that part of Zoidberg's lack of popularity at Planet Express is because of the presence of the much cooler Fry, Bender and Leela. When they're fired, he immediately becomes more popular.
* PerpetualPoverty: Always poor, hungry, and lonely. Something of a BelatedBackstory, as he was none of these things in the first season.
* Really700YearsOld: His multiple life-stages suggest he could be near/in the Professor's age group, if not somewhat older.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode, along with the other supporting Planet Express members (Hermes and Amy).
* SecretKeeper: [[spoiler:The real reason he stays around Planet Express is to keep watch on Professor Farnsworth, and euthanize him when he finally shows symptoms of Hyper Malaria.]]
* ShoutOut: His name is a reference to a rejected Apple II game that David X. Cohen developed in high school called ''Zoid''. (Supposedly, it was a lot like ''VideoGame/{{Qix}}''.
* SpaceJews: Played for laughs. Oy vey! This is also why his species are crustaceans -- they're not kosher.
* StrawLoser: He actually makes ''[[LoserProtagonist Fry]]'' look cool in comparison. While Fry is also cosidered a loser, at least he doesn't live in a dumpster or eat garbage, has plenty of women over the show's run (including Leela, Amy, his own grandmother, a radiator...), and despite being often the butt of the other's jokes, is actually liked by most people.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Occasionally, Zoidberg has the tendency to refer to himself in the third person, usually when gloating about something idiotic.
* TokenGoodTeammate: In "An Xmas Story" he was specifically the only member of the Planet Express Crew (and apparently ''on Earth'') who is not on Santa's naughty/target list.
* TookALevelInBadass: Zoidberg seems to have become more competent after the show moved to ComedyCentral.
* ThrowTheDogABone: [[spoiler:In the second-to-last episode ever, no less, Zoidberg gets a love interest who ''isn't'' seen off by StatusQuoIsGod at the end of the episode.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: Has become an important trait in the ComedyCentral seasons. In "The Tip of the Zoidberg", we see that the Professor was the first friend he ever had, and he swore never to leave his side [[spoiler:partly to help euthanize the Professor when his Hyper-Malaria flares up]]. In "The Six Million Dollar Mon", he holds onto Hermes' discarded body parts and restores him to normal when [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul he starts losing his humanity]], all because he thinks Hermes is a good friend (when in reality Hermes can't stand him).
-->''"Zoidberg never abandons a friend, apparently!"''
* VitriolicBestBuds: Despite the others's treatment of him, he likes to see everyone as his best friend (thinking he and Hermes are close friends, calling Fry his "dearest friend", calling Bender his "best friend", etc.) How much this is reciprocated depends on the episode; Hermes just flat-out hates Zoidberg and the others are not too fond of him but they can tolerate him at times or even treat him like a friend (like the Professor in "The Tip of the Zoidberg").
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Hermes Conrad]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Hermes_Conrad_4613.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Sweet three-toed sloth of Ice Planet Hoth!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/PhilLaMarr
-->Debut: ''"The Series Has Landed"''
A Jamaican bureaucrat who helps Farnsworth run Planet Express. Enjoys bureaucracy, unnecessary forms, and limbo.
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Barbados Slim, his former professional limbo rival, and La Barbara's ex-husband. "He is the only person to have won Olympic medals in both Limboing and sex."
* AnythingButThat: As a dedicated bureaucrat, paid vacation is "the ultimate penalty" to him.
* AscendedExtra: In the first season, Hermes was more of a SatelliteCharacter. Later seasons rectified this.
* BadassBureaucrat:
** In one episode he convinces a forced labor camp to let him go by organizing them so efficiently all the work can be done by one Australian man. ''Then'' he organizes a massive pile of tube cylinders. [[AwesomeMusic To a beat.]]
** In ''Bender's Big Score'', after plugging his brain into the fleet battle-computer, Hermes uses AwesomenessByAnalysis to utterly annihilate the Scammers defences in a [[CurbStompBattle matter of minutes]].
* CatchPhrase:
** "My Manwich!" Usually provoked by Bender's antics. And his son's inherited it.
** "Sweet (animal) of (location)!" Lampshaded one on occasion, where Hermes was too traumatized to bother filling in the blanks.
--->''"Sweet something of... someplace."''
** "(X subject) (Y verb/adjective) (Z simile about green snakes and sugar cane).
--->''"I'm feeling lower than a green snake under a sugar cane truck."''
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: In "The Six Million Dollar Mon", Hermes becomes addicted to upgrading himself with robotic parts. This culminates in him becoming 'Mecha Hermes,' a hulking, emotionless, DoAnythingRobot that houses his brain.
* DeadpanSnarker: He was always this, even in his debut episode.
--> '''Leela''' ''(reading the surprisingly comprehensive waiver attached to her new job application):'' Look, I don't know about your previous captains, but I intend to do as little dying as possible.
--> '''Hermes:''' ''(laughs, then turns deadly serious)'' Sign de paper.
* DreadlockRasta: A bizarre subversion. Despite being Jamaican, a Rastafarian and fond of marijuana, Hermes is an ObstructiveBureaucrat and often attempts to run Planet Express with dictatorial efficiency.
* FormerlyFit: Hermes used to be fit enough for the Olympics, until [[TearJerker a fan fatally attempted to emulate him.]] That and the munchies(though he's still great at limboing)
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Choleric
* TheGenericGuy: Tends to be this, with no real distinctive personality traits aside being very dedicated and having the universal hatred of Zoidberg. Recent episodes are attempting to give him CharacterDevelopment.
* HappilyMarried: To the beautiful La Barbara. She always goes over to her ex-husband [[TheRival Barbados Slim]] however if Hermes is not available for whatever reason (like having his head chopped off).
* HenpeckedHusband: La Barbara also scolds Dwight, their son, often.
* IrrationalHatred: Before Zoidberg was characterised as a disgusting bum, Hermes still disliked him, starting as early as the third episode, when he spat out some food he'd just been enjoying when Zoidberg said he'd made them. It grew in "Hell is Other Robots", when he begins blaming Zoidberg for the rising electricity bills, and removes several items Zoidberg enjoys and uses from the office.
* IWasQuiteALooker: He has very much gotten out of shape since his limboing days (apparently due to "the munchies"), although he's still a champion limbo master.
* {{Jerkass}}:
** He really hates Zoidberg (even more than everyone else), and often blames him regardless of whether or not he's actually done anything wrong. And should the Professor decide he's not cold-hearted enough to fire the entire crew, Hermes will do it for him, instantly.
** When Fry and Bender get drafted through their own stupidity, Hermes fires them immediately. In another episode, when Bender is crippled by a can-opened, Hermes joyfully tells him it's Hermes' dream come true.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: [[spoiler:He approved Bender on the production line even though he was defective and should have, according to regulation, been immediately destroyed. Years later, he assists Bender as he struggles with accepting his newly discovered mortality.]]
* LampshadeHanging: "Didn't we used to be a delivery company?" From the comics in particular: "'Good news, everyone!' is a registered trademark of Planet Express. The management guarantees no actual good news."
* ManChild:
-->'''Hermes:''' I think I'm coming down with circusitis. ''(sneezes -- he ends up looking like a clown)''\\
'''Leela:''' I thought circusitis only affected children.\\
'''Hermes:''' Children of ''all'' ages.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Along with the Professor, Hermes will strip naked at the earliest opportunity for some good old fashion FanDisservice.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Hermes may come across as a driven, cold heartless bureaucrat... and he is. But he'll also jump at the chance for a day off, same as anyone else.
* ObsessedAreTheListmakers: Averted... kind of. He once stated he's only anal 78.36% of the time.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: And he's ''incredibly proud'' of it.
--> ''"We didn't choose to be bureaucrats'' /
--> ''No, that's what almighty Jah made us'' /
--> ''We'd treat people like swine and make them stand in line'' /
--> ''Even if nobody paid us!"''
* OnlySaneMan: He often takes this role, most notably in ''Bender's Big Score'' where he's the only person to realize the crew is being scammed. He's also the most consistent critic of the incompetent Zoidberg.
* RetiredBadass: Parodied. Hermes was once an Olympic limbo champion, who retired when a young fan of his tried to imitate him, and tragically broke their spine in the attempt. A traumatised Hermes was incapable of limboing from that day forth.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode, along with the other supporting Planet Express members (Zoidberg and Amy).
* SoProudOfYou: His reaction to Dwight and Cubert's behaviour in "The Route of All Evil".
-->''Proud of you? You ruined us with sleazy business practices, and a complete disregard for decency! ... of ''course'' we're proud of you!''
* TheStoner: Heavily implied in the ComedyCentral episodes more than the FOX ones.
-->'''La Barbara:''' Husband! Can't you go anywhere without lightin' something up?
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: [[CatchPhrase "My manwich!"]]
* UglyGuyHotWife: Hermes isn't much to look at, but his wife La Barbara is quite stunning.
* VocalEvolution: Becomes noticeably hoarser from season 5 on. His voice was also much deeper in some of his earlier appearances.
* TheWonka: He once gave ''himself'' a tongue-lashing and kicked himself out of his own office for asking to take Valentine's Day off.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Amy Wong, Ph.D]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Amy_Wong_5146.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Spleh!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/LaurenTom
-->Debut: ''"The Series Has Landed"''
An "intern" working at Planet Express, though seemingly as permanent as everyone else there. Is extremely rich and spoiled. Her parents own half of Mars, which they use for buggalo ranching and a gambling paradise called "Mars Vegas".
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Until she hooks up with Kif.
* AnimeChineseGirl: She's of Chinese descent, but she's from Mars. (Her parents own half of Mars. "The good half," so they claim.)
* AsianAirhead: Literally every male character makes note of how good-looking she is, she's richer than God, and well-liked by everyone. She acts so ditzy that it's easy to forget that she was introduced as a graduate student in applied physics (and eventually gets her PhD.)
* AsianRudeness: Though her parents are just greedy Jerkass ultra-capitalists in the same vein as Mom, regardless of race; Amy, then, because of her ultra-bourgeois upbringing is a ditzy RichBitch, though she becomes more of a JerkWithAHeartOfGold through her years at Planet Express.
* BareYourMidriff: Does this all the time. While on an ice fishing trip she even wears a ''belly parka''.
* BigEater: She was like this when she was younger. During an incident that made everybody younger, her preteen self was revealed to be chubby, and she cried when she saw herself in that state. Later, during a FreakyFridayFlip, she used the opportunity to go back to her big eater ways, and spent the episode constantly eating until she witnessed Fry and Leela [[spoiler: having sex in the bodies of Zoidberg and Farnsworth]].
* BrainlessBeauty: At times, especially in season 2.
-->'''Amy:''' Fool me seven times, shame on you, fool me eight or more times, shame on me.
* CasualKink: With Earth facing impending death (''[[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed Again]]''), Amy suggested an end-of-the-world orgy. The rest of the crew quickly lost interest, though not before Amy got changed.
* CharacterDevelopment: In early seasons Amy was mostly TheDitz, and the fact that she was also Farnsworth's intern and an intellectual was essentially an InformedAttribute, only mentioned in her introduction and in Mars University. In the post-revival seasons, Amy gets significantly more focus to highlight the fact that yes, she ''is'' a scientist and Farnsworth's partner.
%%* TheChick
* CuteClumsyGirl: Frequently falls over. In one episode Fry refers to her as "a klutz from Mars".
* TheCutie:
** She was once caught in a fire that burnt off most of Amy's hair. Her reaction? "Look! My hair got singed into an even cuter 'do!"
** She had cuteness reduction surgery in two places.
* TheDitz: A black-haired Ditz (to the point of becoming BirdsOfAFeather with [[IdiotHero Fry]] in "Put Your Head on My Shoulders"), she fails at haggling, confusing it with bidding at auctions, and flirts with all men. Bordering on GeniusDitz, since she's also an engineering student (though in one DVD commentary, the writers admitted that they'd completely forgotten that). Only after the return of the show post-cancellation, she began to be portrayed more as a...
* DitzyGenius: The series actually starts using her in plots involving her as an academic or scientist on top of plots involving her as a ditz. Even more so, now that [[spoiler:she's finished college and obtained a doctorate.]]
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Occasionally kicks her boots off in her downtime, usually while watching TV.
* EmbarrassingOldPhoto: Her 2997 employee of the year photo. Not only was she fat in that photo, it makes her hungry just looking at it.
* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Played with -- when she's first seen during the {{Introdump}} at the very beginning of ''Bender's Big Score'', she had grown her hair longer, but Bender almost immediately burps fire, burning her hair to its more familiar length.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Sanguine
* FormerlyFat: She was very fat as a child; even her parents tease her mercilessly about it. In one episode, the main characters all revert to their childhood forms, and Amy, again overweight, becomes the butt of all her parents' childish jokes.
* GoodBadGirl: Not only was she open to dating non-humans, but in some episodes, dated creatures that weren't even humanoid. She still brags about her "general sluttiness" though.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Amy often speaks Cantonese, especially when angry.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: [[spoiler:With Bender in ''Proposition Infinity''.]]
* InterspeciesRomance: With Kif.
* LimitedWardrobe: Amy Zigzags the Trope. Despite having boatloads of cash from her parents to purchase any outfit she could want, Amy almost always wears the same pink tracksuit (except for formal events). When Fry points this out, she says it's because she's rebelling against her parents. However she seems to have a large variety of outfits for special occasions and parties. She even wore an outfit modeled after Jackie Onassis Kennedy in "Hell is Other Robots".
* MsFanservice: Aside from her regular pink tracksuit outfit, wear very skimpy outfit for every formal event (even a funeral) and often appears in bikini. The creators acknowledged in a commentary at one point that Amy was a sex symbol to the fans, joking that there was a fansite called Can't Get Enough Amy.
* PinkMeansFeminine: Zig-zagged. She's the girly girl to Leela's tomboy, and her default outfit is pink - but it's a tracksuit, not something feminine.
