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Zoidberg

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Template:Futurama characterDoctor John Zoidberg (born August 5), also known as Dr. Zoidberg or simply Zoidberg, is a fictional lobster-like alien from the planet Decapod 10 in the television series Futurama. He works as the company doctor for Planet Express, even though he knows very little about the physiology of humans. Zoidberg is voiced by Billy West.

Early life

Zoidberg's age is never revealed in the series, and conflicting views are shown of his childhood. In one episode, Zoidberg is seen in child form, but in another episode, when the entire crew reverted to their younger forms, it is revealed that Zoidberg went through rapid larval stages, including stages in which he resembles a sea sponge, sea urchin, anglerfish, horseshoe crab, cuttlefish, lamprey, and clam before growing into his present form.

Zoidberg is the nephew of Harold Zoid, the famous silent-hologram star, whose name is a play on both Harold Lloyd and the practice during the days of silent film of Jewish actors changing their names. He appears to have three parents, named Norm, Sam, and Sadie (although another episode indicates Decapodians only have two parents, who die during mating; perhaps the other parent could be a foster parent), and he has a cousin named Zoidfarb. He also seems to have several siblings who budded from him in his sea sponge phase, including a brother called Norman.

Doctor Zoidberg's race, the Decapodians, are an alien race from the mud planet Decapod 10. This name is a pun on the fact that lobsters and crayfish are scientifically referred to as decapods, creatures with ten legs. The actual physiology of Decapodians appears to be a mixture of several different sea creatures. Dr. Zoidberg's anatomy is similar to that of crustacea, such as his chelae (pincers) and hard exoskeleton. However he also possesses many attributes of cephalopod mollusks, such as the tentacle-like protrusions covering his mouth (reminiscent of those of cuttlefish) and his ink gland, through which he occasionally expels ink when threatened (as do all coleoids). He also coughs up pearls after ingesting "too much dirt". He has also been shown to propel water from several unseen holes on his head. Throughout the series, Zoidberg usually refers to himself, and is referred to by others, as a lobster. In an early episode, Zoidberg falls in love with an actual lobster in a nightclub aquarium. Later, he finds himself trapped in a lobster cage, but is rescued by Bender.

Current life

Zoidberg is an old friend of Professor Farnsworth and is employed as the doctor at Planet Express. His office door bears the sign "Dr Zoidberg: A Medical Corporation". Although he claims to be an expert on human medicine, Zoidberg's knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is actually very poor. At various points throughout the series, his medical incompetence is demonstrated; he often mistakes Fry for a woman or a robot, and the chart of human anatomy on his office wall is hung upside-down. Zoidberg is often confused by the "strange" features of humans, such as their skeletal system or having only one mouth. He believes that humans have dorsal fins, and believes that the heart is part of the digestive system (this may be due to the fact that Zoidberg himself appears to have four hearts, even though his species does not need them all) and he even thinks the human gonads are in the neck. When he performs operations on the staff, he usually makes spectacular mistakes, such as attaching Fry's severed arm onto the shoulder of his other arm and his severed head on to Amy's left shoulder in another episode. In "Parasites Lost", it is shown that Zoidberg has gleaned more information on anatomy through television commercials than through academic study. Zoidberg is only directly questioned about his medical expertise in the episode "A Clone Of My Own", in answer to which he claims unconvincingly that he lost his medical degree in a volcano.

In addition to his medical qualifications, Zoidberg claims to have mail-order degrees in "Murderology" and "Murderonomy". Zoidberg has a great love of stand-up comedy and often tries to fulfill this dream. However, Zoidberg is an appallingly bad comedian and his stand-up performances usually end in him being pelted with rubbish or dragged offstage. (Example: "Earth, what a planet! Here, you enjoy a tasty clam. On my planet, clams enjoy eating a tasty you!". Many of his jokes are examples and parodies of Yakov Smirnoff's jokes.)

