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Template:Futurama character Bender, full name Bender Bending Rodríguez and designated Bending Unit 22, is a fictional robot character in the animated television series Futurama. He is voiced by John DiMaggio. In the series, Bender plays the role of a comic anti-hero, and is described by Turanga Leela as an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking gambler". He was built in Mexico and is said to possess a "swarthy Latin charm" despite not having a Latin accent. He is also prejudiced against non-robots.

Role

Bender serves as one of the crew members hired by Hubert J. Farnsworth to deliver goods for Planet Express. He is one of Fry's closest friends, though the relationship is often one sided. Bender is a heavy drinker, smoker, and gambler and has been known as "pure evil". He also constantly steals, ranging from the petty theft of wallets to much higher crimes like kidnapping Jay Leno's head due to their long feud and stealing Fry's blood.

Bender is a robot built by Mom's Friendly Robot Company at its plant in Tijuana, Mexico, circa 2996. He is a Bending-Unit 22, serial number 2716057, and chassis number 1729. He was created for the task of bending metal girders for the construction of suicide booths. Bender attended Bending State University, where he majored in Bending and minored in Robo-American studies. He was also a member of Epsilon Rho Rho ('ΕΡΡ' is shown as 'ERR' in the episode Mars University) (a.k.a. Robot House), a robot fraternity. While different creation processes have been shown, David X. Cohen stated that the viewer has only been shown Bender emerging from the machine that created him, while what happened inside the machine was not revealed.

Bender is shown throughout the series as having a secret desire to be a folk musician that only manifests itself when a magnet is placed near his head (the magnet causes him to sing folk songs by "screwing up his inhibition unit"). This desire is finally fulfilled in the episode "Bendin' in the Wind": an accident involving a giant can opener leaves Bender paralyzed from the neck down, and an encounter with Beck during his hospitalization leads to the two teaming for a musical tour that turns Bender into a folk hero for other broken robots.

Bender is also fascinated with cooking, though he is shown to have no sense of actual human taste, creating a dinner for the crew that is so disgusting they gag. He responds by telling them that the salt content is just below lethal so they should not have an issue (Dr. Zoidberg remarks that he shouldn't have had seconds). In "The Problem with Popplers", he creates dinner consisting of nothing but capers and baking soda, and expresses the belief that humans eat rocks. He seems to improve his cooking skills over the series, cooking a lavish cake for Nibbler's birthday party and beating Elzar for the title of Iron Cook (though he uses a potion called "The Essence of Pure Flavor," consisting of water and a generous portion of LSD to make the judges hallucinate that his food tastes good).

As a robot, Bender possesses an incredible amount of patience. In the series and movies, he is shown to wait over a thousand years in sand, and many thousands of years in subterranean caverns under New York. Despite the long wait, it is suggested that Bender does not power down, apparently enjoying his own company so much that he does not consider it necessary.

Bender's constant drinking stems from the fact that he needs alcohol to power his fuel cells; the process produces waste gases and heat, which he often expels as a flaming belch. If Bender is deprived of alcohol, for instance during periods of depression, he ceases to function properly and rusts around the mouth, producing the unshaven look of a human after an alcohol bender. In addition to consuming alcohol for energy, he also has a nuclear pile, as seen in "Godfellas". When he is sufficiently frightened or sickened, bricks fall from his backside (a reference to the slang "shitting bricks"), as seen in "Space Pilot 3000", The Beast with a Billion Backs and "Bendin' in the Wind". When sufficiently fascinated by something, he may pull out a camera and snap a picture, adding the catchphrase "Neat!" In addition to drinking, Bender also has an affinity for cigars. Unlike drinking alcohol for fuel, Bender tells Fry that he smokes cigars because they "make me look cool."

Despite being a robot, Bender has been seen to show emotion on many occasions, going so far as to shed a tear in "Crimes of the Hot", to the astonishment of Fry. One of the series' running jokes revolves around Bender having emotions, while technically he should be unfeeling. In the second Anthology of Interest, Bender proclaims, "I mean, being a robot's great but we don't have emotions and sometimes that makes me very sad". Bender can perform many functions that are often regarded as exclusive to humans, such as whistling, having bloodshot eyes, being tickled, and dreaming. Despite these anthropomorphic characteristics, he can function in the vacuum of space, in the deep sea, or while submerged in lava for a short period. Bender is a classic narcissist, as seen in "The Farnsworth Parabox" when he falls in love with an alternate gold plated version of himself, stating that he has finally found someone "as great as me". In Bender's Big Score he converses with time-duplicates of himself under New New York in a limestone cavern for thousands of years because he is so in love with himself. Despite these human characteristics, Bender has no detectable soul, as seen in "Obsoletely Fabulous" when he passes through a 'soul detector' without an alarm sounding.

Bender's family is rarely seen in the show. However, it is known that his mother was a mechanical robot manufacturing arm, and his grandmother was a bulldozer. It is also revealed that Bender has a young son who he willingly sent to Robot Hell in exchange for a robot army provided by the Robot Devil in The Beast with a Billion Backs. He also has an Aunt Rita, a screw.