* ReallyGetsAround: At least, until she gets together with Kif.
* {{Robosexual}}: Temporarily.
* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Energetic Girl to Kif's Savvy Guy.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode, along with the other supporting Planet Express members (Zoidberg and Hermes).
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: The whole reason she was created was to see if audiences would accept a female victim of slapstick. They did.
* SmarterThanYouLook: As the episode "That Darn Katz" reminds us, she IS an engineering graduate student who designs a machine to harness the rotational energy of the Earth. Also, [[spoiler:she officially gains her doctorate at the end of the episode, so she is the ultimate DitzyGenius.]]
* SpoiledSweet: Her parents own a hemisphere of Mars, but despite this, she's actually pretty nice (if a little inconsiderate and selfish at times).
* {{Stripperiffic}}: Pretty much anything she wears outside of her normal outfit.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Girly Girl to Leela's Tomboy.
* TooDumbToLive: Zoidberg manages to trick her into freeing him several times in "Why Must I Be a Crustacean In Love?" (and he does it one more time before the scene ends) and a robotic food disposal almost chops off her hand in "Mother's Day" by offering her a diamond ring in the drain until the others stop her. In both scenes someone calls her a 'moron' (Bender in the former, Prof. Farnsworth in the latter).
* TotallyRadical: A 30th century version.
* UpperClassTwit: A ditzy, spoiled rich girl.
* ValleyGirl: Although a milder case than most.
* VitriolicBestBuds: With Leela. Amy frequently insults Leela at the drop of a hat, but still goes out for drinks with her (although she'll still abandon Leela to go off for "coffee" with guys), and invites Leela to her wedding.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: Sort of. In "Into the Wild Green Yonder", she reveals that she has been trying to fill the void of her father wanting a son by acting more masculine (her choice of clothing, as opposed to something more feminine, for instance).
* WorkingWithTheEx: Her and Fry dated for a while, until he dumped her in a fit of stupidity.
* WrenchWench: An engineering intern. Not that she [[PiratesWhoDontDoAnything actually does anything...]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Philip J. Fry]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Philip_J__Fry_8206.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"People said I was dumb, but I proved them!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/BillyWest
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
The main character. Fry is a decent, honest and fun-loving guy, but he's also immature, lazy, and not very bright. Once a pizza boy from the 20th century, he accidentally cryogenically freezes himself during a delivery run on New Years' Eve, 1999 and wakes up on New Years' Eve 2999. HilarityEnsues when he gets a job at Planet Express as a delivery boy, working for his closest living relative, distant nephew Professor Farnsworth.
* AcePilot: Surprisingly proves himself to be one whenever he takes control of a ship. All of his time playing video games payed off.
* {{Adorkable}}: Mostly due to his childish nature and his kooky mannerisms, and he's a Trekkie. He's not seen as particularly attractive in-universe, but he manages to date some fairly hot women at times.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Implied by Bender (who lives with him) with many off-hand insults/jokes that Fry masturbates frequently. A whole episode, "Spanish Fry", featured one long RunningGag of Bender making jokes about this at Fry's expense.
* AllLovingHero: He's a pretty compassionate guy and has a tendency of bonding with his enemies.
* AmusingInjuries: Horrifically painful things happen to him on a regular basis (Bender slashing his throat, Bender strangling him for drinking his beer, Bender trying to run him over...)
* AngstWhatAngst: Lampshaded in-universe, his reaction upon learning he's woken up a thousand years in the future. Justified in that no one from Fry's time liked or even respected him and he had a miserable life as a delivery boy (though later episodes do show that his family did care about him, and Fry had a dog named Seymour who was loyal to him):
-->'''Fry''': My God, it's the future! My parents! My co-workers! My girlfriend! I'll never see any of them again!
-->''{{Beat}}''
-->'''Fry''': YAHOO!
* AscendedFanboy: When saving the cast of ''Star Trek''.
* AttractiveBentGender: In "Neutopia" ("[[BrainlessBeauty Now when I say stupid things guys all laugh and buy me stuff.]]") Not that he wasn't good-looking.
* AudienceSurrogate: During some of his FishOutOfTemporalWater moments.
* BadassAdorable: His (admittedly ''gross'') naivete keeps him from being too much of a hardened {{Badass}} (and lets him be likeable as just a regular guy) but he has a lot of really heroic and outstanding moments through the show.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: He was all mellow while he was fighting with Zoidberg to the death. But when Zoidberg cut his arm off, he screamed "You BASTARD!!! I'll kill you! YOU BASTARD!!!
* BewareTheSillyOnes: He may be a silly, goofy, naive ditz, but make him mad and you're ''dead meat''.
* BiggerIsBetterInBed: Inverted. A season 2 episode has Amy and Leela seeing Fry's [[UnusualEuphemism human horn]] and laughing at it. Whether this has anything to do with Fry's apparent lacklustre performances in the bedroom is unknown.
* BookDumb: He's a lazy, childish slacker who doesn't have much more knowledge regarding anything else outside of a small sector of nerdy interests. In one episode, he attends Mars University, ''just so he can drop out''. Despite all of this, he does manage to be quite clever at times, as well as pull off some remarkable feats and moments of clarity when given the right motivation.
* BornInTheWrongCentury: He ''loves'' living in the 31st century, due to always dreaming of going to space and being interested in what the future would look like, and never feeling like he had much going for him back in his own time. He still doesn't have much, but he enjoys his surroundings a lot more.
* BrooklynRage: Though he grew up in Midwood, Brooklyn, it takes a lot to get him angry. But when he does get mad...
* BuffySpeak: Occasionally lapses into this. "Like a balloon... and something bad happens!"
* BunnyEarsLawyer: In "Near Death Wish", Fry wins Delivery Boy of the Year!
* ButtMonkey: Not as bad of a case as Zoidberg or Kif, though.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: In regards to his sensitivity. Early on in the show, there was actually a plot point in one episode that Fry was too masculine and dense to cry; this is a ''complete'' 180 of his personality later in the show, where he practically cries every other episode ([[HopelessSuitor usually over Leela]]). He also celebrated arriving in the future in the pilot, which is inconsistent with later episodes that depict him as missing his family.
* ChickMagnet: He has attracted several very good looking women, including Leela and Amy. His {{Adorkable}} nature and NiceGuy attitude probably have something to do with it.
* TheChosenOne: [[spoiler: His lack of the Delta Brainwave has made him the most important person in the universe, regularly saving it from certain doom.]]
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Always.
--> '''Fry:''' Wait, I'm having one of those things... like a headache, with pictures.
--> '''Leela:''' An idea?
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass:
** He's actually quite competent when the chips are down.
** In "Law and Oracle", he joined the police force and actually made Detective... but got fired because he warned Bender that he was suspected of a future crime.
** "Fun on a Bun" [[TookALevelInBadass Take this trope to a new level]] where, after a freak accident, Fry loses his memories, is found by a secret society of Neanderthals (and is mistaken as one of them), leads them in a war against the far technologically advanced human civilization... and they got an [[CurbStompBattle easy victory]] [[RockBeatsLaser over them]]!
** He challenged [[ActionGirl Leela]] to hand-to-hand combat and holds his own quite well. This feat clearly [[{{Awesome/Futurama}} takes the cake on Badass]]!
** Fry is amazing at anything related to or involving video games. He's an excellent gunman on the Planet Express Ship and he completely owned the entire crew at a video game.
* DependingOnTheWriter: Fry is often accused of {{Flanderization}}, but his intelligence actually fluctuates depending on the episode, with the second episode already making him act like an idiot.
* DirtyCoward: In "The Series Has Landed" Fry gets a moon rover caught in a lunar dust pool. He declares "It's every man for himself!" and bails out, only to sink up to his neck in the very same dust. He immediately calls for Leela to save him. He gets called this in "War is the H-Word" when he, wielding the only charged phaser, blasts himself a hole to hide in. Though at the end of that episode, he does ride a bouncing ball to the peace meeting to save the life of his best friend.
* DisabilityImmunity: Due to his past-nastyification which caused Fry to become [[MyOwnGrandpa his own grandfather]], he's unique as the only sentient being in the universe without the Delta Brainwave, thus making him immune to the Brain Spawn's mental attacks. The Nibblonians refer to this as his "superior, but inferior mind". This later proves even more efficent when he [[spoiler:faces the Brain Spawn for a second time and saves a primordial, unborn creature from "the Dark One".]]
* DisabilitySuperpower: Not exactly a "superpower", but early on in the show, he once accidentally infected himself with a colony of space worms that actually ''improved'' his body and mind from the inside out, turning him into a suave genius ([[spoiler:much like his future self, Lars]]) and super-powering his muscles (enough to flip a very burly man over his shoulder with no effort). It also enabled him to play the notoriously difficult-to-master "Holophonor" instrument, which later [[ChekhovsGun comes back]] in a big way as the key to [[WillTheyOrWontThey finally]] [[RelationshipUpgrade win]] [[JustFriends Leela's]] heart.
* DisneyDeath: He has way too many to count. Arguably the first is when he was frozen in the year 2000, and his family assumed him to be dead. Averted in "Fun on a Bun", when he [[spoiler:is presumed dead after falling into a meat chopper]]. Granted, [[spoiler:he didn't die, but the implications before this revelation are quite macabre]].
** [[spoiler: Double Subverted in the series finale. He- yes, Fry himself and not a clone or something of the sort- ''finally'' dies for real via falling to his death from hundreds of stories. But, thankfully, TimeTravel saves the day before it's too late.]]
* TheDitz: Partly because he's a FishOutOfTemporalWater and partly because of that whole Delta Brainwave thing. In either case, he always seems to be a little slow on the draw.
** Here's an example from "All the Presidents' Heads":
--> '''Fry:''' Guess I better head over to my night job.\\
'''Leela:''' You have a night job?\\
'''Fry:''' Yup. It's exhausting, but I need the extra money to buy coffee so I can stay awake for my night job.\\
'''Leela:''' But--\\
'''Fry:''' Gotta go!
* DoggedNiceGuy: He chased comically after Leela. As time went on Leela returned more and more of his affection.
* DumbIsGood: For the most part. Sometimes his lack of intelligence causes him to be rather insensitive, but he's generally one of the nicest people you could ever meet. He's also one of the dumbest.
* TheEveryman: While he's frequently made to be ridiculously stupid, Fry is generally an average and relatable guy.
* {{Expy}}: He's pretty much like a younger [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Homer Simpson]], although he's much less of a [[ItsAllAboutMe selfish]] {{jerkass}}.
* FishOutOfTemporalWater: At first, but he quickly adapts. In fact, 'The Cryonic Woman' makes light of the fact that he adjusted ''very'' quickly and well to the future, and that he fits in better there than in the present.
* {{Flanderization}}: He started out as just an ordinary, kinda dumb 20th-century everyman. After accidentally [[HumanPopsicle getting cryogenically frozen for a thousand years]], he was just your average modern college dropout trying to adjust to an unrecognizable sci-fi future where everyone he ever loved was long-dead. Within a few episodes of the pilot, his below-average intelligence started getting more pronounced until he was too stupid to be real, even by modern standards.
* FluffyTamer: A bone vampire with acidic spit and urine, razor sharp talons, enormous strength and an insatiable lust for bones, that loved him to bits and acted like a puppy around him.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Phlegmatic
* FriendToAllLivingThings : Has been shown to inspire an amazing loyalty and connection with all of his pets, ranging from his old dog, Seymour, who waited for him to get back for 12 years, to his hamster that was still loyal to him after he put it through astronaut training, to a narwhal that he taught to eat and live again, to...
* FoolForLove: Fry does genuinely love Leela, but his childishness puts her off, regardless of how hard Fry tries. Not helping matters is that Fry's attempts to impress her are equally childish, or poorly thought out.
* FutureBadass: [[spoiler:Lars Filmore was a time sphere-created duplicate of Fry who spent several years in the past and became older, wiser and more competent as a result]]
* GeniusDitz: Sometimes he does things ridiculously well to the point of brilliance (e.g. writing a symphony (once he got the hands to play it), driving the ship and shooting at a chasing car of robot mafia at the same time, and re-arranging an entire galaxy with a gravitational array to write Leela a love message).
* GenreSavvy: Best exemplified when he prevents the Omicronian invasion of Earth. Generally speaking, if the events play out like a video game or a sci-fi movie or television show, Fry knows just what to do.
* TheHeart: He's pretty much singlehandidly responsible for keeping the Planet Express crew together.
* TheHero: Being an impulsive {{Cloudcuckoolander}} and IdiotHero has not stopped him. He tends to have the most focus, often saves the day (even if accidentally) and most importantly of all, is the one who drew the RagtagBunchOfMisfits together.
* HeroicSacrifice: A lot, every one to protect Leela [[spoiler:but the only time that killed him was in ''Rebirth''. And technically the time it killed him in Bender's Big Score.]]
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Bender.
* HiddenDepths: Despite being TheDitz, and having a superior/inferior brain, and often doing very stupid/suicidal things, when given the opportunity, he's pretty darn capable. This is perhaps best demonstrated in "Bender's Big Score", when [[spoiler:he spends years working his way up to assistant director of an aquarium back in the year 2000ish before returning to the year 3000ish as the suave, competent, charming Lars]].
* HollywoodDateless: In a sense, before taking many [[RelationshipUpgrade Relationship Upgrades]] with Leela in later seasons. Before all that, he often complained about why no woman would date him. But, he's clearly not as hopeless as he claims, having successfully picked up and slept with plenty of women over the show's run (still, they all admit he's... "meh" in bed).
%%* HonorBeforeReason
* HumanPopsicle Spent 1000 years as one, [[spoiler:even longer after time travel screws with things in TheMovie]].
