Zapp Brannigan

Template:Futurama character Major General Webelo (later Commander) Zapp Brannigan is a fictional character in the television series Futurama. He is also referred to (mainly by himself) as "The Zapper", "The Velour Fog", "Big Z" and "The Man with No Name, Zapp Brannigan". He is a parody of William Shatner and his famed Star Trek character James T. Kirk and resembles comic book character Magnus, Robot Fighter.

Profile

Brannigan is a senior member of the military of the Democratic Order of Planets (D.O.O.P.) though his title varies; he has been referred to as a "25 star General" and "General Major Webelo". Kif Kroker is his beleaguered lieutenant and personal assistant. Brannigan's flagship is the Nimbus, which though severely damaged in "A Taste of Freedom" was back in service for the later episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before". His quarters aboard the Nimbus (which he refers to as his "lovenasium") are garishly decorated in velour and contain a hovering heart-shaped bed, hanging over which is a portrait of him in a pose mocking Aaron Shikler's posthumous portrait of John F. Kennedy.

Brannigan envisions himself a "ladies' man", but also completely clueless in matters of romance. On first meeting Leela in "Love's Labours Lost in Space" he ended up having sex with her. In later encounters, he invariably refers to this interlude. He remains convinced that Leela lusts after him and will eventually return to him, despite her (often literally) violent opposition to the idea. His overconfidence in this is such that he does not hesitate to hit on other women in the meantime, even in Leela's presence. He is also frequently seen with female companions who are obviously prostitutes, or even men in drag. Brannigan has expressed on several occasions his fondness for being choked and spanked by strong women, though during an encounter with the warrior-women of the planet Amazonia ("Amazon Women in the Mood"), his personal limits were rapidly met and exceeded. After escaping and despite his pelvic injuries, he looked back on the experience fondly, sighing happily, "I had snu-snu". He also takes any opportunity to brag about any sexual conquests; after having sex with Leela, he says to Kif "I made it with a woman!"Inform the men!

Brannigan's pretensions of being suave are belied by his ignorance of how to properly pronounce words such as champagne (he pronounces the silent g), bravo, encore, and guacamole (he treats the e as if it were silent and pronounces the first "a" as the "a" in cat), though, strangely, he has no problem with chutzpah or karaoke. This may be due to his "very sexy" learning disability, "sexlexia". He highly prizes his singing (calling himself "the Velour Fog", a parody of "The Velvet Fog"), doing a seemingly William Shatner-like version of Lola (he replaces the name Lola with Leela) to win back Leela's attention on Open-Mike Karaoke Night on an orbital restaurant. The results of his singing are obvious, as everyone runs screaming to escape pods and leaving, including the crew. Zapp is able to ignore the fact his singing made everyone run.

Brannigan is arrogant, incompetent, chauvenistic, and cocky. His battle tactics are impulsive, generally stupid, and almost always unnecessary. He takes delight in sending his men to die in ridiculous, easily avoidable altercations, viewing this as proof of their loyalty. Notable examples include an (unseen) battle with "Killbots", a battle which Brannigan won by sending wave after wave of his own men at the killbots until they reached their pre-programmed kill limit and shut down. However, as Bender pointed out, "we [robots] can always build more kill bots!" ("Love's Labours Lost in Space") he employed similar tactics in defending Earth during the first invasion of the aliens of Omicron Persei 8 ("When Aliens Attack"), ordering all the ships under his command to "line up and fly directly at the enemy death cannons, clogging them with wreckage!" When describing the strategy, he also says "If we hit that bull's eye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate." His fleet managed to destroy the Hubble Space Telescope amid heavy losses, but was powerless against the actual alien mothership. He has written at least one book about military tactics, titled Zapp Brannigan's Big Book of War, based loosely on Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and looks like a Dr. Seuss book with his face on it.

In another episode, Zapp was leading an attack to capture a planet. He failed to realize how pointless and stupid the attack was, despite his speech that, "It is a barren wasteland with no natural resources or any strategic value." He even reveals that no one knew anything of the planet's culture, and didn't know what the inhabitants looked like, but merely stated that "We can only assume this: they stand for everything we don't stand for. Also, they told me you guys look like dorks!" It was later revealed that the planet they were attacking was actually the inhabitants' home planet, and the humans were in fact the "evil" invaders.

He once provoked an invasion of Earth after leading a military force to storm the embassy of Dr. Zoidberg's home planet, Decapod 10 (in "A Taste of Freedom"). Later, he was duped by the Decapodians into handing the codes for the Global Defence Network to one of their agents, horribly disguised, calling himself "Hugh Man". This led to their ridiculously easy conquest of Earth, for which Zapp then blamed Kif.

