Futurama is a show that grounds itself in the absurd, and the inhabitants of the year
3000 tend to play by different rules to the rest of us. Still, there have been
a few occasions on which the cast of Futurama have crossed a line — even by their standards.
Lying in order to avoid punishment is an ill-advised but understandable indiscretion.
And it's certainly something of an overreach when Planet Express'
robotic ne'er-do-well Bender tells authorities on
Chapek 9 that he personally slaughtered a million billion humans to avoid their wrath.
In Season 1's "Fear of a Bot Planet," a delivery to the zealously anti-human
Chapek 9 goes south when Bender is arrested for his association with Earthlings.
Diabolical monster that he is, Bender exaggerates his history of mass murder in order to exploit
the population's bigotry and propel himself to celebrity status. Of course, Bender is a liar
who hasn't killed a million billion humans. In fact, most of the stories about humankind that he
tells the gullible mechanical citizens of Chapek 9 are lifted from vampire and werewolf legends.
"Is it true they bite your neck and suck your transmission fluid and then you become a human?"
"Sure, why not."
Ultimately, Bender drops the act to rescue his co-worker pals Fry and Leela from
execution at the hands of the Council of Robot Elders. Once the Chapek 9 robots realize that
the human Fry and the human-ish Leela have brought a large box of precious lug nuts,
they abandon their anti-human bigotry. But it's fair to say that, had Bender had been
left to his own devices, things might have turned out more than a little badly.
Lock up your pets, folks — Bender Bending Rodriguez is in town.
Season 4's "Jurassic Bark" sits atop many lists of Futurama's best episodes,
and for good reason. It's the heartwarming tale of Fry discovering the fossilized remains
of his 20th century canine companion, Seymour. Ultimately, Fry decides against bringing Seymour
back via cloning to join him in the 31st century. Before Fry comes to that decision,
however, Bender throws the fossilized pup into a nearby lava pit in a fit of violent jealousy.
And sure, Bender pulls the pooch out of danger once he realizes he's totally destroyed Fry's
soul by giving in to misguided envy. But still, what kind of demented sociopath tries to off a dog
with molten lava? Even when you take into account the fact that robots don't have souls, this is a
pretty crummy thing to do. And it's hardly the first time Bender's eyes have turned green,
too: for similar reasons, he flushes Nibbler town a toilet in Season 2's "I Second That Emotion."
"Aren't you upset at all? How would you feel if I flushed Fry down the toilet?"
"Only one way to find out."
What else can you say? The dude really hates pets.
Bender's an amoral kleptomaniac on the best of days, but his friendship with Fry makes
him look more like a lovable rascal… most of the time, at least. Sometimes, it simply
provides Bender with a rationalization for his most overtly supervillain-ish machinations. .
At the conclusion of the 2008 special The Beast With A Billion Backs,
Bender finds himself resenting Fry for spending so much time with Yivo, a space god who is also
romancing every living creature in the universe at once. Outraged, Bender travels to Robot Hell
to recruit an army of demon robots to rise up and conquer Earth. The Robot Devil says no dice on an
army, unless Bender trades his first-born child — a deal that Bender really has no problem with.
"Wow, that was pretty brutal even by my standards."
"No backsies."
When Bender springs his unholy invasion, Fry informs him that all living creatures are moving
off their planets to live on Yivo's head, which is the basis for humanity's conception of Heaven.
Not long after, still missing Fry, Bender leads his army of the damned to raze Heaven.
In the end, Bender's invasion spurs Yivo to break up with the universe,
cruelly tearing every living thing away from its blissful salvation. In short? Not cool, Bender.
How far would you go to keep your pride? How about the pride of your entire home
planet? In Season 3's "Time Keeps On Slippin'," the Harlem Globetrotters
fly in from the Globetrotter homeworld to challenge Earth to a basketball game.
"What happens if we lose?"
"Nothing! There's nothing at stake and no threat, beyond the shame of defeat."
Of course, you wouldn't expect this to bother Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth.
As the owner of Planet Express and the man directly responsible for the appalling and
needless deaths of numerous ex-employees, he should already be completely numb to shame.
Rather than allow a ragtag squad of Earthlings to graciously lose an exhibition game,
Farnsworth sends Fry, Leela, and Bender to the far reaches of the galaxy to collect unstable
chroniton particles. Upon their return, he exposes baby mutant supermen to the ominous materials in
order to age them into an adult basketball team in an insanely brief period of time.
But Farnsworth's reckless and bafflingly unnecessary behavior
causes massive damage to the time-space continuum. The linear sequence of events
begins flashing forward at unpredictable intervals, imperiling the very matrix of reality.
Luckily, Farnsworth proves more than capable of undoing his own mistake. He and the Globetrotters
join forces and eventually figure out a solution, bringing space-time back to normal.
You'd hope he'd have learned his lesson after that, but come on — let's not kid ourselves.
In the highly partisan era in which we live,
plenty of folks will relate to Zapp Brannigan's unhinged contempt for the concept of neutrality.
"With enemies you know where you stand, but with neutrals? Who knows? It sickens me."
In Season 2's "Brannigan, Begin Again," Zapp's hatred for neutrality spills over
into delusional paranoia. The Democratic Order of Planets invites Zapp as the guest of honor
at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new DOOP headquarters in the Neutral Zone. But
when the Planet Express crew arrives to deliver the oversized novelty scissors Zapp needs to
perform his ribbon-cutting duties, Zapp arrests them immediately on suspicion of neutrality.