* IdiotHero: "No I'm... doesn't!". He shows some awareness of this, and tends to move forward in spite of it. As he himself says in "The Duh-Vinci Code", "There's always going to someone smarter than you, so the only way you can be happy is to make the most of what you've got!"
* IgnoreTheFanservice: At one point he turns down an offer to shower with Leela and Amy because he's too busy spying on Bender.
* IJustWantToBeSpecial: Before finding out he was to be the savior of the universe. (Funny - he has a dead end job, sorta, but he still managed to rack up a list of one-of-a-kind adventures.) Oddly, he continues to have this mindset even after saving the world about a half a dozen times.
* IKnowMortalKombat: Somewhat useful even ''outside'' the WhatIf episode where they're being invaded by Nintendians. (That one time he blew up a Space Pirate ship with an arcade console-style targeting mechanism, for example, in 'Godfellas'.) Ironically, if the first episode is any indication, he actually kinda sucks at videogames, an idea reenforced by the fact that he apparently never got the last ship in ''SpaceInvaders'' when he was a kid.
* IncestIsRelative: Incest ''[[CrossesTheLineTwice twice]]''. First with his grandmother in the past, conceiving ''[[StableTimeLoop his own father]]'' in the process, making him his own grandson. Then later (in the 6th season episode "The Prisoner of Benda") when his mind was in Zoidberg's body he had sex with Leela while she was in ''in Farnsworth's body''. Though Farnsworth is a very distant descendant of Fry, the two have acknowledged each other as family since the beginning of the series. It was the first time Fry had sex with somebody ''he knew at the time was related to him''. Neither Zoidberg nor the professor experienced this because their minds were in other characters' bodies too. It was a body/mind-swapping episode.
* InformedFlaw: From all the comments about Fry's physique over the years, and all the injuries he's taken at Planet Express, he should really be a physical wreck, and badly out of shape. You'd never tell from looking at him.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: He has on a couple occasions unintentionally hurt one of his companions' feelings.
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Many, but especially [[spoiler:in the first movie]]. When you stack it up, that example becomes Fry wanting Leela to be happy [[spoiler:on top of Lars wanting Leela to be happy.]] It's super-confusing when you work it out.
* IronButtMonkey: He's very resistant to the huge amounts of AmusingInjuries he receives. He get slammed into a wall at full speed by those transport tubes, surviving a fall from a helicopter without deploying his parachute, eating a big heaping bowl of salt, three cola induced heart attacks in high school. And those are the ones that don't involve super-advanced medicine or symbiotic worms.
* JumpedAtTheCall: He was overjoyed at the concept of working for Planet Express, despite having spent the last several hours trying to avoid being a delivery boy. He also told Nibbler he'd willingly help if the Nibblonians ever needed him again.
* JustFriends: With Leela to the point where people are getting tired of the WillTheyOrWontThey It has been shown/implied that they do get together in the end.
* KindheartedSimpleton: This trope may well be called ''The Fry''.
* TheKirk: He will ''freak out'' when presented with a life-threatening situation, though.
* LastNameBasis: From everyone, including his own great-great-[...]-great-grand-nephew.
** {{Lampshaded}} in one episode, when the TV mentions "Turanga Leela":
--->'''Fry''': ''"Turanga"?''
--->'''Amy''': That's her name, Philip!
--->'''Bender''': ''"Phillip"?!''
* {{Leitmotif}}: For some reason, Katrina and the Waves' "Walkin' on Sunshine". Even played at his funeral. On bagpipes. And it's his ringtone. And yet he can never get beyond the first verse (because it blows out Billy West's vocal chords).
%%* LethallyStupid
* LikeADuckTakesToWater: Literally unfrozen in 3000, he adapted readily to his new environment and picked up a few skills; and his (rather spotty) knowledge of how things worked in the past has helped out the crew a few times.
--> '''Professor:''' Tell us of this 'the wheel'!
* LimitedWardrobe: Almost always wears his combination of red jacket, T-Shirt and jeans which is a tribute to James Dean. It's a bit out of style in the 31st century. More impressive is the fact that his outfit has been destroyed or otherwise unrecoverable at the ends of some episodes, so he might be getting replacements somewhere. He evidently only owns one outfit at a time.
* LoserProtagonist: The opening alone has him get ridiculed by children, yelled at by his boss and dumped by his girlfriend. While he's still not much in the year 3000, he's at least content with his life and has found several friends... and Zoidberg!
* MadeOfIron: His incredible list of injuries aside, he also mentioned having had three heart attacks (due to excessive soda consumption), by the time he was in high school.
* ManChild: Although he mans up pretty quick in a crisis.
--> '''Fry:''' "At last, war has made me into a man. ''Wheeee!"''
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Feminine Boy to Leela's Masculine Girl.
* MeaningfulName: After Phil Hartman (the original intended voice of Zapp) was murdered, production gave Fry his first name in his honor.
* MoralityPet: For Bender.
--> '''Bender''': All those times I said "Kill all humans," I'd always whisper "except one". Fry was that one. And I never told him so!
* MustHaveCaffeine: ''Generally'' doesn't try to chug down 300 cups a day, except for that one time, but he does like his coffee. He is also constantly drinking Slurm Soda (enough to turn green when a soda machine was installed) and in high school, used to drink a hundred cans of Cola a week, which lead to ''three'' coca-cola related heart-attacks.
* MustMakeAmends: Fry finds his old dog from the 20th century fossilized in a construction site. Feeling bad for abandoning it (despite not meaning to) he arranges for the professor to actually revive it. With Science!
* MyOwnGrampa: As a result of [[RoswellThatEndsWell time travelling to 1947 Roswell.]]
* NaiveNewcomer: Usually catches up quick, though.
* NiceGuy: Probably the nicest character on the series and the only one to treat Zoidberg decently, according to him.
-->He was the only one of you who never struck me!
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: He ruined {{Heaven}} for ''EVERYONE'', all just so he could tell Bender that he's happy where he is. There was nothing actually ''wrong'' with wanting to contact his best friend. He clearly didn't expect Yivo to be such a {{Clingy Jealous G|irl}}uy and evict everyone for "cheating on him" with another universe.
** Or for Bender to use the letters he sent through the rift to create hypermatter weapons with which to attack Yivo and attempt to destroy heaven.
** His attempt at a HeroicSacrifice ends up kickstarting the plot of "The Sting" because [[spoiler:by using his body as a shield, the bee stinger winds up having to go through two bodies and Leela gets pierced by the tip, injecting her with all the venom. Had he not got in the way, she would just have been impaled like he was, which could be fixed with surgery]]. Of course he had no way of knowing that would happen so it was still noble.
* NonActionGuy: Usually, right up until the chips are down.
* OddFriendship: Fry seems to be able to befriend just about anyone.
* OnlyFriend: He's the only person Bender considers a friend. Whenever he chants "Destroy all humans" in his sleep, he always whispers "Except Fry." under his breath.
** Similarly, if anyone shows a notable degree of sympathy for Zoidberg, it's often him.
* OnlySaneMan: His idiocy aside, he is a lot more normal than most in the show.
%%* ParadoxPerson
* ReallyGetsAround: Not nearly as much as Amy, but there's a pretty good-sized list of wom- er, ''females'' he's gotten with. Some of them weren't even human! Like the [[CargoShip radiator girl from the Radiator Planet]]... which [[SubvertedTrope turned out to just be a radiator]].
* RedheadedHero: He's the main character and has red hair.
* RidiculouslyAverageGuy: He's surrounded by aliens, mad scientists and robots. And he's just a working-class guy from Brooklyn.
* RipVanWinkle or ColdSleepColdFuture, either one.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Sensitive Guy to Bender's Manly Man.
* TheSlacker: Even after coming to the future, he spends much of his time sitting on the couch and drinking beer.
* StableTimeLoop: His immediate family tree.
* TakingTheBullet: He always does this for Leela.
* TeenyWeenie: Poor Fry, guy can never catch a break. Ever. According to Amy and Leela, due to selective genetic engineering being rampant by the 31st century, Fry's normal "equipment" apparently doesn't stand the test of time. PlayedForLaughs by Bender, who occasionally makes "small" jokes at Fry's expense (who, of course, insists it's [[CompensatingForSomething "huge"]]).
* ThisLoserIsYou: A lazy, dimwitted everyman who serves as AudienceSurrogate.
* TimeAbyss: He has been frozen for a period of 2000+ years, and with the events of ''The Late Phillip J. Fry'', he may be one of the oldest living beings (chronologically).
* TookALevelInDumbass: In the earliest episodes, where he was supposed to be a FishOutOfTemporalWater and stories would mostly focus around him adapting to life in the 31st century, he was a fairly average guy with a dash of Cloudcuckoolander and a few moments of genuine cleverness. As the show progressed, he adapted to his surroundings much faster than the writers intended, and so he devolved into a gibbering manchild unless the writers needed him to say something profound.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Pineapples. He also loves anchovies on his pizza. Too bad they went extinct while he was frozen.
* TrueCompanions: If his friends are in trouble, he'll stop at nothing to save them.
* UnfazedEveryman: More-so before he was {{Flanderiz|ation}}ed into the IdiotHero.
* UnluckyEverydude: "I've run over black cats who were luckier than me."
* UnreliableNarrator: Fry's jaundiced views of his 20th century life are gradually revealed to be signs of his own immaturity. [[spoiler:Notably, The Why of Fry and Bender's Big Score show how much his family really loved him, and an early script of The Cryonic Woman had Fry's mother, not his girlfriend, follow him to the future.]]
* TheWatson: Fry is generally the one to ask questions, ranging from TechnoBabble to questions about someone's BackStory.
* WholeCostumeReference: He is dressed like Jim Stark from ''RebelWithoutACause''. Which puts him in the same company as [[VideoGame/FatalFury Terry Bogard]]...
* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Leela. Tends toward they Will, in the end, but that it'll be difficult for them to get there.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Captain Turanga Leela]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Turanga_Leela_314.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Look, I don't know about your previous captains, but I intend to do as little dying as possible."]]
-->Voiced by: Katey Sagal
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
Leela is everything Fry isn't. Smart, strong, level-headed, a mutant, and a woman. So it's no surprise she ends up being the girl of his dreams. Leela was abandoned as a baby and grew up in an orphanarium. For the longest time she believed she was an alien from an unknown planet, but later found out she was a sewer mutant native to Earth. She is the conscience of the group, and is often prone to nagging them and expressing her outrage at their various immoral actions (though RuleOfFunny dictates that she is in many ways as bad as Fry and Bender).
* ActionGirl: Easily the most badass person on the crew.
* ActionGirlfriend: To Fry.
* AdamAndEvePlot: Leela was suckered into one by Alcazar who tricked her into believing they were the last of her supposed alien species. Later happened again with [[spoiler:Zapp Brannigan]] who managed to convince her that they were the last two humans alive, on a literal Garden of Eden like planet, [[spoiler:later discovered to be Earth]].
* AnimalNemesis: In "Möbius Dick".
* {{Badass}}: Strong, tough, highly skilled in martial arts.
* BadBoss: A mild case - as captain of the Planet Express ship, she often puts pride or personal grudges over the safety of her crew.
* BalloonBelly: During the FreakyFridayFlip, Amy gorges herself and fattens up Leela's body. Leela was not amused.
---> '''Leela''': Fry! Help! She's turning me into a parade float!
* BizarreAlienBiology: In the original series she was pretty much a one-eyed human. The movies added elbow talons (she trims them normally), a singing boil on her posterior, a mention that she lays an egg every few months, and temporarily a bunch of tentacles.
* BullyHunter: Leela will kick the crap out of anyone who treats kids poorly.
* BoobsOfSteel: Leela is probably the toughest person in the series. She's also among the bustiest.
* {{Cyclops}}: Her single eye doesn't seem to be much better than a normal one, though, and she usually wears contacts.
* CloudcuckoolandersMinder: To Fry (being his boss) for the first few episodes. After that, he adapts and stops being a Fish Out of Temporal Water, though she still takes on this role from time to time.
* CuteMonsterGirl: A beautiful one-eyed woman descended from a race inflicted with all kinds of BodyHorror. Her parents and people are formerly human, subterranean mutants and the fact that she happened to be born looking almost human is why they were able to pass her off as a Human Alien and send her to the surface world for a better life than they could give her.
* CutenessProximity: Leela is often a victim of this, even in the presence of animals that are generally not that cute, such as the muck leech on Mars in Into the Wild Green Yonder. A muck leech who turns out to be evil. It annoys the Nibblonians when she does this to them as well.
* DeadpanSnarker: Mainly when dealing with Zapp.
* DependingOnTheWriter: A lot of episodes (mostly the earlier ones) established her as a calm, sensible, unimpulsive woman who [[ActionGirl could defend herself in a pinch.]] Some episodes and the movies make her into a reckless, angry girl who would use violence as much as possible. Both make sense for her, really. She tries to conduct herself professionally for the sake of being the ship's captain but deep down, she harbors a lot of personal issues stemming from her origins and her life growing up. She has a lot of control but can be pushed easily as well.
* DoorstopBaby: Complete with bracelet and undecipherable Alienese note.
* DrivenToSuicide: One of the few serious examples in the show. Towards the end of "The Sting" she becomes so distraught over her inability to separate reality from her own dreams caused by the guilt she feels that she decides the only way out is to eat enough space honey to fall into a perpetual sleep. Luckily, Fry manages to talk her out of it and then [[spoiler:it turns out most of the episode was just AdventuresInComaLand and she wakes up for real]].
* {{Flanderization}}:
** She started as very archetypal captain figure, the {{Straight|Man}} ActionGirl that was sorely needed to run a crew and company that were barely competent in their own individual rights, occasionally showing odd, questionable quirks that kept her safely out of MarySue territory. In each successive season (especially the ComedyCentral ones), the latter aspect of her personality became increasingly prevalent to the point of consuming the rest of it, sometimes outright resembling {{Chickification}}. One could almost say that Fry didn't win her love by becoming smarter, but rather from her [[TookALevelInDumbass becoming dumber]].