Although he is a doctor, Zoidberg lives in poverty. He is always hungry and does not have a home, instead living at the Planet Express building in the "maternifuge". His lifestyle reflects his crushing poverty. He is often seen eating out of rubbish bins and he cannot afford to buy shoes. He is constantly hungry, occasionally commenting that he has not eaten for several days, and throughout the series he is seen eating nearly anything evenly vaguely organic, including a live guinea pig, a boot, and a bag of toenail clippings which he believes are potato chips. Zoidberg gets excited at the offer of free food, and in one episode enters a pet show to try and win a year's supply of dog food. It isn't clear whether this is caused by his alien metabolism or his crushing poverty (or both). Zoidberg also seems to have a habit of adding salt to the water cooler in the Planet Express building. His intense poverty is perhaps the result of his belief that he is a shrewd investor. Throughout the series, Zoidberg is regularly seen spending his money on pointless purchases (such as eight copies of the same record) and making bad business decisions, such as exchanging his (considerable) corporate stock for a sandwich (however, he later claims he would have settled for a dry roll with ketchup on it). Strangely, Zoidberg seems to be unaware that most doctors are rich, and believes that all medical professionals live at his level of poverty. In addition, Zoidberg seems to harbour an intense dislike of other medical professionals, and the very presence of another doctor in the same place as Zoidberg will provoke him into picking a fight. It is later revealed that Zoidberg owned the majority of Planet Express stock (51%), having been given, at an unknown time, thousands of worthless stock certificates by Hermes Conrad, the bureaucrat of Planet Express, to use as toilet paper.

Zoidberg seems to get along well with his co-workers most of the time, but is often treated like an annoying pet, frequently being found in Professor Farnsworth's laboratory and subsequently shooed away with a broom. Hermes Conrad has an intense dislike of Zoidberg and is not afraid to show it, often blaming Zoidberg for various problems, making Zoidberg do the menial jobs around the office, and often cutting Zoidberg's salary to pay for accidents that are unrelated to Zoidberg. When once trapped underwater in the Planet Express ship, he suggested within mere moments that the rest of the crew should eat Zoidberg, after mistakenly refering to him as Lobster Newberg. Zoidberg's lack of popularity in the office may perhaps be due to his being overshadowed by Fry, Leela, and Bender, as Zoidberg became the most well-liked office worker when those three were fired from Planet Express (in the episode "The Cryonic Woman") and when The Robot Santa created by MomCorp deemed him as nice, and even gave him a Pogo Stick.

Zoidberg has a serious desire for attention and friendship, frequently rejoicing when these desires are fulfilled to even the slightest degree, but he is nearly always disappointed when people do not pay enough attention to him. Apart from his colleagues at work, Zoidberg has very few friends, and appears to have great difficulty in making new ones due to his appalling odour and tetchy personality. The staff of Planet Express constantly make jokes at Zoidberg's expense and criticize him even when he is in the room, but he often does not seem to realize that he is being ridiculed, and often interprets insults as compliments. At other times, Zoidberg often displays his sadness at either his poverty or his treatment by Hermes. Zoidberg seems unable to stand up for himself and, instead of arguing, often bursts into tears at appropriately comic moments; or, when he gets freaked out, surprised, or chased, he has a habit of mimicking the whooping noise that Curly Howard from The Three Stooges makes while scuttling, crab-like, off the screen.

The Decapodians

Main article: Decapodian

The Decapodian race is originally from the mud planet Decapod 10 (a member planet of the Democratic Order of Planets), but many Decapodians also live on Earth. Decapod 10 seems to have been one of the first alien races to make contact with humans, and Decapodians arrived on Earth soon afterward (proceeding to accidentally wipe out the anchovy population by overfishing). The Decapodians themselves have many comical traits, including the traditional "apology dance" used to ask forgiveness, and the recent tradition of "Clawplach", in which Decapodians fight to the death over matters of honour and whether or not abbreviations are acceptable in Scrabble (Zoidberg maintains that they are not).