Because committing civil rights violations against the Planet Express crew
proves time-consuming and distracting, Zapp decides to save himself a few minutes by using
his spaceship's laser — set to "Hyperdeath" mode — to cut the DOOP HQ ribbon from space.
And so concludes the brief but noteworthy existence of the new DOOP headquarters.
"Whoopsie daisy."
Zapp's entire presence on Futurama depends on him making breathtakingly poor choices
that force the folks around him to mop up his messes. But blowing up DOOP HQ for essentially
no reason at all is going much too far, even with his track record of senseless mayhem.
The version of Richard Nixon who appears in Futurama might not be as rotten as the actual
37th president of the United States, but his capacity for destruction is still very impressive.
In Season 2's "A Head in the Polls," Richard Nixon decides to get back in the political game
and run for president of Earth. Like many other celebrities and historical figures
in the 31st century, Nixon's existence is limited to that of a floating head in a jar,
due to the decomposed condition of his old body. Much of the episode's story revolves around
Nixon's technically legal use of Bender's robot body. But once Bender reclaims his torso, arms,
and legs, Nixon simply acquires a much larger body equipped with devastating weapons systems.
"Nixon's back!"
This Gundam-esque Nixon locks down the robot vote and becomes the new president of Earth.
Still bitter and crazy from his infamous near-impeachment and resignation over the
Watergate scandal, Nixon embarks upon a rampage of death and destruction
throughout the city of Washington D.C. The nation of Earth may never fully recover.
When a man lives his first 20-something years as a dangerously broke pizza delivery technician,
he's bound to cut loose if his luck ever swings in the opposite direction.
So it's understandable why Fry shamelessly flaunts his wealth when the interest on
his thousand-year-old bank account makes him a billionaire in Season 1's "A Fishful of Dollars."
Now, plenty of people will tell you that taxidermy is in pretty poor taste, and collecting skeletons
really isn't much less creepy. And sure enough, when Fry pays $10,000 at an auction for the
skeleton of stalwart television actor Ted Danson, you've got to admit he's kind of crossing a line.
Fry's newfound ocean of cash and pre-existing '90s nostalgia coalesces
into a turn of events that introduces the evil company known as MomCorp.
Danson's bones are only mentioned in a one-off gag, as Fry says he needs them because he's got
an idea for a sitcom. But the fact that Fry thinks treats the remains of a once-living
person like this demonstrates exactly how far down the rabbit hole he has fallen.
Anyone will tell you how much it sucks to miss out on the finale of your favorite show.
But when Lrrr, ruler of the planet Omicron Persei 8, is prevented from watching the last episode
of Single Female Lawyer after a technical glitch on Earth, he overreacts just a tad.
"I'm beginning to think there'll be no forced mating at all."
The trajectory of events depicted in Season 1's "When Aliens Attack" is set in motion before
the opening credits. As Fry often ends up at the center of universe-altering events in Futurama,
it tracks that he was the one who spilled beer on the late-'90s Fox control panel,
eventually cutting off the broadcast Omicronians who are watching 1,000 light years away.
To extract his revenge and enforce his will, Lrrr swoops down to Earth
and immediately destroys the Eiffel Tower, the Great Sphinx of Giza, the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
and other prominent Earth landmarks. He pulls off all that in pretty rapid succession, too,
though that's mostly because they've all been relocated to the same beach in New New York.
Independence Day, eat your heart out. Anyway, Lrrr gets to see his program by the episode's end,
mostly thanks to a little creativity by the Planet Express crew. Talk about a temper tantrum, though.
Over time, societies change, and behaviour considered taboo in one era might be
acceptable during another. But there are some things that cross a line no matter
where or when you come from. Graverobbing definitely belongs in that category,
especially if that grave belongs to a family member.
In Season 3's "The Luck of the Fryrish," Fry is horrified to discover a 21st century man named
Philip J. Fry — who looks just like him — took possession of his long-lost seven-leaf clover.
Worse still, this imposter apparently became a globally-famous astronaut and rock star.
Fry assumes this paragon of human achievement must be his brother Yancy, who would've had access to
the clover and knowledge of its near-supernatural powers. While in the process of digging up what he
thinks is his elder sibling's corpse, however, Fry notices the gravestone's inscription.
"Here lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit."
This happens just in time for Bender to break open the coffin and snag the lucky clover.
It's an embarrassing mix-up, to be sure, but it's also a lesson to the rest of us that grave-robbing
is kind of a no-no… no matter what your robotic best friend might tell you.
Fry transgresses the boundaries of decency in a whole new way in Season 3's "Roswell That
Ends Well." In this episode, Fry accidentally sends the Planet Express ship back to the 1940s,
where it crashes in Roswell, New Mexico. Plenty of hijinks ensue: Zoidberg gets vivisected,
Farnsworth and Leela go shopping, and Bender becomes… whatever this is. But Fry's dalliance
with history is the most impressive of all. During his relatively short time in the past,
Fry manages to accidentally kill his grandfather, deliberately sleep with his grandmother, and
accidentally impregnate her with the fetus that eventually becomes Fry's father, Yancy Fry Sr.
The events of this episode reverberate throughout the mythology of Futurama. In fact, Fry's status
as his own grandfather is, unbeknownst to everyone but Nibbler, the real reason why he's in the
future in the first place. The alterations made to Fry's brain by doing the nasty in the pasty
later makes him the ideal candidate to defeat the evil species known as brain-spawn and save
the entire universe. It also makes him a total doofus, but hey — you win some, you lose some.
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