** Leela's love for violence was played up later in the show and in the movies. Before than she just got irritated a lot and would sometimes react by punching people. In the movie, ''Bender's Game'', the professor has to put a shock collar on her to stop her from hitting and it doesn't even work. In fact, she starts to like the electric shocks because of her newly-formed association with them and violence. [[TooKinkyToTorture At one point, we see her moaning suggestively and repeatedly]].
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Choleric.
* FourStarBadass: In ''Bender's Big Score'', Leela steps up to take command of the Earth fleet after a surprise attack leads the ''Nimbus'' to be shot down just seconds into the battle. The trope later subverted somewhat as she ''does'' fail just as badly in the end, after realizing how hard it is to actually command a fleet. Hermes and Farnsworth take over and save the day though.
* FreakinessShame: Leela is extremely sensitive about her huge single eye, due in large part to being made fun of while growing up in the Orphanarium. Fry had always been attracted to Leela, eyeball and all. In fact, when Leela gets a prosthetic second eye in "The Cyber House Rules", Fry is the only one who objects, saying that [[FreakyIsCool he liked her better the way she was]].
* FriendToAllChildren: Being a former orphan herself, she's very kind to current kids at the orphanage.
* FriendToAllLivingThings: She's a known animal lover.
* GagBoobs: When she complained that the professor was investing too much in ship's speed and too little in ship's security, the professor replied that he does not complain when she changes her things. Leela replied that those things won't kill anyone... and Scruffy gets a severe hurt when he hits his head on the ship, because he was very DistractedByTheSexy. Well, he may get hospitalized, but it was worth it!
* GranolaGirl: An environmentalism who loves the animals and nature.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: When it comes to certain animals, such as space bees or bloodsucking leeches [[spoiler:aka "Dark Ones"]].
* ImpossibleHourglassFigure: As described by Zapp Brannigan himself. "Set co-ordinates for 36-24-36, aka Leela".
* InformedAttractiveness: She has men falling for her pretty often, but this is shown to be subverted as often as it's played straight. It depends largely on the episode.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: She can be snarky and a bit of a jerk sometimes, but she is a good person underneath it all.
* JustFriends: With Fry to the point where people are getting tired of the WillTheyOrWontThey It has been shown/implied that they do get together in the end. The end of "Overclockwise" pretty much confirms that Leela and Fry ultimately have a happy ending.
* MasculineGirlFeminineBoy: Masculine Girl to Fry's Feminine Boy.
* MeaningfulName: Turanga Leela is a reference to the "Turangalila-Symphonie", a piece of music most famous for prominently featuring the ondes Martenot, forerunner of the classc sci-fi staple the theremin. Also, in the case of purple-haired Leela, "Lila" means "purple" in German.
* MoodSwinger: When she thought Fry stood her up and died in an explosion in "The Late Philip J. Fry":
-->'''Leela:''' [[IFeelAngry I'm so angry. I mean, I'm so sad. But I'm still pretty angry. But also sad.]] ''(to Hermes)'' Can I be both?\\
'''Hermes:''' It's what he'd want.\\
'''Leela:''' Then that's what I am! ''(angrily kicks the television and sadly cries)''
* MsFanservice: She's very busty, her standard outfit consists of skin-tight tanktop and pants, her other "ordinary" outfits (such as formal dresses and swimsuits) invariably have a midriff window showing her belly button, and she's the most likely to be seen wearing strange, Stripperiffic outfits.
* NaiveAnimalLover: In "The Sting", she gets Fry killed (although it's just a dream) by bringing a killer space bee aboard the Planet Express because "it's so cuuuutteee!" In "Bender's Game", she refuses to save her friends from a giant worm called the Tunneling Horror because she has just vowed to never kill another living thing.
* NameOrderConfusion: Both Leela and her parents use a reversed naming convention, having their surname placed before their personal name. When referring to each other however, they only ever use seem to their personal names, unless giving a FullNameUltimatum.
* NotSoAboveItAll:
** For instance, in one episode, rather than pay a nominal parking fee for a Hollywood premiere she flies around for hours before landing on the La Brea Tar Pits... which is ''exactly'' the sort of thing she usually scolds Fry and Bender for.
** In "A Head in the Polls", after she spends the whole episode encouraging Fry to take an interest in politics and the electoral process:
--->'''Farnsworth:''' I can't believe it. [[DecidedByOneVote He won by a single vote.]]\\
'''Bender:''' Well it ain't my fault. I'm a non-voting felon, thank you.\\
'''Fry:''' Well it's not my fault either 'cause I forgot to vote.\\
'''Leela:''' Oh, crud! I ''knew'' there was something I meant to do today!
** She calls Fry a baby for whining about how the career chip hurt when inserted. Two seconds later, she does the same thing.
* OldShame: InUniverse example, having sex with Zapp is become this to her.
* OnlySaneWoman: Easily the most level-headed person, compared to Fry, Bender and the others.
* OrphanageOfFear: The "[[PerfectlyCromulentWord Orphanarium]]" where she grew up seems to be an odd mixture of this and OrphanageOfLove--it was (and still is) dirt-poor and she was picked on constantly, but the Warden seems like a nice guy... sort of.
-->'''Leela:''' Mr. Voggle, remember me?\\
'''Mr. Voggle:''' Leela. ''You're worthless and no one will ever love you!''\\
''(both laugh and hug)''\\
'''Leela:''' You used to say that all the time!\\
'''Mr. Voggle:''' Those were happier days.
* RadiationImmuneMutants: As a Mutant, she can plunge into a lake of toxic waste, swim around in it, and it won't do a thing to her.
* RubberForeheadAlien: [[spoiler:An InvokedTrope in her case; her parents tried to pass her off as one so she might have a better life than a sewer-dwelling mutant.]]
* {{Shorttank}}: She's the tomboyish female co-star.
* ShoutOut: Her name is an homage to a piece by 20th-century composer Olivier Messiaen, the "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turangal%C3%AEla-Symphonie Turangalîla-Symphonie]]."
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: She seems to get her fair share of slapstick in later seasons. She's been hit on the head, electrocuted, sucked by a leech, attacked by an octopus and smashed into a wall by a door.
* SoapBoxSadie: Occasionally, and in the sense that it forms an episode's A-plot.
* TheSpock: Levelheaded, predictable ActionGirl.
* StatuesqueStunner: She's much taller than the rest of the Planet Express crew, even meeting Fry (who probably stands at or around six full feet) at eye-level.
* StepfordSmiler: Describes her method of coping with her tragic life by apologizing for a brief grief-stricken outburst and explaining that "usually I keep my sadness pent up inside where it can fester quietly as a mental illness."
* StraightMan: The serious, no-nonsense girl who provides the setup for most of Fry/Bender's jokes. She's also this to pretty much everyone in the main cast.
* SuperWristGadget: "This thing I wear on my wrist".
* TankTopTomboy: The level-headed, action-oriented leader of the Express crew. A tank top is her default outfit.
* TeamMom: So much that she follows Fry and Bender into the army so they won't get hurt.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Tomboy to Amy's Girly Girl.
* TomboyishPonytail: Obviously. She provides the page image.
* {{Tsundere}}
-->'''Leela''': "Fry, you ''idiot''! You noble ''idiot''!"
* ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend: You may be able to sell SchmuckBait to Fry with ease, but not with her around.
* WillTheyOrWontThey: With Fry.
* WorkingWithTheEx: She and Fry were married, for all of the time it took her to file for divorce.
* WomenAreWiser: She's generally the one to talk Fry and Bender down from some crazy scheme. This is sometimes averted though, as Leela is generally more stubborn and short tempered than Fry, while Fry is typically the more moral and laid back one.
* WomanScorned: Let's just say you don't want to be on her bad side.
* YouGottaHaveBlueHair: She has purple hair, though it might be justified. She is a mutant.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Bender Bending Rodriguez (Bending Unit 22)]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Bender_Bending_Rodriguez_5762.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"I'm Bender, baby! ''Please'' insert liquor!"]]
-->Voiced by: JohnDiMaggio
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
A loudmouthed, kleptomaniac, misanthropic robot who also happens to be Fry's best friend. Despite his abrasive personality, has been known to PetTheDog on occasion. Bender drinks constantly, because his fuel cells are powered by alcohol. He also smokes constantly because he thinks it makes him look cool.
* AbusiveParents:
** When he adopts twelve orphans for the government stipend.
** He sells his firstborn son to the Robot Devil in "The Beast With A Billion Backs" in exchange for an army to wage war on Heaven and shows no emotion as the child cries for help. This is so evil it scares / impresses the Robot Devil.
* AGodIAm: In "Godfellas". He didn't like it much, mainly because his worshippers kept bothering him, then wiped themselves out with nukes.
* AccidentalHero: When an evil little girl defeated him in a tap contest, Bender swore that some day he would dance tap over her grave. The girl had a heart attack and died to everyone's sorrow -- except Bender, who did not want to wait, and danced tap ''over her dead body''. [[spoiler:The rhythmic hoofing over her heart resuscitated it, and her life was saved.]]
* AndIMustScream: Bender's head was stuck in the ground of Roswell for over 1000 years. [[AngstWhatAngst He was enjoying it until Planet Express found him again.]]
* AntiHero: Bender is a NominalHero. According to the Robot Devil, they looked around and couldn't find a robot worse than him. Yet, he is one of the protagonists and also has quite a few PetTheDog moments.
* AntiRoleModel: Parodied in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV", where Bender acts like himself on a TV show. Bender is an anti-role model (since he has no redeeming qualities) whom young viewers treat as a role model. At one point on the show, he says, "Try this at home, kids!" (while a brief disclaimer flashes across the bottom of the screen saying not to try it at home), and then he sets himself on fire. Later in the episode, he protests his own presence on TV and the blame placed upon him. Note that the proverbial last straw for Bender here is that the children who emulated his behavior stole his stuff.
* AntiVillain: Most of the time he's an alcoholic whore-mongering lunatic with no reservations about any criminal activity you care to name, including adopting ten kids in a welfare scam and then try to ''sell them as meat'' when he gets tired of them. But when he cares to be, he can be very heroic and a pretty good friend.
* AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: in "Overclockwise" [[spoiler:although it doesn't last.]]
* AttentionWhore: He'll act out (to varying degrees of violence) if he feels his friends are neglecting him.
* AttractiveBentGender: In 'Bend Her', Bender gets a sex change as part of a scam and ends up being the target of several romantic advances from male robots, notably Calculon.
* AxCrazy: Repeatedly has questioned his sanity, often has an extremely homicidal behavior, especially toward humans. In "The Honking", he strangled Fry simply by drinking his last beer.
* BodyBackupDrive: Averted. Bender thought he had this type of immortality but discovers he was built without a backup unit. Fortunately (or not) he never needed to use his backup unit before discovering he does not have one.
* TheBigGuy: He's well aware that he's this, but usually goes out of his way to avoid getting pigeonholed (or, less tactfully, he's too lazy to do typical Big Guy stuff).
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: "[[TropeNamer I prefer extortion]]. [[XtremeKoolLetterz The 'X' makes it sound cool.]]"
* BlondeGuysAreEvil: After undergoing reverse fossilization in [[WhatIf ''Anthology Of Interest II'']], Bender is turned into a blonde human. It was insisted he was designed this way because, as WordOfGod put it, "[[AcceptableTargets blonde men are more disgusting]]".
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: When it comes to interacting with humans, he seems to only have a very basic understanding of their limits while missing the fact that approaching those limits is painful. Thus, he's served up a dish of capers and salt (think mashed potatoes except... not), but makes sure that the amount of salt is slightly below a lethal amount.
* CardCarryingVillain: Bender longs to be the TokenEvilTeammate, and his feelings are easily hurt at any implication that he's not the amoral, terrifying (yet [[ForTheLulz fun-loving)]] killing machine/[[OneOfTheseThingsIsNotLikeTheOthers folk singer]] he yearns to be. Comes up in "The Farnsworth Parabox" particularly.
--> '''Bender''' ''sulkily:'' "It's not fair! Somewhere [[AnotherDimension out there,]] there's an eviller Bender than me! ''I do my best dammit!"''
* TheCasanova: Bender's had more flings- with mostly fembots and the occasional human woman- than any of the other character, and he also easily gains admirers.
* CantHoldHisLiquor: Inverted. Due to being an alcohol-powered robot, if he doesn't get enough alcohol, he'll start to slur his words and stumble around, much like a human who's had too much alcohol. Bender even "grows" a five-o'clock-shadow made out of rust!
* CatchPhrase:
** "Bite my shiny metal ass!"
** More recently, "♫Let's ''go'' already!!♫"
** DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!
** "We're boned"
** "We're/I'm back, baby," and "Me, Bender".
** "It's gon' be ''fun on the bun''!"
** When someone mentions something like a kind of metal or wiring, he says "I'm 40% [X]."
* CigarChomper: Occasionally, because "they make [him] look cool."
* CordonBleughChef: He ''can'' cook just fine, and in fact the other characters have been eager to eat his cooking in the past, but he really shouldn't be allowed to [[LethalChef experiment]].
* TheCorrupter: Whenever Tinny Tim is involved, Bender tends to involve the kid in home invasions, attempted muggings or inducting him into the robot mafia. And that's without mentioning his antics on "All My Circuits".
* CripplingOverspecialization: When Flexo is almost crushed by an unbendable girder dropped on him by the Robot Mafia, the only way Bender can think of to save him is to try to bend it anyway; he doesn't know anything about lifting. [[spoiler:Fortunately, he's actually able to do it after applying some "Bend-Gay" to his arms.]]
* DeafComposer: Bender loves to cook, but can't taste his food. Which is terrible.