The Decapodians appear to have a mating season (which is similar to pon farr in Vulcans), and as soon as the parents have passed on their genes, they die. Also, fin rot is a serious disease that can afflict Decapodians. The Decapodians appear to have several races, or one race with various different colour tones. In a parallel universe explored by the Planet Express crew, Dr. Zoidberg is blue (this may be a spin on real lobsters, which are blue until cooked red; another explanation, offered in the DVD commentary, is that one in a hundred are blue, although considering the difference between characters in the alternate universe is a coin toss, this probably is not likely). Decapod 10 maintains an embassy in Washington D.C. under Ambassador Moivin. In A Taste Of Freedom the Decapodian military invades and conquers Earth, but after their occupation warships are dismissed, Zoidberg himself destroys the Mobile Oppression Palace (a motorized sand castle on top of a crab-like robot) and liberates Earth.

Trivia

  • Zoidberg was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of Earth for eating the Earth flag on Freedom Day. He sheltered in the Decapodian embassy until the Decapodian military invaded and conquered Earth. He was briefly a global hero on Earth after liberating the planet from the Decapodian military. Ironically, this is achieved by setting the Earth flag on fire and using it to lead a heat-seeking missile to destroy the cold-blooded Decapodian Mobile Oppression Palace.
  • In one episode, Zoidberg is employed as a military doctor for the Earth Army fighting on Spheron 1, where he displays his usual medical incompetence and his intense dislike of other doctors. (The medical portions of the episode are a parody of the television show M*A*S*H, with Zoidberg playing the foil role of Frank Burns to the barbed remarks of a robot surgeon named iHawk.)
  • Zoidberg pretended to be a rare "Hard-Shelled Whooping Terrier" (because of his aforementioned whooping) owned by Bender at a petshow, in order to win a year's supply of dog food. He joyfully let Bender whip him to make it seem more realistic. While pretending, he whooped, scuttled along a narrow beam, danced and sang in a Mexican style, and let himself be jabbed and weighed. However, he came second to the Hypno-Toad, which brainwashed the judges. (The Day the Earth Stood Stupid).
  • Despite being a murderous psychopath, the Robot Santa seems to like Zoidberg. While he judges all inhabitants of Earth to be naughty, he apparently likes Zoidberg and rewards him with a pogo stick. Later, Zoidberg helped rescue Bender from an execution by dressing up as Jesus.
  • In a twist of humour, Dr. Zoidberg speaks English with a pseudo-Yiddish accent, and is once seen wearing a T-shirt with Hebrew lettering on it (Template:HbrshinTemplate:HbrlamedTemplate:HbrvavdageshTemplate:HbrreshTemplate:Hbrmems, which would be pronounced "Shlurm"; this is a reference to the T-shirts that were available in the 1970s that read "Drink Coca-Cola" in Hebrew). These circumstances suggest that his character was designed to be reminiscent of Ashkenazi Jewish people. Additionally, surnames ending in "berg" are stereotypically Jewish (although in an issue of Futurama Comics, he states that his last name means "smarty pants" in "Squiddish"). Zoidberg is a crustacean being, and crustaceans are not deemed kosher; for those viewers who understand the religious doctrine of Judaism, this adds an extra layer of humor to Dr. Zoidberg's character. On one occasion he was told not to enter a Bot-mitzvah ("No shellfish!"), which he felt was unfair. Further, the other Decapodians seen on the show, such as Zoidberg's Uncle Harold (voiced by Hank Azaria) and the staff at the Decapodian embassy in Washington D.C. speak with very heavy Yiddish-accents. In a more subtle Judaic reference, his whooping is like that made by Curly Howard from the Three Stooges (who were themselves Jewish).
  • Zoidberg is the only character who pronounces the word "robot" with a single stress on the first syllable, instead of equal stresses on each syllable. (In other words, it sounds a bit like /robɪt/ instead of /robat/.)
  • In the episode "The Farnsworth Parabox", a blue version of Zoidberg is seen, who claims to build mansions, but is actually just as poor and miserable as his reddish-orange counterpart.
  • Billy West's influence for Zoidberg's voice was actor George Jessel.
  • The first four episodes of Futurama are the only episodes in which Zoidberg has teeth.
  • Zoidberg has seldom called Bender by his real name, instead choosing to refer to him as 'Robot'. The only occasions when he did refer to him as Bender were in When Aliens Attack (this is most likely because Zoidberg's personality had not been defined properly yet) and Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV, 'Quiet Robot, Bender is on TV'.
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