Before the year 1999, no sci-fi story had ever depicted anyone quite like Bender, Futurama's
30% iron, 40% titanium and 40% zinc automaton. Of course, Bender did a whole lot of really
terrible stuff over the course of Futurama's many seasons and movies, but these have got
to be some of the absolute worst.
Relative to some of Bender's other crimes, stealing from people in need might not seem
too bad, but it's hardly great, either. The 1999 Futurama episode "Xmas Story" introduces
the show's hilariously bleak take on Christmases future. In the year 3000, Santa Claus is real,
but he's a malfunctioning robot convinced that all humans are on the naughty list, so
he spends Christmas Eve hunting down and killing any people foolish enough to leave their homes.
"Santa has something very special in his sack for you two...ho, ho, ho!"
The robots of New New York City are exempt from Santa's attacks and can do what they
want on Christmas, which for Bender means heading down to the local robot soup kitchen,
where homeless and down-on-their-luck 'bots can get a free bowl of booze.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm one of those lazy, homeless bums I've been hearing about, can you pour
me the free booze?"
After taking what's essentially food out of the mouths of essentially starving robots,
Bender convinces some other homeless robots to help him loot and rob from the city's other
inhabitants.
"It's humans! Shall we mug them, robot sir?"
"No! Wait, I know these guys! They got nothing."
Merry Christmas from Bender, everyone.
In a move that's heavily criticized by the show's women, the 2003 Futurama episode "Bend
Her" finds Bender posing as a female robot in order to complete at the 3004 Earth Olympics,
and then undergoing a surgical procedure to become a fembot permanently, so as to pull
off a number of scams. Attending the Olympics as a spectator, Bender notices that the robot
bending events are about to begin. Naturally, he decides he could have a go himself.
"Something tells me I could easily beat those trained professionals."
But after seeing what the robots in his league are capable of, Bender becomes convinced that
his late-breaking dream of Olympic glory has been dashed, until he gets the idea to game
the competition by entering the female robot bending field.
"What do you mean I'm not registered?! My name is Coilette, and I'm from, uh, Robonia."
Bender racks up a line of perfect scores and wins five gold medals for the Grand Duchy
of Robonia…but panics when he has to submit to an "engine oil check", ensuring that no
male robot winners cheated by posing as fembots.
"Oh God, I'm not gonna get my medals!"
"They're all I have to remember my Olympic career!"
In order to keep his medals, Bender asks Professor Farnsworth to perform a gender changing surgery
on him. Bender goes through with it, passes the test, and Coilette then uses her newly
acquired feminine wiles to seduce celebrity robot Calculon, so as to scam him out of a
number of expensive gifts and then marry him, so she can then divorce the guy and acquire
half his fortune. Yikes.
"Can't a girl enjoy herself without being judged?"
Futurama's 2002 episode "A Pharaoh to Remember" is driven by how Bender always lashes out
in hugely extravagant ways whenever he doesn't get the attention he thinks he deserves for
his criminal acts. In this case, those crimes involve robbing a municipal pool and stencilling
a graffiti tribute to himself. Luckily, Bender gets his chance to cement his legacy when,
after the crew delivers a giant block to an ancient Egypt-like planet, he's taken by the
planet's rulers as a slave.
"Call it a hunch, but I've got a bad feeling about this."
Later, after the planet's cruel Pharaoh is crushed, the Wall of Prophecy determines Bender
to be the new leader, mostly thanks to Bender's crude tampering with the Wall of Prophecy.
"Long live Pharaoh Bender!"
"Long live Pharoah Bender!"
"This society is a bunch of idiots."
Bender quickly takes to his new role, and cruelly forces an army of slaves to build
a 284,000 mile-high statue in his image. But then Bender fears the statue itself will overshadow
him, and orders the slaves to tear it down and build a newer, smaller one…which, predictably,
leads to a rebellion.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the Pharaoh suddenly died."
After he's overthrown, Bender is thrown into a tomb and left for dead. Luckily for him,
his last request is granted by his executioners, and his best friends get entombed with him.
"What about my servants?"
"Oh."
"Oh yeah."
"Right."
"Ahhhhh!"
It's not really much of a stretch to call Bender a narcissist. In fact, he nearly always
acts in his own self-interest and isn't exactly averse to laughing at the misfortune of others.
"Bender, honey, we love you."
"Shut up, baby, I know it."