* DeathGlare: Often utilized, but for no real reason; Bender is consistently drawn, both in the series and in promotional images, with a [[http://turnlol.com/images/wallpaper-download-22703.html noticeably angry expression]], even if his present situation might not call for it. [[WordOfGod David X. Cohen]] often [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] this in the DVDCommentary, claiming it always gives him a laugh.
-->'''Cohen''': See this drawing here of Bender's angry eyes? There's something so funny about him for no reason having that evil look...
* DirtyCoward: In one of the movies, he, Amy and one other character are trapped by a bunch of orcs in a castle. Bender tells the two ladies he has a plan, The next scene shows him holding them up in the and tells the orcs to take his friends first, just to give him one more second of sweet sweet life. In "Bendin' in the Wind," the crew is plunging off a cliff. Bender grabs a nearby cable, loudly declaring, "I'll save ME!" The rest of the crew is only saved by grabbing his legs just in time.
* DoAnythingRobot: Quite literally, but only when he feels like it. Seems Robots in the year 3000 are built for one purpose, but can adapt pretty well to others; Bender himself is Planet Express' resident cook. Bender sees it differently: everything he does is simply a different form of bending, which enables him to bend an entire brick wall (not on the list of approved bendables, apparently).
* DramaQueen: With a BodyBackupDrive, he is in fact immortal. So then why does he scream as a DirtyCoward when there is danger? Because nobody ever said he can't be a drama queen! (He discovered later that he does ''not'' have a backup unit, so when he dies... he dies.)
* DrivenToSuicide: Originally, as he explains in the pilot, he was proud of being a Bending Unit. He could bend a girder to a 90 degree angle, 60 degree, you name it. Then he found out that the girders he was bending were being used to build suicide booths. Depressed from this revelation, he tried to use one of the booths himself... Which is how he and Fry first met.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: The closest Bender has to a "mother" is the industrial robot who built him. Still, he gets kind of choked up when he gets an X-Mas card from "her" in one episode.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: "All those times I said, "Kill all humans," I'd always whisper "Except one." [sobbing] Fry was that one, and I never told him so!" In a later episode, he told Hermes that the latter was on his "do not kill"-list. Bender has shown times where he genuinely connects with Fry (and other humans too) and doesn't want to see any ill happen to them.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: He's evil, but ''usually'' not as evil as the current antagonist. Also, there are moments when even he is hesitant or shocked by something. During "Time Keeps On Skippin'", he was the one who tried to point out the danger of chronitons, and in "Love And Rocket", he actually looked unnerved on seeing the Lovey Bear "Hospital".
* EvilIsHammy:
--> "The [[NephariousPharaoh cruelty of the old Pharoah]] is no more! [[MeetTheNewBoss Let a whole new wave of cruelty wash over this lazy land!!!"]]
* ExoticEyeDesigns: Looks like typical CartoonyEyes, until you look closer and realize that he has ''square'' pupils. One gag had him playing back a recording, during which his pupils switched to the 'play' symbol.
%%* FauxAffablyEvil
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Sanguine
* {{Flanderization}}: His original character has been displaced by a jokey persona. Could be justified as CharacterDevelopment, as he's a far rounder character now. Before he met Fry, he had no real friends and worked in constructing suicide booths. Now he has multiple friends and he's lived out most of his dreams to some extent. It makes perfect sense that his personality would change over time. Confirmed by WordOfGod -- the electric shock from the pilot that removed his block on bending non-girder objects, ALSO removed all other inhibitions.
* GeniusLoci: A result of non-stop overclocking in "Overclockwise".
* GenreSavvy: Is the first member of the cast to realize that the Professor's catchphrase of "Good news, everyone!" is code for "I'm sending you on a mission that will kill you!"
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: For a CigarChomper like Bender, SmokingIsCool and EvilIsCool probably go hand-in-hand.
* {{Hammerspace}}: The compartment in his chest can seem to hold anything; beer, the keys to his apartment, a "gay-dar" detector, a tube of "Bend-Gay", and much more. Fry was able to fit in there once.
* TheHedonist: To an extent. It could be considered a form of GettingCrapPastTheRadar, since the networks wouldn't take kindly to his drinking, smoking, smut-reading and whore-mongering so much if he were human. Of course, he's a paragon of sobriety and chastity compared to Hedonismbot.
* HeelFaceRevolvingDoor: Bender has no problem betraying his friends for some petty reason, and then helping again for some incredibly lame reason. For example, he once helped Zapp Brannigan capture Leela, and then helped her escape from prison... because, by helping her, his criminal record would still be higher than hers!
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With Fry.
* HeroicComedicSociopath: On a good day.
* HesBack: "[[CatchPhrase I'm back, baby!]]"
* HiddenDepths: Has an interest in folk music, art (he has an odd argument with Planet Express Ship early in 'Love And Rocket'), cooking, and others that really seem out-of-place in a bending unit, much less a sociopathic whore-mongering criminal like Bender. Bender first met Fry whilst waiting in line for a [[DrivenToSuicide Suicide Booth]], having become depressed and suffer a crisis of conscience, upon learning that the girders he had been bending were used in their construction.
* HumongousMecha: In ''Anthology of Interest I'', and ''Benderama''.
* {{Hypocrite}}:
** ''I Dated A Robot'': Complains all through the episode about Fry dating a robotic version of Lucy Liu. When he deletes her, Bender instantly starts making out with Lucy Liu's head.
** ''Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV'': Didn't care at all if his stunts on TV were imitate-able by his younger fanbase. At least until it was ''his stuff'' that wound up stolen from their acts. To which he joins the protest to get himself banned from TV.
** ''Proposition Infinity'': In addition to the above, all of a sudden he now fully supports human-robot relationships since he and Amy were dating. But when all said and done, he dumps Amy when he realizes he won't be able to date more then one girl.
** ''31st Century Fox'': Inverted in this case, he ignored Leela's complaints about fox hunting. But when he realized it was a robot fox. He's the one now protesting.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: With Amy in ''Proposition Infinity''; at least, until he discovers Amy wants a monogamous relationship and says "Hasta la vista!" Though course of he had been with one other human before, Lucy Liu to be exact.
* InformedAttribute: Played for laughs. He constantly brags about his lack of emotions but is probably the most emotional person in the series.
* IllTakeTwoBeersToo: Bender says "This calls for a drink!" and pulls out three beers, when there are three characters present. He then drinks all of them at once.
* ItsAllAboutMe: He loves to be the center of attention. On his worse days, Bender will refuse to acknowledge that anyone else's existence matters more than him ("My life and by extension everyone else's is meaningless").
* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Towards Anglelyne in "Bendless Love". Another non-romantic example in "Bend Her": he backs out of a potentially hugely profitable scam because he doesn't want to hurt or humiliate Calculon, and does it by faking his own death in [[DeusAngstMachina the most over-the-top way possible]] because Calculon can handle "soap opera pain" better than anything realistic or commonplace.
* {{Jerkass}}: In "A Pharaoh to Remember", Bender, Leela and Fry are trapped on a ancient Egyptian planet where Bender encourages the overseers to whip the slaves (which include Leela and Fry) more and work them harder. This goes on to where he starts ordering people worked to death to construct a monument to himself.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Still, he isn't above a PetTheDog moment and can feel guilt for some of his harsher actions, and that doesn't even take into account [[TrueCompanions Fry and Leela really are to him]].
* JerkWithAHeartOfJerk: Often. In "Xmas Story" all the others ere surprised when Bender says he wants to "volunteer" at a liquor kitchen for homeless robots. It turns out he just wants to pose as a homeless robot to get free booze.
* KarmaHoudini: On occasion, though there are instances where he has been punished such as being beaten up for trying to cheat in a Poker game, getting caught for stealing a priceless cigar (Even lampshaded by him "Alright closure!"), getting chased down by Music/{{Beck}} when he tried to scam him for a charity check. And losing a crown he tried to take from a king when he forgot it was in the king's compartment when Bender was within his body.
* KleptomaniacHero: Well, a hero who is also a kleptomaniac, although ''hero'' might not be the right term.
--> '''Bender:''' I love stealing, I love taking things~''
* LackOfEmpathy:
** Notable in that he ''is'' capable of love, but not empathy. For example, he loves Fry with all his heart, but in a completely narcissistic fashion, as he only cares about Fry being alive and present so that Bender can love him, not about Fry himself being happy.
** In the episode "I Second That Emotion", Prof. Farnsworth installs an Empathy Chip on Bender in order to teach him about empathy. It forces him to feel whatever emotions Leela is feeling at the moment. The episode ends with Bender not learning a thing and continuing to be a {{Jerkass}} and Leela learning to be more like a jerk.
* TheLancer: To Fry.
* LargeHam: He manages to upstage Calculon. Enough said.
* LaughablyEvil: The TokenEvilTeammate and easily one of the most hilarious, entertaining characters.
* LethalChef: Being a robot, [[GeniusBonus means he doesn't have a sense of taste]]. Although he does bake a perfectly edible cake. It seems his problem is that he likes to experiment.
* LivingForeverIsAwesome: As revealed in "Lethal Inspection", robots (ones made by Mom, at least) can simply BodySurf into a new body (he acted like they didn't because he's a drama queen), and jokes at humans being capable of (easily) dying. As it turns out, he doesn't have a backup chip, prompting him to be scared of his new found mortality, [[TimeAbyss which is, at most, a billion years]].
* LovableRogue: To the Planet Express crew, anyway. He even considers himself "the loveable rascal."
--> '''Leela:''' Bender, we didn't mind your drinking, or your kleptomania, or your pornography ring.
--> '''Zoidberg:''' In fact, that's why we ''loved'' you.
* TheMcCoy: He's quite impulsive. Also he usually doesn't do anything moral, but when he does it usually fits this trope.
* MeaningfulName: "Bending unit" — a robot who was manufactured for the sole purpose of bending metal objects. Also, one slang meaning of "bender" is "a bout of heavy drinking", which is appropriate for Bender since he runs on alcohol.
* MetaphorIsMyMiddleName: How his full name was established in the show.
* MoralityPet: The Planet Express crew, and ''especially'' Fry, are about the only people in the world who he would willingly put himself on the line (or not do something he wants to do) for.
* MultipleChoicePast: The circumstances of his "birth". WordOfGod once implied that the viewers were just seeing him getting new bodies built for him as he grew older.
* MustMakeAmends: In the same episode as the Fry example, Bender, in a fit of jealousy, kicked said dog's fossil into hot lava. After realizing what he did, he dove into the lava to save it - successfully, though his eyes melted afterwards.
* {{Narcissist}}: And how. in "The Farnsworth Parabox" he seemingly falls in love with an alternate gold plated version of himself, stating that he has finally found someone "as great as me"
* NiceJobFixingItVillain : His attempts to confirm Angleyne's sentiments for Flexo by impersonating him only caused her to go back to her ex-husband.
* NighInvulnerable: Of both the MadeOfIron and SpareBodyParts varieties.
--> ''"What does it take to ''kill'' me?"''
* TheNoseless: Though in one episode he says he ''does'' have one, he just never wears it.
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: When he briefly becomes bored with kleptomania, having stolen ''everything'' in Alcazar's Palace:
--> '''Bender''': I think I might have finally stolen enough.
--> '''Fry''': *''Slaps him''* SNAP OUT OF IT!
* OlderThanTheyLook: When the series started, despite his adult appearance and habits he was only a few years old. But thanks to getting stuck in Roswell and LOTS of time travel, by this point he's older than any human alive. Without the time travel and other factors, however, "Overclockwise" stated his model is 12 years old.
* PetTheDog: Sometimes; the majority occurs in the comics.
* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Despite being a Bending Unit, his laziness means we rarely see Bender actually bend things. It's later revealed in "Bendless Love" that his pent-up urge to bend caused him begin bending things in his sleep.
** Even Bender has this assessment of his skills:
--> '''Bender''': I need a calculator.
--> '''Fry''': You ''are'' a calculator?
--> '''Bender''': I mean a ''good'' calculator!
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: In one episode, Bender becomes a human. Since he never developed the concept of modesty, he didn't think to cover his crotch. Hermes does it for him.
* PsychopathicManchild: An alcoholic, amoral gambler who deals porn and has no qualms with selling children as dog food. He occasionally becomes incredibly childish, most notably in the Mom-centric episodes.
--> "Mom! Mom! Look at me, Bender! Hey-ho, I want attention!"
* PunnyName: "Bender" can also mean a drinking spree. So Bender is a bender who goes on benders.
* PutThemAllOutOfMyMisery: "I'm so embarrassed, I wish everybody else was dead!"
* RequiredSecondaryPowers: Bender's super strength and invulnerability are all side-effects of his ability to bend. He can also do anything as long as it's an extension of bending (like pumping, [[CripplingOverspecialization unlike turning]]).
* Really700YearsOld: And then some. It's subtle but post-Bender's Big Score he has actually existed for eons due to various time travel incidents where he goes into the past then waits until the present day (from where he came) arrives again. Even before that, as a result of the time traveling in Roswell That Ends Well, his head is over a thousand years older than his body (his head fell out of the ship just before they returned to the future).
* RidiculouslyHumanRobot: The poster boy for this trope. He himself considers robots as a separate race rather than man made tools. To be fair though, the robots in this series practically are.
* RobotBuddy: The best buddy of Fry, and the worst RobotBuddy ever.
* {{Sadist}}: He has no qualms when he has the opportunity to hurt someone, and is very implied to enjoy doing that.
* ScrewThisImOutOfHere: Whenever his plans go awry or the cops show up:
--> '''Bender''': Cheese it!
* SecondLawMyAss: Or shiny metal ass, as he might put it.
* SecondPlaceIsForLosers: Really hates coming in anything below first place. Examples: Entering Zoidberg as a pet in a Pet Show and getting second place (which in his own words, "Is a fancy word for losing!"). And getting third in a cook-off contest. So much so he murders the top two winners just to get the first place trophy during the commotion with the neanderthals.
