While creator Matt Groening is best known for another little animated series he started
working on in the '80s, many fans would argue that "Futurama" is his true magnum opus.
Here are some of the darkest "Futurama" fan theories that you'll never be able to unlearn.
In "Parasites Lost," the fourth episode of Season 3, Fry's legendary appetite gets the
better of him.
Despite Leela's objections, the dimwitted delivery boy gets down with a questionable
sandwich from a space gas station, and predictably, he finds his insides crawling with parasitic
worms.
Fortunately for Fry, these worms aren't concerned with causing indigestion and diarrhea; instead,
they immediately get to work establishing a society and improving their host body.
"Of all the parasites I've had over the years, these worms are among the...oh, hell, they
are the best!"
The worms tone Fry's muscles, turning him into a shredded god, and wire new synaptic
connections in his brain.
Their work bestows the lowly delivery boy with super intelligence and the ability to
play the maddeningly difficult holophonor — a musical instrument that projects holographic
images when expertly played.
The new Fry even catches Leela's eye, though he ultimately becomes concerned that Leela
only loves him for his parasites.
In true "Futurama" fashion, Fry is cured of his helpful parasites by the end of the episode,
but one fan theory suggests this wasn't the end of the story — at least, not for Fry.
According to this dark theory, the parasites left a hole in Fry's soul — the understanding
of his true potential.
Proponents of this theory argue that you can see a marked change in Fry's behavior from
this point in the series on.
Forever haunted by the brief glimpse of personal success that the parasites offered, Fry becomes
less irresponsible and more committed to self-improvement to make himself once again worthy of Leela.
The last scene of the episode lends some credence to this theory.
In that moment, Fry is seen sitting by himself with a holophonor, attempting a rudimentary
melody that projects a sloppy portrait of Leela.
It's a sad story, since Fry never again achieves the heights of success afforded him by the
worms.
If you've only seen a few episodes of "Futurama" here and there, you might have a hard time
imagining that Bender Bending Rodriguez was ever anything other than the foul-mouthed,
beer-swilling, flatulent robot that we've all come to know and love.
But what if that roguish personality on display for 139 of the show's 140 episodes was nothing
more than a run time error?
According to one disturbing theory, Bender just wasn't the same robot before his happenstance
meeting outside the suicide booth with Philip J. Fry in the show's very first episode.
When the two future roommates first met in the pilot, they were both on the verge of
dying — Bender by intention, and Fry by mistake.
We learn in the course of their meet-cute that Bender used to help make suicide booths
by bending the metal girders used in their construction.
This sad, blue collar bending robot willing to take his own life out of shame for the
moral repugnance of his profession is a bit of a departure from the Bender who signs up
to crew Professor Farnsworth's delivery ship.
So, what changed?
According to one fan theory, the big shift happened just moments later, when Bender is
electrocuted in The Head Museum's Hall of Criminals.
After that shock, Bender seems much more willing to bend the rules, pun intended, and go along
with Fry's escape plan while they run from the cops.
The theory suggests that this one shock was enough to reboot Bender's entire personality.
We actually see a version of this play out in a later episode, when Bender is rebooted
as a result of trauma from a killer whale attack.
That reboot makes Bender act like a penguin, suggesting that his surroundings at the time
of reboot actually do impact his personality algorithm.
Zapp Brannigan is one of the most memorable secondary characters on "Futurama."
When the bumbling starship captain was first introduced, he was little more than a one-dimensional,
self-aggrandizing buffoon — a satire of characters like William Shatner's James Kirk,
original captain of the Starship Enterprise.
That all changes on subsequent episodes, however, as the character accrues significant depth
across several intersecting missions with the Planet Express crew.
He gains so much depth, in fact, that some fans have theorized that some of his behavior
may be explained by PTSD.
This dark theory weaves together several disparate pieces of Brannigan's slowly unfolding backstory
into a tapestry of woe.
The canonical "Futurama" comics help explain some things, by establishing that Brannigan
was the greatest military recruit the Democratic Order of Planets had ever seen.
He was so gifted, in fact, that scientists hoped to make him into an army by cloning
him.
The experiment was botched, leaving Brannigan as a sex-crazed, junk food-craving, diminished
version of his former self.
His early successes help explain why he was able to rise through the ranks despite the
experiment gone wrong, but then things seem to take a darker turn.
According to Zapp himself, his crowning military achievement came when he vanquished the Killbots
by making the decision to send every single one of his soldiers into battle simultaneously,
thus overwhelming the Killbots' programming.
Such a gutsy surge tactic likely came with substantial human casualties, a cost that
this theory suggests has haunted Zapp ever since.
Tortured by the post-traumatic stress of losing so many men, Brannigan's already self-destructive
tendencies only got worse.
So, we got a formerly great soldier who became a formerly great captain, a shell of his former
self more concerned with women and food than he is with service.
It's hard to laugh at a serious psychological disorder like PTSD, so we really hope this
theory isn't true, but we'd be lying if we said it doesn't make a lot of sense.
Of all the Futurama fan theories out there in the multiverse, this one is definitely
the darkest.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Looper videos about your favorite TV shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.