Bender's relationships with the crew of Planet Express vary from person to person, although he treats nearly all biological organisms with disdain. The only one of his friends who he has openly shown affection for is Fry, his best friend and roommate. Although he is verbally and physically abusive towards Fry and considers him to be vastly inferior to himself, he has been shown to care for him a great deal. In Jurassic Bark he states that he loves Fry "the way a human loves a dog". He routinely takes advantage of his friends, framing them for crimes, robbing them, stealing Fry's blood on more than one occasion, using Fry's body to smash open a window, flushing Leela's pet Nibblonian Nibbler down the toilet, stealing jewelry from Amy, and using Zoidberg in various get-rich-quick schemes, although it is probable he doesn't consider Dr Zoidberg a friend since in "Obsoletely Fabulous" Bender begged the 1X Robot to "save his friends...and Zoidberg." He even betrays Leela to Zapp when she becomes a wanted criminal out of jealousy of her steadily growing rap sheet in Into the Wild Green Yonder, only to break her out of prison to make sure his own rap sheet is longer than hers. Although he regularly frustrates the group, they have demonstrated a certain affection for him as well; during "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" the entire crew travelled to the Central Bueraucracy to recover his brain after Morgan Proctor downloaded it onto a disc and sent it away, Hermes Conrad subsequently risking his bureacratic license to locate the disc with Bender's brain on it by sorting the entire pile in just under four minutes.

Bender is known for his catchphrase "Bite my shiny metal ass", which he uses nearly every episode throughout the series and sometimes varying the phrase. Bender also has the catchphrases "Boned" and "Cheese it!".

Bender's metallurgical composition is occasionally mentioned, and he has inconsistently claimed in various instances to be some combination of 30% Iron, 40% Titanium, 40% Lead, 40% Zinc, and 40% Dolomite (impossibly totaling 190% of his composite material). His titanium composition is confirmed in "A Head in the Polls", in which he sells his body during a titanium shortage. His dolomite composition is supported in "Jurassic Bark" when he survives a swim through a pool of magma, which the Professor suggested was only possible for objects made of this mineral. In "A Pharaoh to Remember", Professor Farnsworth revealed that Bender has a .04% Nickel impurity. In further mathematically incorrect contrast to his metal components he is described as made from an osmium alloy, which would then be exceeding 40%. In Into the Wild Green Yonder, Bender claims to have 40% luck as well. Luck could coexist with his other concrete composite materials since it is immaterial, thus not adding to his previous inconsistency.

Due to complications in the episode "Roswell That Ends Well" Bender's head is 1055 years older than the rest of his body, and since "Bender's Big Score", Bender's age is possibly millions of years.

Character

Creation

The name Bender was chosen by series creator Matt Groening as an homage to the character John Bender from The Breakfast Club. The design for Bender went through multiple changes before reaching its final state. One of the decisions which Matt Groening found to be particularly difficult was whether Bender's head should be square or round. Initially he worked under the idea that all robots would have square heads in 3000; however, it was later decided that Bender's head should be round, a visual play on the idea that Bender is a "round peg in a square hole". Bender's antennae, which would have been positioned in place of his ears, were also changed to give him a more streamlined appearance. Groening later states in commentary for the episode "Crimes of the Hot" that the robot built by Professor Farnsworth in that episode is very similar to the original design for Bender.

Casting

When casting for Futurama, Bender's voice was the most difficult to cast, in part because the show's creators had not yet decided what a robot should sound like. Because of this, every voice actor who auditioned, no matter for what character, was asked to also read for Bender. After about 300 auditions, series co-creator David X. Cohen even attempted to audition after being told he sounded like a robot. John DiMaggio was eventually chosen for the role after his second audition. He originally auditioned using his Bender voice for the role of Professor Farnsworth and used a different voice for Bender. DiMaggio has noted that he had difficulty singing as Bender in "Hell Is Other Robots" because he was forced to sing the harmony part in a low key.

Reception and cultural influence

Bender (being the show's breakout character) has made several cameos in different episodes of The Simpsons, another series by Matt Groening. Within The Simpsons, Bender has appeared in episodes "Future-Drama", "Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade", and "Missionary: Impossible". He also appears as one of the enemies, along with Doctor Zoidberg, in The Simpsons Game, and as one of the customers in the Mos Eisley cantina in the Family Guy movie "Blue Harvest".

In 2008, Bender took second place behind the Terminator in a poll for the "Baddest Movie Robot" on Techradar.com.

A reference to Bender is made as a cameo in the 2008 release of Firefox 3.0. When about:robots is typed into the address bar, a page displays the Firefox robot and references to pop culture robots, the last stating: "Robots have shiny metal posteriors which should not be bitten."

Bender is currently nominated for the Robot Hall of Fame.

External Links

Bender's Nomination Link at the Robot Hall of Fame he is metal and not good

References

1. Crimes of the Hot
2. "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV"
3. Cohen, David X (2003). Futurama season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" (DVD). 20th Century Fox. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
4. http://www.imsdb.com/transcripts/Futurama-Anthology-Of-Interest-II.html
5. "Intellectual Names". Sci-Fi Baby Names: 500 Out-of-this-world Baby Names from Anakin to Zardoz. p. 119.
6. ^ Sterngold, James (2008-06-10). "Bringing an Alien And a Robot to Life; The Gestation of the Simpsons' Heirs". New York Times.
7. Groening, Matt (2003). Futurama season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Crimes of the Hot" (DVD). 20th Century Fox.
8. Cohen, David X (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "Space Pilot 3000" (DVD). 20th Century Fox. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
9. Cohen, David X (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "The Series Has Landed" (DVD). 20th Century Fox. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
10. Dimaggio, John (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "Space Pilot 3000" (DVD). 20th Century Fox. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
11. Dimaggio, John (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "Hell Is Other Robots" (DVD). 20th Century Fox. {{cite AV media}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
12. TechRadar staff (2008-06-10). "Baddest movie robot: the votes are in!". Retrieved 2008-06-10. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)

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