* SensitiveGuyAndManlyMan: Manly Man to Fry's Sensitive Guy.
* SmallNameBigEgo: Bender has a Big Ego constantly at odds with his Small Name, as most vividly seen in "A Pharaoh to Remember". Pointing the latter out is one of his biggest Berserk Buttons.
* SmokingIsCool: Invoked.
--> '''Bender:''' I need plenty of wholesome, nutritious alcohol. The chemical energy keeps my fuel cells charged.
--> '''Fry:''' What are the cigars for?
--> '''Bender:''' They make me look cool.
%%* SmugSnake
* SnarkyNonhumanSidekick: A robotic sidekick who indulges in vices from gambling to strippers and often remarks upon "his" desire to kill his friends.
* SociopathicHero: A megalomaniacal robot who is only after his personal stimulation. He is frequently shown stealing just about anything he can get his claws on, as well as indulging in all manner of other crimes and immoral behavior. A recurring joke is his apparent desire to "kill all humans." DependingOnTheWriter, however, he can also be a LoveableRogue and/or a ManipulativeBastard. At the very least, it's shown that "kill all humans" doesn't apply to Fry or (maybe) Leela and he's gone out of his way to save them.
* SpotlightStealingSquad:
** He had dozens of episodes focusing on him, whereas characters like Leela and Zoidberg only had a handful. In addition to that, almost every episode that didn't have him as the main character had him in a subplot, two of the movies had his name in the title (''Bender's Big Score'' had more to do with Fry and Leela), and the two that didn't had very long subplots involving him.
** Amy and Hermes are easily the most underused characters in the series. Season 6 tries to correct this by having one Hermes episode and two Amy episodes. The catch? Both the Hermes and one of Amy's episodes are centered on Bender.
* StrongAsTheyNeedToBe: Being a robot makes him stronger than a normal human, but exactly how strong he depends on RuleOfFunny or whatever the plot requires at the moment. On occasion, Leela is able to beat him up.
* SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids He was designed for bending struts, yet...
* TeamChef: Officially Planet Express' cook.
* TheTeamWannabe: Wanted to join the Harlem Globetrotters in "Time Keeps On Slipping".
* TheSlowPath: All backwards time travel he's done has had Bender waiting it out-see TimeAbyss.
* TimeAbyss: Due to hundreds of repeated one-way time travel, Bender would clock in at the thousands of millennia. This may be a ShoutOut to [[Franchise/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy Marvin.]]
--> '''Fry:''' "Bender! What was it like to spend a ''thousand years'' buried in the sand?!"
--> '''Bender''' ''scowling:'' "I was '''enjoying''' it 'til '''you guys''' showed up!"
** The WhatIf Christmas episode seems to indicate he can last ''500 million years.''
** YoungerThanTheyLook: Before "Roswell that Ends Well", Bender was actually the ''youngest'' Planet Express member, being built a mere three years before his first appearance. If it weren't for time travel he'd be in his late teens by the series finale.
* TinCanRobot: Looks like a robot out of the 1950s, since he's supposed to be a industrial girder-bending robot. This has the added advantage of making him durable and fairly easy to repair, to the point that he has (or can easily acquire) [[SpareBodyParts replacement arms and legs]].
* TokenEvilTeammate: Even his best friend, Fry doesn't hesitate to call him evil. Though other characters have their shady moments as well, none of them is as openly (and proudly) callous as Bender.
* TookALevelInJerkass: Later episodes, particularly in the show's UnCanceled era, increased his sociopathic tendencies, where he goes so far as to commit outright murder and at one point even damns his own son to robot hell, something that disturbs [[EvenEvilHasStandards the Robot Devil]].
--> ''Bender goes to Robot Hell to strike a deal with the Robot Devil and get his army of the damned.''
--> '''Robot Devil:''' "I rather think we could strike a deal, Bender. I shall give you your army of the damned and in return I ask just one thing, just one itty-bitty thing; your first born son! ''laughs evilly''"
--> '''Bender:''' "Jus' a sec."
--> ''In a suburban neighbourhood, Bender approaches a small robot with a blue cap and shorts on.''
--> '''Robot:''' "Daddy! I knew you'd come back!" ''Bender gives the boy a huge hug''
--> '''Bender:''' ''to the Robot Devil'' Here ya go!
--> ''Bender boots his son out of a window and into a vat of liquid which bursts into flames upon contact with the child.''
--> '''Robot Devil:''' "Wow! That was pretty brutal, even by my standards."
--> '''Bender:''' "No backsies!"
* TreasureChestCavity: He can hide all kinds of stuff inside his robot body - children, robot clowns, Fry... Recently he proved to have so much space available that a small doomsday device went off inside him and didn't damage him. But when it came to carrying around an entire castle's worth of loot he started to show difficulties.
* {{Troll}}: "Ha ha haw ha ha!... oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder. '''Haw ha ha haw ha ha!'''"
* UnsympatheticComedyProtagonist: "Bite my shiny metal ass." Most of the main cast have strong Jerkass tendencies (except for Fry and Zoidberg), but Bender is easily the worst.
* VillainProtagonist: He has committed many crimes, including outright murder.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Professor_Farnsworth_7838.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Why bother remembering anything? You're just going to forget it five minutes later."]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/BillyWest
-->Debut: ''"Space Pilot 3000"''
Fry's great-to-the-umpteenth-power nephew. An inventor whose brilliance is hindered by his old age. Owns Planet Express, and manages to get ample screentime despite never accompanying the heroes on their missions.
* AbsentMindedProfessor: Extra credit goes to the episode "A Big Ball of Garbage", where he goes to an inventors' competition, realizes the invention he brought (the death clock) is the same one he showed last year, attempts to invent the same thing again after it's pointed out to him ("I need a new invention! Perhaps some kind of death clock..."), quickly creates a new invention (the smell-o-scope) to replace it, then only hours later... "Eureka!" "You built the smell-o-scope?" "No, I remembered that I'd already built it last year!"
* {{Angrish}}: "If anyone needs me I'll be in the angry dome!"
* BadBoss: He cheerfully sends the crew to very dangerous missions. And they're not his first crew.
* BadNewsInAGoodWay: "Good News, Everyone!"
** Lampshaded in ''The Beast with a Billion Backs'':
--> '''Farnsworth''': Now, I've often said "Good News!" when sending you on a mission of extreme danger. So when I say this anomaly is "Dangerous", you can imagine how dangerous I ''really'' think it is!
* BoomerangBigot: Towards {{robosexual}}ity.
* BrilliantButLazy: "I really should do something... but I ''am'' already in my pajamas". It's more a lack of motivation than outright laziness, though.
* BunglingInventor: He has had his share of bungled inventions, including a machine that made glow-in-the-dark noses while also producing an enormous amount of unusable toxic waste. Also, he nearly destroyed the fabric of space-time by creating and then artificially aging a team of genetically engineered basketball players.
* BunnyEarsLawyer: He's undeniably crazy and unstable but also one of the best minds in the world, and possibly the universe.
* CatchPhrase:
** "[[BlatantLies Good news, everyone!]]"
** "Wah?"
** "But I ''am'' already in my pajamas" was nearly one but was discarded pretty soon.
** As was "Holy Zombie Jesus!" and "Sweet Zombie Jesus" (both of which got edited when the show was put in reruns on Creator/CartoonNetwork, most domestic and international syndicated versions, and TBS, but can be heard on ComedyCentral, FOX, and on DVD and Netflix).
** "''[[ArchEnemy WERN]]''[[ArchEnemy -STROM!]]"
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}} Thanks to his senility.
%%* ComedicSociopath:
* ConfusingMultipleNegatives: In "Roswell That Ends Well", he tells Fry that in the event that he was supposed to do anything that affects anything while in the past, "for the love of God, don't not do it!"
* CoolOldGuy: He has his moments.
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Despite being one of the protagonists. After all, the Planet Express slogan is "Our crew is expendable, your package isn't!"
* DirtyOldMan: He has his moments, though he's more insane, forgetful, mean, and lazy than lecherous, as far as old man stereotypes go.
** His first concern on being de-aged to eighty-three is to bemoan that he'll need a fake I.D. to watch "ultraporn".
* DitzyGenius: Probably the greatest scientist in the universe, but incredibly senile.
* EccentricMentor: The ''very'' few times he has a good idea, he is this.
* EvenEvilHasStandards:
** He demands they not go after Space Bee honey, considering what happened to his last crew. And the crew before that one... Assuming he wasn't using ReversePsychology. And given a recording is found of his last crew saying he'd told them they weren't as good as the crew before...
** He killed Hitler while time traveling. Though considering he had previously been in favour of saving Hitler's brain and implanting it in a Great White Shark, it's unclear if his objection was to Hitler himself or if he had some ulterior motive (like a manner of death for Hitler which left his brain in better condition).
* {{Foil}}: As Fry's closest relative, he's almost the complete opposite of him in personality; the senile, amoral mad scientist to Fry's youthful idiocy. Occasionally their differences as family members are brought up.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Melancholic
* FreudianExcuse: [[spoiler:Not to his insanity, but to his hate for his parents, which stems from the fact that they tried their hardest to deprive him of science as a child by moving to a farm. This is explained towards the end of the episode because he suffered from violent night terrors and his parents did everything they could to soothe his anguish, which included trying to under-stimulate him by moving away from the city and limiting how much research he could do.]]
* GadgeteerGenius: He ''is'' a brilliant inventor.
* GrumpyOldMan: "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go and buy a single piece of fruit with a coupon, and then return it, making everyone in line wait behind me while I complain!"
* HollywoodSatanism: It's heavily implied.
* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: In one instance, honestly seemed to believe Bender was "gentle".
* IdenticalGrandson: Or Great-Nephew. He looked an awful lot like Fry in his youth, despite being an extremely distant nephew/[[spoiler:[[MyOwnGrandpa grandson]] ]]
* ImAHumanitarian: Several episodes have suggested the Professor will, given half a chance, eat people, starting as early as the second episode, wherein he buys the corpse of a Zuban pharaoh for the purpose of eating it.
* {{Jerkass}}: He agrees when Fry describes him as a "senile, amoral crackpot". He gleefully sends the crew to very dangerous missions (many of his previous employees died because of this). The Sting shows he's sent multiple crews on the same mission and each time they died, and also implies the Professor goads said crews into going by comparing them unfavourably to his previous crew.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: He appears to share some level of friendship with the other members of Planet Express. He also cares about his clone, Cubert, treating him as though he were his biological son.
* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler: As revealed in ''Near-Death Wish'', Hubert has a younger brother named Floyd, who his parents raised so he would not end up like Hubert and end up in a mental institution for a good chunk of his life. He's never actually seen, but Bender recalls meeting a "homeless rodeo clown" named Floyd.]]
* MadeOfIron: For a man physically over one-hundred and sixty, he's amazingly durable... when the plot demands it. An exploding super-collider does no more than annoy him, for example, and the entire upper floor of Planet Express exploding doesn't do more than scratch him up a bit. However, on other occasions, his limbs can break at the slightest provocation. Or no provocation at all.
* MadScientist: [[spoiler:So mad he was sent to a mental institution for twenty-five years when he was young.]]
* MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate: Senile to the point of insanity, but mostly harmless. Has a penchant for creating doomsday devices, only keeps Amy around because she's his blood type, tries to harvest Leela's organs, is implied to be a cannibal, implanted Hitler's brain in the body of a shark, killed people for their stem cells, has been frequently cited for public nudity, and frequently, knowingly sends his crew on life-threatening adventures without warning, to the point of hiring replacements even before their demises are confirmed. In his youth, he created the modern robot, an ecological disaster.
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: After inventor Philo Farnsworth, a pioneer of television who created the first fully electronic television system.
* NoNudityTaboo: It is said that nudity is acceptable in the future, but the Professor seems to embrace his nakedness far more than other characters, [[FanDisservice to the audience's horror]]
* OhMyGods: "Buddha! Zeus! God! One of you guys do something! Help! Satan! You owe me!"
* OmnidisciplinaryScientist
-->'''Hermes:''' Professor, can you wire my brain directly into the main Battle Net?
-->'''Professor:''' I can wire anything into anything! ''I'm the Professor''!
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: When asked what field he hopes to win a Nobel Prize in, he responds "I don't care. They all pay the same".
** He has ''several'' doomsday weapons simply lying about his lab:
-->'''Farnsworth''': I suppose I could part with one and still be feared.
* OpaqueNerdGlasses: A pair of Nerd Glasses, and indeed his eyes are never seen in the series. Subverted in one episode where he needed his "reading glasses" — and put on a pair several times thicker than his already fairly enormous glasses (to the point that they looked like glass cylinders). At least somewhat of a Justified Trope: Professor Farnsworth is 160 years old. Anyone's vision would become pretty bad by that age.
* ParentalSubstitute: Implied to be this to Leela. The first two times she almost got married, he was the one to give her away.[[note]]The first time she didn't know her real father yet, the second time he couldn't because mutants aren't allowed on the surface[[/note]]
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: Though "hero" is definitely pushing the term...
** He's specieist against sygnoids, for no clear reason, and has at least one Martian's skull as a mug, dismissing their complaints about the disrespect as "whining".
** Farnsworth also has a infrequent habit of making incredibly sexist remarks, usually directed at Leela. For example, dismissing her demand to fly the ship when looking for his escaped gargoyle Pazuzu because he wasn't "trying to find the quickest route to the mall".
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld: On the surface, Farnsworth appears 80 or 90 years old but is actually in his 170's. Understandable, considering that this ''is'' the distant future.
* RetiredBadass: Although weak and scrawny now, it was shown in "Tip of The Zoidberg" when he was younger Hubert was pretty badass, as he almost singlehandedly killed a giant space yeti.
* RobotMaster: He created the robot that all modern robots are based on.