And while he may always claim to want to "kill all humans," Bender would probably rather
just be worshipped instead. But that also means he really can't handle too much positive
attention being paid to others, either, and that's usually when he gets most violent.
In the 1999 episode "I Second That Emotion," the Planet Express gang forces Bender to get
an "empathy chip" installed following his ghastly treatment of Leela's cute pet Nibbler.
"How dare you make me feel anger, you one-eyed jerk with a dead pet! Hahaha!"
After Leela leaves on the gigantic can opener she needs to get into a barrel of food for
Nibbler, its powerful magnet sucks in Bender and tears him half to pieces.
"You killed my father and now you've come back for me."
When Bender threatens to strangle the animal, Nibbler makes good on the robot's most iconic
taunt.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
"Hey, bite my shiny metal ass."
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
"Ow, my ass!"
Unfortunately, Nibbler chips his fang while doing so. A trip to the vet garners Nibbler
some additional sympathy, which enrages Bender further, as does the birthday party the little
guy gets when the veterinarian speculates Nibbler is five years old. Bender retaliates
by making a "Bender is Great" cake…which also goes kinda badly.
Of course, that's the last straw, so Bender flushes Nibbler down the toilet.
Bender may have never achieved his desire to "kill all humans," but in the 2003 episode
"Spanish Fry," he almost caused one to lose something pretty precious. During a Planet
Express camping trip, Fry goes out hunting for Bigfoot and is subsequently abducted by
aliens.
"Wow, nice tube. Hey! Hey, what's the big idea? Stop abducting me! Why does your vanity
plate say, 'Probe 1'?"
The next morning, he stumbles back to the campsite, totally unharmed, except for the
fact that his nose is completely gone.
"Aw, I think it's sweet. You chopped off your nose so you'd look more like your hero, me,
Bender."
A news report soon reveals the real reason behind the area's recent uptick in alien abductions:
Poachers are hunting humans and chopping off their noses, or "human horns," to sell on
distant worlds as aphrodisiacs. The gang soon tracks down Fry's nose, finding that it was
purchased by recurring villain Lrr, ruler of Omicron Persei 8, who is looking to rekindle
the spark in his marriage to Ndnd. Ndnd returns Fry's nose, and Leela reattaches it with a
laser, and it seems like all's well that ends well…until Bender opens his big mouth, that
is.
"Yo, highness! Ah, just out of robo-curiosity, why would you use a guy's nose for an aphrodisiac?
Instead of his, you know, wing-dang-doodle."
Lrr reveals that he thought the human nose was in fact the phallus, and Bender helpfully
corrects him. Which goes kinda badly for Fry.
"Guards, seize him!"
"Ah!"
"Prepare to harvest the lower horn!"
Fry is ultimately spared when Lrr and Ndnd reconnect emotionally, but that doesn't change
the fact that Bender came very, very close to getting his best friend's manhood chopped
off. Then again…
"Now I'm gonna chop off my antennae!"
"Hey, yeah! Sounds good. Can I give you a hand?"
While doctors are generally well compensated for their considerable expertise, Planet Express
staff doctor John Zoidberg isn't so lucky.
"He's a weird monster who smells like he eats garbage, and does."
"Damn right."
In the 2000 episode "The Deep South," however, Zoidberg catches a lucky break. After a series
of events cause the Planet Express ship and its crew become stuck at the bottom of the
ocean, Zoidberg goes out exploring and discovers a large, luxurious shell. He decides that
this will be his new home, and that he'll make a go of life under the sea.
"What's so far-fetched about mermaids? I mean, there's all sorts of weird sea creatures here
in the future. Like Dr. Zoidberg."
Toward the end of the episode, with the ship in working order again, the crew prepares
to leave. Zoidberg says goodbye, only to discover that his beautiful shell has burned down.
"How did this happen?"
"That's a very good question."
"So that's where I left my cigar."
"That just raises further questions!"
Of all the people who needed their house burning down the least, Zoidberg has to be top, so
Bender destroying the lobster's new shell through outright carelessness seems like a
major low point.
After an unusually profitable period of business, Professor Farnsworth pays for some upgrades
to the Planet Express ship in 2002's "Love and Rocket," including the addition of a flirty,
female-voiced AI.
"If you don't like the stations, you can just play with my buttons 'til you find something
we both enjoy."
Bender quickly falls in love with the ship, she falls even harder for him, and then almost
immediately, Bender grows bored with the relationship and cheats on the ship with a series of what
he calls "cheap floozies on the side", as well as the preserved head of Lucy Liu.
