Bender (Futurama)

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Bender Bending Rodriguez

Bender Bending Rodriguez (known simply as Bender) is a fictional sapient robot in the Futurama animated cartoon television series.

Turanga Leela described Bender as an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain smoking gambler", which largely sums up his personality. He curses, fights, argues, smokes cigars (to make himself look cool), reads robot pornography (in the form of circuit diagrams), constantly demands attention and praise from everyone around him, and is a kleptomaniac who snatches wallets and other valuables at every opportunity.

Though it also refers to his occupation, the name Bender is a reference to John Bender, the rebel stoner played by Judd Nelson in the John Hughes film The Breakfast Club. It may also be a pun on a drinking binge, noting his gluttonous consumption of booze.

Bender was built in the Mom's Friendly Robot Company plant in Tijuana, Mexico, circa 2998 AD. He is a Bender - Unit 22. As his name indicates, he was created for the task of bending metal girders. On December 31, 2999, Bender was waiting in line to use one of New New York City's public suicide booths (he claimed he couldn't go on living when he found out that the girders he bent were used for suicide booths) when he met Philip J. Fry, a pizza delivery boy from the 20th century who'd just been revived from cryogenic stasis earlier that day. After meeting Fry, Bender decided to put off killing himself until later and ended up getting a job with Fry and Leela at Planet Express, an intergalactic package delivery business.

Despite his vices and macho posturing, Bender has several tender traits, such as his semi-secret aspirations to be a cook or a folk singer as well as a soft spot for turtles and penguins. He has also shown affection towards orphans and shed a tear during the soap opera tribute to himself from Calculon. He shares an apartment with his human friend Fry, who said he always wanted a robot for a best friend when he was growing up in the 20th century. Magnets placed close to his head tend to screw up his equilibrium and inhibitions.

Notable events in Bender's life include his birth (which he remembers), his previously mentioned hiring at Planet Express, and a brief stint as pharaoh of the planet Osiris IV. Bender has met an intergalactic superintelligence which may or may not have been God. He also cheated his way to five gold medals in the Earth Olympics.

Bender is voiced by John DiMaggio.

Hardware

Bender drinks alcohol on a regular basis because, like many robots on Futurama, he uses it as fuel. If he doesn't drink, he becomes disoriented and grows a beard of rust. While alcohol is his primary fuel source, he is also capable of processing mineral oil and dark matter. He is also equipped with a nuclear pile, the effectiveness of which is unknown.

His limbs and eyes are extendable and detachable, and he has a cavity in his chest that seems to afford limitless space to store his beer, loot, and whatever dials or buttons he requires for a gag in a given episode (see magic satchel and hammerspace).

He claims to have a total of eight senses, known to include vision in the human ranges, hearing and "smission", but not, much to his own dismay, taste. His eyes also function as cameras; he has a total of three cameras on his body (the location of the third is unknown). Other sensory equipment he displays in the series, such as "Gaydar" and X-ray-glasses, are external devices and probably do not count against his eight senses. He also has a built-in "Cheating Unit" for predicting the outcome of his own dice rolls. Statistical calculation is a mathematical process, not a sensory one. Bender admits that he is a poor calculator, so it's not surprising that his Cheating Unit is known to malfunction.

According to information from various episodes, he is composed of 30% iron, 40% zinc, 40% titanium, 40% dolomite and an unknown quantity of osmium with a 0.04% nickel impurity, suggesting that either his body's structure and composition may change on a regular basis as gags demand, or that some of these materials overlap in composition.

Bender's serial number is 2716057, which is expressible as the sum of two cube numbers ((952)³ + (-951)³). He shares this trait with another Bending Unit he meets called Flexo, whose serial number is 3370318 ((119)³ + (119)³).

Bender's CPU is a MOS Technology 6502. This is shown in the episode Fry & the Slurm Factory when an "F-ray" is pointed at Bender's head.

A common matter of debate is how Bender came to be: In several episodes he is portrayed having been assembled in a factory as he presently appears and being only four years old, as an actual machine would be, but in another episode he is shown as going through growth and development including puberty, childhood, and infancy like a human child and said to have "robo or RNA" which possibly translates to either "robonucleic acid" or "roboticnucleic acid".

Quotes

• "Bite my shiny metal ass." (perhaps his most memorable catch phrase)
• "Cheese It!"
• "Well, I'm boned."
• "Kill all Humans!"
• "Hey, sexy mama... wanna kill all humans?" (pickup line)
• "Oh! Your! God!"
• "It's Bendering Time!"
• "He's pending for a bending!"
• "Meatbag" and "Coffin Stuffers" - Terms for Humans
• "This is the worst kind of discrimination - the kind against me!"
• "In case of emergency, my ass can be used as a flotation device."
• "When they put me on a stamp, tell them to use 'young Bender'!" (said before throwing himself on a grenade to smother the blast)

According to a database used by Zapp Brannigan, the words Bender utters most frequently are (in ascending order): chump, chumpette, up, yours, pimpmobile, bite, my, shiny, daffodil and ass. The word he uses least is antiqueing.