Brannigan's victories tend to come from using excessive force to subdue lesser opponents, such as:

• Carpet bombing Eden 7
• Defeating the pacifists of the Gandhi nebula
• Conquering the Retiree People of the Assisted Living Nebula
• Single-handedly defeating the "weak and womanlike" Spiderians of Tarantulon 6
• Driving the native population off the planet Spheron 1, during which he is seen "riding" his horse Felicity (who happens to be a male horse) while brandishing a sword - the horse, though, simply stands on a hovering disc ("War Is the H-Word").

Brannigan briefly served as captain of the luxury space cruise ship Titanic, which ended up destroyed after he altered the direct, safe flight plan for an indirect, more challenging one, believing that in doing so "we might just get some kind of gravity boost, or something". He was indifferent to the danger posed by comets ("the icebergs of the sky") and black holes ("that blackish holish thing") — at least, until they actually become dangerous to him. This episode also shows Zapp transferring the blame for the incident to Kif (again), giving him the Captain's badge, and disappearing in a small escape pod. The incident serves to illustrate the apparent cowardice of the monumental space "hero". Brannigan, thanks to his exaggerated or ill-won conquests is considered a hero by the general populace (such as Amy Wong's parents) and government, frequently praised (even Leela was initially "thrilled" to meet him), but anyone who is around Brannigan too long rapidly develops an extreme dislike for him. When Brannigan tried his hand at karaoke (in his "suave" style, an apparent reference to William Shatner), the audience immediately booed and jeered, then fled from him, with one patron stating, "He sickens me!" Brannigan's own crew shares this opinion, evident during a meal in the Nimbus mess hall when he raised a glass and called for support, met only by a stony silence and one anonymous crewman yelling "You suck!"

Brannigan was once dismissed (though later reinstated) from the DOOP along with Kif (after Zapp attempted to transfer the blame once again to his loyal lieutenant's shoulders) for his role in destroying DOOP's new $400 billion headquarters ("Brannigan Begin Again"). While showing off, Brannigan used his ship's tactical laser (set on Hyperdeath™) to cut the ceremonial ribbon to inaugurate the new station. He accomplished this, but did not deactivate the laser in time to avoid destroying the station.

Brannigan's Law

Brannigan's Law states that one cannot interfere with an undeveloped planet, a parody of the Prime Directive from Star Trek. Brannigan himself does not pretend to understand it, he merely enforces it, and even fails to uphold it on at least one occasion. Brannigan's Law is officially called Directive B10.81. According to Brannigan, his law is also like his love; "hard and fast".

Ship

The Nimbus: DP-1729 is a spaceship in the fictional television series Futurama. It is captained by Zapp Brannigan with Kif Kroker as his first mate. It is the flagship of the Democratic Order Of Planets (DOOP) fleet. The Nimbus is an extremely large vessel, capable of blockading or besieging entire planets single-handedly, and of transporting armies large enough for the pacification of the planet, all without the aid of support vessels. It is a parody of the Enterprise from Star Trek: The Original Series. At one point the Nimbus was destroyed by the Decapodians and was either rapidly rebuilt or replaced by another ship that had been renamed, similar to the destruction and replacement of the Enterprise, NCC-1701, with the NCC-1701-A.

Production

Zapp Brannigan is voiced by Billy West, though he was originally intended to be voiced by Phil Hartman. Hartman insisted on auditioning for the role, and "of course, just nailed it" according to creator Matt Groening. However, due to Hartman's death, West was given the role. On the Futurama DVD commentary, Groening reveals that Zapp's character and mannerisms were established in Billy West's original audition for the character, and any similarity to Phil Hartman or his other well known cartoon characters (Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure), is simply coincidence. On the other hand, in an interview for the web site TV Squad, Billy West states that his Zapp Brannigan is an imitation of Hartman and also "modeled after a couple of big dumb announcers I knew".

Brannigan is based on the Star Trek captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner (the two actually meet face-to-face in the episode "Where No Fan Has Gone Before"). The creators of the series envisioned Brannigan as being similar to what Shatner himself would be like as a starship captain. On the DVD commentary of Zapp's first appearance, the creators describe him as being "40% Kirk, 60% Shatner", and that the initial premise for the character was "What if the real William Shatner was the captain of the Enterprise instead of Kirk?" In the episode "Amazon Women in the Mood" the DVD audio commentary describes Zapp Brannigan's reinterpretation of "Lola" as a spoken word song is a reference to what William Shatner did with "Rocket Man". Brannigan also wears a girdle to appear thinner ("Brannigan Begin Again") and in another episode nearly loses his toupee, seemingly a parody of similar accusations aimed at Shatner. As a reference to the fact that Shatner got fatter as Star Trek progressed, the writers originally wanted Brannigan to be fatter in every scene throughout the course of the episodes in which he appeared. Unfortunately, since he started out fairly fat and appeared in a lot of scenes in "Love's Labours Lost in Space" (Brannigan's first episode), towards the end of the episode, he was so fat that he was difficult to draw. The writers decided to drop the joke.