"Who are you talking to?"
"No one, baby. Lucy Liu is the only girl for Bender."
"I love yo-"
Naturally, the ship gets jealous and clingy as Bender lies about his affairs and remains
aloof. Not only does Bender treat the AI poorly, but he unceremoniously dumps her and sends
her into an emotional meltdown…right in the middle of an Omicronian fleet's attack
on the delivery vessel and its crew. This sends the ship into both physical and emotional
free-fall. Bender, however, is no worse for wear.
In 2011, "Benderama" nearly saw Bender fulfill his casual mission statement to "kill all
humans." But it actually went down completely by accident, merely the end result of an entirely
different deplorable action committed by the robot.
In this episode, Professor Farnsworth invents a duplication machine which creates two perfect,
although smaller, copies of an object. As Farnsworth grows ever older, he grows colder
and smaller, so he uses the device to create two smaller sweaters he can wear simultaneously.
The Professor asks Bender to fold those new sweaters, and the robot agrees, but not without
a little whining, first.
"Razza frazza...do things. Ooo, razza frazza duplicator."
Hoping to get out of any more chores, Bender uses the duplicator to make two tiny Benders,
and orders them to fold the sweaters. Obviously, they refuse, and instead choose to join Bender
in living his best life.
When they are later asked to do another minor task, the little Benders do just what they're
bound to do, and create clones of themselves to do it for them. Eventually, the clones
keep duplicating and adding up, getting progressively smaller with each generation.
Now, robots need alcohol for fuel, and the many Benders quickly consume the world's entire
supply of alcohol. After this, the microscopic Bender clones get to work converting water
molecules into alcohol…which gets every living thing on Earth absolutely hammered.
It all turns out okay in the end, but not without a little trouble first.
"Blender, you're the only one who's sober. You gotta do somethin'!"
"Haven't I done enough already?"
Let's face it: Bender is no role model. Nobody should imitate the things he does; he's a
selfish, callous, calculating madman who manipulates his friends and the world at large alike to
serve his various destructive whims. But he's also hilarious, and can likely be counted
as the most memorable character on Futurama, a show chock-full of memorable characters.
But is there a danger in placing someone like Bender up on the pedestal that is television?
Will people naturally imitate and emulate anyone they see on TV just because they find
them funny? Well, that's the question behind the 2003 episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed
on TV."
During this episode, Bender lands a role on his favorite robot soap opera, All My Circuits,
and quickly becomes a breakout star by essentially playing himself: a singing, booze-guzzling,
cigar-smoking petty thief.
"We need this edgy, sweeps-ready robot on our network. Bender, can you continue to drink,
smoke, and steal things on TV?"
"Yes I can."
The show surges in popularity, especially as more and more kids start to watch, transfixed
by Bender's antics. In the wake of this, nearly all the show's recurring child characters
end up trying to break stuff, abuse people, mouth off, and smoke...just like Bender. Much
like Bender himself, however, Dwight, Cubert, and Tinny Tim soon find themselves angling
for a bigger score, so they rob Bender, leading him to start a crusade to get himself off
television.
Although he'll probably tell you otherwise, Bender isn't actually great at everything.
"What?"
Take his cooking, for example. Bender dreams of becoming a renowned chef, but every time
he tries to make a meal for the Planet Express crew, it goes horribly, horribly wrong.
"The pie is ready! You guys like swarms of things, right?"
Nevertheless, he persists, harboring a borderline obsession with four-armed restaurateur and
celebrity chef Elzar. In the 2000 episode "Bender Gets Made," Bender, Fry, and Leela
get to attend a taping of Elzar's TV cooking show. Bender is amped, but his enthusiasm
quickly becomes obnoxious for everyone else.
"Bender, please try to be a little quieter."
"No, you shut up."
While making Down-Home Neptune-Style Gumbo, Elzar decides to "knock it up a notch" with
a blast from his spice weasel. Bender, of course, wants him to kick it up yet another
notch, and Elzar reluctantly agrees. And then this happens.
"I gotta get this notch up knockin' up on film! Hey Elzar, think fast!"
"Wha-huh?"
"Ow! My eye!"
Leela, of course, is then blinded for the rest of the episode.
"Ahahahahahahaha! Oh wait, you were serious. Let me laugh even harder. AHHHHAHAHAHAHA!
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