* ScrewPolitenessImASenior: He even has a "crochety grandpa discount card" (which expired, despite being good for a lifetime), and once uttered the line "I don't have time for this! I have to go buy a single piece of fruit with a coupon and then return it, making everyone wait behind me while I complain!" In fact, when he receives an award in ''Crimes of the Hot'', he is absolutely nonchalant and entitled about it.
--> "[[CrowningMomentOfFunny Thank you. I deserve this.]]"
* SeniorSleepCycle: He once fell asleep while skiing and woke up at the lodge with a bronze medal around his neck.
* SitcomArchnemesis: Ogden [[strike:Wernstrom]] '''''[[SayMyName WEEEEEEERRRRRRNSTRRROOOM!!]]'''''
* TheSpock: He has absolutely no problem sending his crew on missions to almost certain death. Unlike other examples though, this is simply due to his being insane and evil.
* TheyCalledMeMad: "Even I laughed at me when I invented this cross-species analyzer! But I guess I showed myself!"
* TokenEvilTeammate: Given his near-total lack of regard for human life and number of Doomsday devices, one could make a case for Farnsworth being this.
--> '''Leela:''' Has anybody seen Fry?
--> '''Bender''' ''(shaking his head):'' '''I''' didn't kill him. Professor?
--> '''Professor''' ''(absent-mindedly):'' No. I've been busy.
* WhatBeautifulEyes: According to Mom, although the audience [[TheUnreveal never actually sees]] what they look like under his glasses.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: John A. Zoidberg, M.D.]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Dr__Zoidberg_8742.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"You lost the woman of your dreams, but you still have Zoidberg. YOU '''ALL''' STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/BillyWest
-->Debut: ''"The Series Has Landed"''
A lobster-like alien who serves as the doctor at Planet Express, and lives in Professor Farnsworth's walrus tank (and sometimes in a dumpster out back). He's not very good at his job, and has secret ambitions to be a comedian. Unfortunately, he's not very good at comedy either. In fact, he's not very good at ''anything'' except annoying the fellow crew members. Coasts by on freeloading off others, being pitied for his ''naivete'' and occasionally being the hero.
* AmbiguouslyBi: He didn't seem to mind when he thought President Truman was coming onto him in "Roswell That Ends Well". Later in "Beast With A Billion Backs" he seems rather...interested when describing men thrusting their sweaty naked bodies against [[ItMakesSenseInContext slices of delicious cake.]]
* AmbiguouslyJewish: He fulfills many, many Jewish stereotypes but is never exactly confirmed.
* AmusingAlien: A lobster-esque alien
* AscendedExtra: Unlike Bender, who was fully expected to be the popular one, Zoidberg's popularity crept up on the show with lobster-like tenacity.
* BackAlleyDoctor: His medical credentials are questionable at best, and he regularly shows gross ignorance about human biology. His connections with the Professor are the only reason he has a position as the staff doctor, and the crew suffers for it regularly.
* BerserkButton: Zoidberg does the cutting, and you better not forget it!
** Also, don't cross him. Zoidberg is relentlessly loyal, but betray him and he'll cut you.
-->''You're lucky to have Zoidberg as a friend. But cross me, and I'll turn on you like ''that!''''
* BewareTheSillyOnes: He rivals Fry in this department. When angered, Zoidberg shows how dangerous a starving lobster monster can be when his claws can cut through metal or bone with no effort.
* BigEater: Whenever he's not rummaging through garbage cans. He destroys an entire buffet table in "Roswell That Ends Well"
* BizarreAlienBiology: He has redundant organs, ink glands, a mating crest and went through close to a dozen stages of growth in the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles". He's also got three hearts (originally four, but one was removed) and two different kinds of stomachs. He also keeps has a brain in his rump.
* BorschtBelt: As part of his role as [[SpaceJews Space Jew]], he's also a classic Borscht Belt-style comedy character.
%%* BumblingSidekick
* ButtMonkey: The most common recipient of the trope. In one episode Leela crashes the Planet Express ship through the roof. Hermes turns to Zoidberg and promptly docks his pay.
* CatchPhrase: [[Film/TheThreeStooges WOOP WOOP WOOP!]]
* TheChewToy: "Don't forget, you still have Zoidberg! YOU ALL STILL HAVE ZOIDBERG!"
* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Zoidberg is neck and neck in the running with Fry when it comes to this trope. Which makes sense, what with him being the token alien and Fry having a unique form of brain damage.
* CripplingOverspecialization:
** When it comes to medicine and surgery, Zoidberg is actually ''brilliant''... as long as he's operating on aliens or dealing with alien diseases. Unfortunately, since he's on Earth and surrounded by humans, all that knowledge is nearly useless and thus he often does more harm than good.
** In "The Duh-Vinci Code", he gets to use his doctorate for once. However, that doctorate is in art history...
** It's implied he suffered some brain damage when he was younger [[spoiler: from a Tritonian Yeti nearly biting through his skull]]; prior to that, his comments were completely rational, and afterwards he forgets what he said and is less coherent.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass:
** When he's sufficiently angered, he is capable of kicking serious ass. Isn't that right, Clamps?
** The first season alone gives Zoidberg a few moments of awesome, managing to plug a hole in a door, keeping the gang safe from the angry Trisolians, or managing to hold a heavy bulkhead door open with one claw.
* {{Cthulhumanoid}}: Though his mouth parts are smaller than those of most Cthulhumanoids in fiction.
* DeathBySex: His species apparently dies after mating season. Which leads to FridgeLogic when Fry has sex in his body and if just fine. It's possible though that like with some real world species, rather than dying directly from sex the male of his species is killed by the female.
* DesperatelyCravesAffection: No one really cares about him and is always desperate for friendship and attention.
* ExtremeOmnivore: Eats just about anything that will fit in his mouth, including a very moldy sandwich and golf balls (which he thinks are "gritty, tasteless eggs").
* FirstNameBasis: Nowadays everyone calls him by his last name, but he was quite popular with the first Planet Express crew who called him by his first name. In a FriendshipMoment at the end of "The Tip of the Zoidberg", the Professor calls him "Johnny". [[FriendshipMoment This also happens]] when [[spoiler:Carol]] is talking to Johnny and vise-versa.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Phlegmatic
* {{Flanderization}}: His original schtick was that he was an alien doctor that knew nothing about human anatomy. The later episodes have him as a poor, disgusting, incompetent mooch who serves as the show's [[ButtMonkey walking punchline]].
* FormerlyFit: According to the flashbacks in "The Tip of the Zoidberg" he used to be quite slim looking.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: He works for Planet Express but all of his co-workers hate him, though he's mostly oblivious of it. Fry and Professor Farnsworth are usually the only ones to refer to Zoidberg as a friend.
* GeniusDitz: Despite being an incompetent doctor who knows absolutely nothing about the Human Anatomy, we later find out that he IS a doctor - [[NotThatKindOfDoctor of Art History]]. What's more impressive is that there were a couple of occasions where Zoidberg actually performed operations successfully. Impressive, considering he doesn't actually have any medical training. He may not know anything about human anatomy but he is a terrific alien Doctor.
* HonorBeforeReason: As shown in the episode "The Tip of the Zoidberg", Zoidberg was a remarkably successful doctor working for Mom and could have lived a life of comfort had he stayed on her payroll. Instead, in return for the Professor saving his life from a yeti, Zoidberg decided to stay with him [[spoiler: and euthanize him in the event he contracts Hyper Malaria]], making him the poverty-stricken man he is today.
* InnocentAliens: He thinks most doctors are poor.
* IJustWantToHaveFriends:
** He cares more about friends than money or fame, as seen in "The Tip of the Zoidberg", where he remained with the Professor, his friend, instead of staying working for Mom, which could have made him rich. His decision to remain with his friend cost him a life of wealth. He doesn't seem to care (or at least, he doesn't realize his decision threw him into poverty), although he does cry from time to time over being poor.
** One episode has him spell this out explicitly. After having a bag of mob money dropped in his dumpster, he takes off to Mars Vegas (where the rest of the Planet Express crew are vacationing), sits down at the roulette table and bets his entire pot... and wins... then bets everything again and wins ''again'' (coming out to over $10,000,000,000; he started with $8,000,000) in an astonishing swing of good luck. He buys drinks for everyone, they all cheer, he sets up another spin... and loses it all in one shot. Amy admonishes his behavior, to which he responds that he's okay with it and was satisfied to make everyone around him happy, if even for a brief moment. Then he calmly stands up and walks out of the casino with dignity.
* JerkassBall: He comes off as pretty friendly and nice for the most part but he feeds off nasty things (in fact, in the video game is implied that he has eaten humans) and has taken deplorable actions: framing Fry for breaking the Professor's bottle, or [[KickTheDog severing Fry's right arm]] in a fight over a female of his species. Subverted, when he immediately felt guilty and tried to ''kill himself'' over the former, and apologized and made up for the latter.
* KickTheDog: When he severs Fry's right arm in a fight over a female of his species. After several failed attempts, he did fix the arm.
* LastNameBasis: Doctor John A. Zoidberg, known simply as Zoidberg.
* LethallyStupid: It's implied that he killed many of his patients due to incompetence.
* LetsGetDangerous: Kicks Clamps' ass in ''Silence of the Clamps'' after he threatens his job at Planet Express and is about to clamp Bender [[spoiler:or who they thought was Bender]]. And as previously mentioned, saving the Professor's life in "The Tip of the Zoidberg".
* TheMillstone: To the Planet Express crew. He is the company's doctor, but a terrible LethallyStupid doctor with no clue about how human anatomy works.
* MoralityPet: To MOM, of all people. Zoidberg is the only person she treats with genuine respect, heck they even address each other by first names and she has offered to give him his own lab fully staffed. He's also this to Robot Santa who tries to kill everyone for being naughty, except Zoidberg, who has been very good and gets a pogo stick. Seems that Zoidberg's lot in life is to be treated as a ButtMonkey by everyone except those who already treat ''everyone else'' as a ButtMonkey.
* MundaneLuxury: Given the way he lives, the simplest of things can easily be the most amazing of triumphs.
--> "What's this? Two meals in one week?"
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: TropeNamer, which somehow ''helps'' him in at least one case (robot Santa seems to consider him morally upright, despite participating in several of the gang's antics that he doesn't overlook for anyone else).
* NiceGuy: Despite his odd habits and and lack of knowledge about human anatomy, Zoidberg is one of the more morally positive characters on the show. It's been shown he's willing to sacrifice his own happiness on multiple occasions to help others. He gives up a potentially luxurious life for Farnsworth, a loving relationship with a woman in order to give her a sense of smell, and a literal fortune in order to show people a good time. Not only that but he'll risk life and limb for his friends, such as backstabbing a muderous robot Santa Claus and saving professor Farnsworth from a yeti. Not only that but Zoidberg is perhaps the only person on Earth who meets said Robot Santa's impossibly high standards for good behaviour.
* NotThatKindOfDoctor: In ''The Duh-Vinci Code'', it turns out that Zoidberg's doctorate is in art history... Though it was later established he's one of the best doctors around when it comes to alien anatomy.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Though it would be hard to guess how old he looks (He is a crab like alien after all) he's known the professor since 2927, putting him somewhere past his ''late 80s''.
* OvershadowedByAwesome: "The Cryonic Woman" shows that part of Zoidberg's lack of popularity at Planet Express is because of the presence of the much cooler Fry, Bender and Leela. When they're fired, he immediately becomes more popular.
* PerpetualPoverty: Always poor, hungry, and lonely. Something of a BelatedBackstory, as he was none of these things in the first season.
* Really700YearsOld: His multiple life-stages suggest he could be near/in the Professor's age group, if not somewhat older.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode, along with the other supporting Planet Express members (Hermes and Amy).
* SecretKeeper: [[spoiler:The real reason he stays around Planet Express is to keep watch on Professor Farnsworth, and euthanize him when he finally shows symptoms of Hyper Malaria.]]
* ShoutOut: His name is a reference to a rejected Apple II game that David X. Cohen developed in high school called ''Zoid''. (Supposedly, it was a lot like ''VideoGame/{{Qix}}''.
* SpaceJews: Played for laughs. Oy vey! This is also why his species are crustaceans -- they're not kosher.
* StrawLoser: He actually makes ''[[LoserProtagonist Fry]]'' look cool in comparison. While Fry is also cosidered a loser, at least he doesn't live in a dumpster or eat garbage, has plenty of women over the show's run (including Leela, Amy, his own grandmother, a radiator...), and despite being often the butt of the other's jokes, is actually liked by most people.
* ThirdPersonPerson: Occasionally, Zoidberg has the tendency to refer to himself in the third person, usually when gloating about something idiotic.
* TokenGoodTeammate: In "An Xmas Story" he was specifically the only member of the Planet Express Crew (and apparently ''on Earth'') who is not on Santa's naughty/target list.
* TookALevelInBadass: Zoidberg seems to have become more competent after the show moved to ComedyCentral.
* ThrowTheDogABone: [[spoiler:In the second-to-last episode ever, no less, Zoidberg gets a love interest who ''isn't'' seen off by StatusQuoIsGod at the end of the episode.]]
* UndyingLoyalty: Has become an important trait in the ComedyCentral seasons. In "The Tip of the Zoidberg", we see that the Professor was the first friend he ever had, and he swore never to leave his side [[spoiler:partly to help euthanize the Professor when his Hyper-Malaria flares up]]. In "The Six Million Dollar Mon", he holds onto Hermes' discarded body parts and restores him to normal when [[CyberneticsEatYourSoul he starts losing his humanity]], all because he thinks Hermes is a good friend (when in reality Hermes can't stand him).
-->''"Zoidberg never abandons a friend, apparently!"''
* VitriolicBestBuds: Despite the others's treatment of him, he likes to see everyone as his best friend (thinking he and Hermes are close friends, calling Fry his "dearest friend", calling Bender his "best friend", etc.) How much this is reciprocated depends on the episode; Hermes just flat-out hates Zoidberg and the others are not too fond of him but they can tolerate him at times or even treat him like a friend (like the Professor in "The Tip of the Zoidberg").
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Hermes Conrad]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Hermes_Conrad_4613.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Sweet three-toed sloth of Ice Planet Hoth!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/PhilLaMarr
-->Debut: ''"The Series Has Landed"''
A Jamaican bureaucrat who helps Farnsworth run Planet Express. Enjoys bureaucracy, unnecessary forms, and limbo.
* AlwaysSomeoneBetter: Barbados Slim, his former professional limbo rival, and La Barbara's ex-husband. "He is the only person to have won Olympic medals in both Limboing and sex."
* AnythingButThat: As a dedicated bureaucrat, paid vacation is "the ultimate penalty" to him.
* AscendedExtra: In the first season, Hermes was more of a SatelliteCharacter. Later seasons rectified this.
* BadassBureaucrat:
** In one episode he convinces a forced labor camp to let him go by organizing them so efficiently all the work can be done by one Australian man. ''Then'' he organizes a massive pile of tube cylinders. [[AwesomeMusic To a beat.]]
** In ''Bender's Big Score'', after plugging his brain into the fleet battle-computer, Hermes uses AwesomenessByAnalysis to utterly annihilate the Scammers defences in a [[CurbStompBattle matter of minutes]].
* CatchPhrase:
** "My Manwich!" Usually provoked by Bender's antics. And his son's inherited it.
** "Sweet (animal) of (location)!" Lampshaded one on occasion, where Hermes was too traumatized to bother filling in the blanks.
--->''"Sweet something of... someplace."''
** "(X subject) (Y verb/adjective) (Z simile about green snakes and sugar cane).
--->''"I'm feeling lower than a green snake under a sugar cane truck."''
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: In "The Six Million Dollar Mon", Hermes becomes addicted to upgrading himself with robotic parts. This culminates in him becoming 'Mecha Hermes,' a hulking, emotionless, DoAnythingRobot that houses his brain.
* DeadpanSnarker: He was always this, even in his debut episode.
--> '''Leela''' ''(reading the surprisingly comprehensive waiver attached to her new job application):'' Look, I don't know about your previous captains, but I intend to do as little dying as possible.
--> '''Hermes:''' ''(laughs, then turns deadly serious)'' Sign de paper.
* DreadlockRasta: A bizarre subversion. Despite being Jamaican, a Rastafarian and fond of marijuana, Hermes is an ObstructiveBureaucrat and often attempts to run Planet Express with dictatorial efficiency.
* FormerlyFit: Hermes used to be fit enough for the Olympics, until [[TearJerker a fan fatally attempted to emulate him.]] That and the munchies(though he's still great at limboing)
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Choleric
* TheGenericGuy: Tends to be this, with no real distinctive personality traits aside being very dedicated and having the universal hatred of Zoidberg. Recent episodes are attempting to give him CharacterDevelopment.
* HappilyMarried: To the beautiful La Barbara. She always goes over to her ex-husband [[TheRival Barbados Slim]] however if Hermes is not available for whatever reason (like having his head chopped off).
* HenpeckedHusband: La Barbara also scolds Dwight, their son, often.
* IrrationalHatred: Before Zoidberg was characterised as a disgusting bum, Hermes still disliked him, starting as early as the third episode, when he spat out some food he'd just been enjoying when Zoidberg said he'd made them. It grew in "Hell is Other Robots", when he begins blaming Zoidberg for the rising electricity bills, and removes several items Zoidberg enjoys and uses from the office.
* IWasQuiteALooker: He has very much gotten out of shape since his limboing days (apparently due to "the munchies"), although he's still a champion limbo master.
* {{Jerkass}}:
** He really hates Zoidberg (even more than everyone else), and often blames him regardless of whether or not he's actually done anything wrong. And should the Professor decide he's not cold-hearted enough to fire the entire crew, Hermes will do it for him, instantly.
** When Fry and Bender get drafted through their own stupidity, Hermes fires them immediately. In another episode, when Bender is crippled by a can-opened, Hermes joyfully tells him it's Hermes' dream come true.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: [[spoiler:He approved Bender on the production line even though he was defective and should have, according to regulation, been immediately destroyed. Years later, he assists Bender as he struggles with accepting his newly discovered mortality.]]
* LampshadeHanging: "Didn't we used to be a delivery company?" From the comics in particular: "'Good news, everyone!' is a registered trademark of Planet Express. The management guarantees no actual good news."
* ManChild:
-->'''Hermes:''' I think I'm coming down with circusitis. ''(sneezes -- he ends up looking like a clown)''\\
'''Leela:''' I thought circusitis only affected children.\\
'''Hermes:''' Children of ''all'' ages.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: Along with the Professor, Hermes will strip naked at the earliest opportunity for some good old fashion FanDisservice.
* NotSoAboveItAll: Hermes may come across as a driven, cold heartless bureaucrat... and he is. But he'll also jump at the chance for a day off, same as anyone else.
* ObsessedAreTheListmakers: Averted... kind of. He once stated he's only anal 78.36% of the time.
* ObstructiveBureaucrat: And he's ''incredibly proud'' of it.
--> ''"We didn't choose to be bureaucrats'' /
--> ''No, that's what almighty Jah made us'' /
--> ''We'd treat people like swine and make them stand in line'' /
--> ''Even if nobody paid us!"''
* OnlySaneMan: He often takes this role, most notably in ''Bender's Big Score'' where he's the only person to realize the crew is being scammed. He's also the most consistent critic of the incompetent Zoidberg.
* RetiredBadass: Parodied. Hermes was once an Olympic limbo champion, who retired when a young fan of his tried to imitate him, and tragically broke their spine in the attempt. A traumatised Hermes was incapable of limboing from that day forth.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode, along with the other supporting Planet Express members (Zoidberg and Amy).
* SoProudOfYou: His reaction to Dwight and Cubert's behaviour in "The Route of All Evil".
-->''Proud of you? You ruined us with sleazy business practices, and a complete disregard for decency! ... of ''course'' we're proud of you!''
* TheStoner: Heavily implied in the ComedyCentral episodes more than the FOX ones.
-->'''La Barbara:''' Husband! Can't you go anywhere without lightin' something up?
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: [[CatchPhrase "My manwich!"]]
* UglyGuyHotWife: Hermes isn't much to look at, but his wife La Barbara is quite stunning.
* VocalEvolution: Becomes noticeably hoarser from season 5 on. His voice was also much deeper in some of his earlier appearances.
* TheWonka: He once gave ''himself'' a tongue-lashing and kicked himself out of his own office for asking to take Valentine's Day off.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Amy Wong, Ph.D]]
[[quoteright:320:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Amy_Wong_5146.png]]
[[caption-width-right:320:"Spleh!"]]
-->Voiced by: Creator/LaurenTom
-->Debut: ''"The Series Has Landed"''
An "intern" working at Planet Express, though seemingly as permanent as everyone else there. Is extremely rich and spoiled. Her parents own half of Mars, which they use for buggalo ranching and a gambling paradise called "Mars Vegas".
* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Until she hooks up with Kif.
* AnimeChineseGirl: She's of Chinese descent, but she's from Mars. (Her parents own half of Mars. "The good half," so they claim.)
* AsianAirhead: Literally every male character makes note of how good-looking she is, she's richer than God, and well-liked by everyone. She acts so ditzy that it's easy to forget that she was introduced as a graduate student in applied physics (and eventually gets her PhD.)
* AsianRudeness: Though her parents are just greedy Jerkass ultra-capitalists in the same vein as Mom, regardless of race; Amy, then, because of her ultra-bourgeois upbringing is a ditzy RichBitch, though she becomes more of a JerkWithAHeartOfGold through her years at Planet Express.
* BareYourMidriff: Does this all the time. While on an ice fishing trip she even wears a ''belly parka''.
* BigEater: She was like this when she was younger. During an incident that made everybody younger, her preteen self was revealed to be chubby, and she cried when she saw herself in that state. Later, during a FreakyFridayFlip, she used the opportunity to go back to her big eater ways, and spent the episode constantly eating until she witnessed Fry and Leela [[spoiler: having sex in the bodies of Zoidberg and Farnsworth]].
* BrainlessBeauty: At times, especially in season 2.
-->'''Amy:''' Fool me seven times, shame on you, fool me eight or more times, shame on me.
* CasualKink: With Earth facing impending death (''[[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed Again]]''), Amy suggested an end-of-the-world orgy. The rest of the crew quickly lost interest, though not before Amy got changed.
* CharacterDevelopment: In early seasons Amy was mostly TheDitz, and the fact that she was also Farnsworth's intern and an intellectual was essentially an InformedAttribute, only mentioned in her introduction and in Mars University. In the post-revival seasons, Amy gets significantly more focus to highlight the fact that yes, she ''is'' a scientist and Farnsworth's partner.
%%* TheChick
* CuteClumsyGirl: Frequently falls over. In one episode Fry refers to her as "a klutz from Mars".
* TheCutie:
** She was once caught in a fire that burnt off most of Amy's hair. Her reaction? "Look! My hair got singed into an even cuter 'do!"
** She had cuteness reduction surgery in two places.
* TheDitz: A black-haired Ditz (to the point of becoming BirdsOfAFeather with [[IdiotHero Fry]] in "Put Your Head on My Shoulders"), she fails at haggling, confusing it with bidding at auctions, and flirts with all men. Bordering on GeniusDitz, since she's also an engineering student (though in one DVD commentary, the writers admitted that they'd completely forgotten that). Only after the return of the show post-cancellation, she began to be portrayed more as a...
* DitzyGenius: The series actually starts using her in plots involving her as an academic or scientist on top of plots involving her as a ditz. Even more so, now that [[spoiler:she's finished college and obtained a doctorate.]]
* DoesNotLikeShoes: Occasionally kicks her boots off in her downtime, usually while watching TV.
* EmbarrassingOldPhoto: Her 2997 employee of the year photo. Not only was she fat in that photo, it makes her hungry just looking at it.
* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Played with -- when she's first seen during the {{Introdump}} at the very beginning of ''Bender's Big Score'', she had grown her hair longer, but Bender almost immediately burps fire, burning her hair to its more familiar length.
* [[FourTemperamentEnsemble Five Temperament Ensemble]]: Sanguine
* FormerlyFat: She was very fat as a child; even her parents tease her mercilessly about it. In one episode, the main characters all revert to their childhood forms, and Amy, again overweight, becomes the butt of all her parents' childish jokes.
* GoodBadGirl: Not only was she open to dating non-humans, but in some episodes, dated creatures that weren't even humanoid. She still brags about her "general sluttiness" though.
* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Amy often speaks Cantonese, especially when angry.
* IfItsYouItsOkay: [[spoiler:With Bender in ''Proposition Infinity''.]]
* InterspeciesRomance: With Kif.
* LimitedWardrobe: Amy Zigzags the Trope. Despite having boatloads of cash from her parents to purchase any outfit she could want, Amy almost always wears the same pink tracksuit (except for formal events). When Fry points this out, she says it's because she's rebelling against her parents. However she seems to have a large variety of outfits for special occasions and parties. She even wore an outfit modeled after Jackie Onassis Kennedy in "Hell is Other Robots".
* MsFanservice: Aside from her regular pink tracksuit outfit, wear very skimpy outfit for every formal event (even a funeral) and often appears in bikini. The creators acknowledged in a commentary at one point that Amy was a sex symbol to the fans, joking that there was a fansite called Can't Get Enough Amy.
* PinkMeansFeminine: Zig-zagged. She's the girly girl to Leela's tomboy, and her default outfit is pink - but it's a tracksuit, not something feminine.
* ReallyGetsAround: At least, until she gets together with Kif.
* {{Robosexual}}: Temporarily.
* SavvyGuyEnergeticGirl: Energetic Girl to Kif's Savvy Guy.
* SecondEpisodeIntroduction: Introduced in the second episode, along with the other supporting Planet Express members (Zoidberg and Hermes).
* SlapstickKnowsNoGender: The whole reason she was created was to see if audiences would accept a female victim of slapstick. They did.
* SmarterThanYouLook: As the episode "That Darn Katz" reminds us, she IS an engineering graduate student who designs a machine to harness the rotational energy of the Earth. Also, [[spoiler:she officially gains her doctorate at the end of the episode, so she is the ultimate DitzyGenius.]]
* SpoiledSweet: Her parents own a hemisphere of Mars, but despite this, she's actually pretty nice (if a little inconsiderate and selfish at times).
* {{Stripperiffic}}: Pretty much anything she wears outside of her normal outfit.
* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: Girly Girl to Leela's Tomboy.
* TooDumbToLive: Zoidberg manages to trick her into freeing him several times in "Why Must I Be a Crustacean In Love?" (and he does it one more time before the scene ends) and a robotic food disposal almost chops off her hand in "Mother's Day" by offering her a diamond ring in the drain until the others stop her. In both scenes someone calls her a 'moron' (Bender in the former, Prof. Farnsworth in the latter).
* TotallyRadical: A 30th century version.
* UpperClassTwit: A ditzy, spoiled rich girl.
* ValleyGirl: Although a milder case than most.
* VitriolicBestBuds: With Leela. Amy frequently insults Leela at the drop of a hat, but still goes out for drinks with her (although she'll still abandon Leela to go off for "coffee" with guys), and invites Leela to her wedding.
* WellDoneDaughterGal: Sort of. In "Into the Wild Green Yonder", she reveals that she has been trying to fill the void of her father wanting a son by acting more masculine (her choice of clothing, as opposed to something more feminine, for instance).
* WorkingWithTheEx: Her and Fry dated for a while, until he dumped her in a fit of stupidity.
* WrenchWench: An engineering intern. Not that she [[PiratesWhoDontDoAnything actually does anything...]]
[[/folder]]
