BENDER (FUTURAMA)

'Bender Bending Rodríguez' or simply 'Bender' and nicknamed 'Bending Unit 22', is a fictional Robot character in the animated television series ''Futurama''. He is voiced by actor 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"^[1] as well as possessing a "swarthy Latin charm."^[2]. He is considered the show's breakout character.

Contents

Origin

In the show

Gold Bender

Birth and Young Ages

Desire to Kill Humans

Model Toughness

Hardware

Software

Appearances outside of Futurama

Production notes

References

Origin

In the program, Bender is a robot built by the ''Mom's Friendly Robot Company'' at its plant in "America's heartland", Tijuana, Mexico, circa 2998. He is a Bending-Unit 22 (Originally created by Professor Hubert Farnsworth in his early years), serial number 2716057, chassis number 1729. As his name indicates, he was created for the task of bending metal girders. In fact, without his personality (which can be copied onto a 3.5 inch floppy disk or a futuristic device of identical appearance), his responses and actions are limited to saying "I am Bender. Please insert girder." He curses, fights, argues, smokes cigars, drinks, and gambles. A kleptomaniac, Bender steals other characters' wallets, watches and other valuables (sometimes even including their blood) at every opportunity. It is often stated that he has no emotions, referring instead to his dependence on his "superior/mighty robo-logic". The series provides contradictory information about Bender's origin. In several episodes, he is portrayed as having been assembled in a factory in his current form only a few years prior to the start of the series, as an ordinary machine would be. This is supported by the appearance of Flexo, another Bending-Unit 22 robot identical to Bender with the addition of a goatee. However, in "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" he is shown as going through growth and development like an animal and said to have "robo- or RNA", a DNA equivalent. In the DVD commentaries, David X. Cohen states that the viewer only sees a full-sized Bender emerge from the machine that built him, while what happened inside the machine was not revealed. Despite his Mexican origin, he speaks with a mild New Jersey accent, and demonstrates a poor ability to pronounce Spanish words or imitate Mexican-accented English in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV". His full name is revealed to be Bender Bending Rodríguez in "The Luck of the Fryrish". This is also confirmed in "The Cyber House Rules" when the "Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium" is renamed the "Bender B. Rodríguez Orphanarium" in light of Bender's generous donation of twelve orphans and a government check for 1200 "wing wangs". Bender was educated at Bending State University and was a member of the Robot House fraternity, as disclosed in "Mars University".

In the show

On December 31, 2999, Bender was waiting in line to use one of New New York City's public suicide booths, depressed after learning that the girders he was programmed to bend were used to build suicide booths. There, he met Philip J. Fry, and after the booth failed to kill them, Bender and Fry go to a bar. Later, in their efforts to evade Leela, an electrical surge alters Bender's programming, thus allowing him to bend deconstructively. After Leela decides not to implant Fry with his career chip, and quit her own career advising cryonic defrostees, the three end up being hired to work at Planet Express by Fry's great-great-great-...-nephew, Professor Hubert Farnsworth ("Space Pilot 3000"). Bender's favorite phrase seems to be "Bite my shiny metal ass".
Bender has semi-secret aspirations to be a famous cook and/or folk singer. Bender also expresses a fascination with kings, such as stealing the bones of Charlemagne and memorizing all of them in the episode "Roswell That Ends Well". Also noticeable the crown he steals in "A Bicyclops Built for Two" is the same crown used for his superhero costume in the episode Less Than Hero. If magnets are placed on his head they interfere with his inhibition unit, which causes him to act out his desire to be a folk singer by performing folk staples. Bender has a soft spot for turtles. As he described it, they both have hard outer shells, but lead rich inner lives. He also mentions that, like a Turtle, he cannot right himself after being knocked on his back (though apparently, he can right himself if not ''perfectly'' on his back), he later copies the turtle and learns how to right himself even if he is on his back. After a short stint believing he was a penguin, he became their ruler and encouraged them to attack humans, only to be attacked himself after removing the tuxedo he had used to imitate them. Bender desperately wants to be a part of the Harlem Globetrotters, but their leader, Bubblegum Tate, turned him down, as he did not have what it takes. By his own admission, he is a convicted felon and thus cannot vote.

Gold Bender

In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Bender meets his parallel version, which is painted gold. This stems from the fact that Bender flipped a coin to choose between gold and foghat grey, and that coins flipped to the air in the parallel universe end up with opposite results. Gold Bender's typical expression is "Bite my glorious golden ass", instead of normal Bender's "Bite my shiny metal ass".

Birth and Young Ages

Bender's young version appears twice on the show. First time, on "Bendless Love", his birth is shown, and he looks exactly the same as when he's older. However, on "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", when all the Planet Express Crew returns to their teenage years, Bender is shown a lot smaller, and wearing dental braces. When going back to childhood, he also wears strange antennas as ears. Most likly because his technology is getting downgraded

Desire to Kill Humans

Bender has periodically stated a desire to kill all humans, and has made several remarks (asleep or otherwise) indicating a repressed bloodlust. At one point, on a planet controlled by human-hating robots, he became a celebrity after claiming to have killed "a million-billion" humans. In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Bender claims to have once "pounded a guy into the ground like a stake with a shovel". In "Xmas Story", he claimed to have donated blood, but admitted that the blood he donated belonged to "some guy". Despite his general misanthropy, Bender periodically demonstrates a genuine (although misplaced) fondness for Fry. When he temporarily became a "were-car" cursed to kill his closest friend, Bender eventually sets out to kill Fry. Bender also became extremely jealous when Fry tried to bring his dog Seymour back to life, as he could not understand why Fry would choose a primitive animal as a friend over him.

Model Toughness

Unlike most other robots in the series, the bending unit seems especially tough. Bender and Flexo have both shown incredible resistance to severe beating (Flexo in Bendless Love after being hit by a 50 ft. steel girder, and Bender in the robot fighting league}. They have withstood crushing, can openers, explosives, fire, water, and even supermagnets.

Hardware

There is very little consistency in Bender's hardware throughout the series, and his internal workings vary as required for the story or for comic effect.
Like most robots in the series, Bender has square pupils. All of the biological characters have round pupils.
Bender's serial number is 2716057, which is expressible as the sum of two cube numbers (952³ + (-951³)). He shares this trait with another Bending Unit he meets called Flexo, whose serial number is 3370318 (119³ + 119³), and they both laughed heartily at this fact. This is one of several joke references to obscure mathematical facts; such as the Hardy-Ramanujan number.
In "Fry and the Slurm Factory" it is revealed that Bender's CPU is a MOS Technology 6502.
Due to Bender being 40% dolomite, he has a great resistance to molten lava.
Bender's habit of hard drinking is a result of his design; like most robots on ''Futurama'', he uses alcohol as fuel and produces greenhouse gases as a result in the form of fire whenever he belches. He actually only suffers symptoms of intoxication when he ''stops'' drinking, becoming disoriented and developing a robot equivalent of a five o'clock shadow (the area around his mouth becomes rusted and brown). His very name is also a probable play on the slang term ("Going on a bender") for binge drinking for hours or days on end. 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 which is revealed in "Godfellas".
He has been shown to operate in both vacuums and at the bottom of the sea. While deep under water Bender can open his chest compartment to reveal breathing masks similar to the emergency equipment used in commercial aircraft. He also notes that "in the event of an emergency, [his] ass can be used as a flotation device." This is likely a reference to the same capacity noted by Data in ''.
His "extend-o-matic" limbs are extendable, detachable, retractable, and capable of functioning independently of his body. He seems to have trouble with the seam below his right underarm, however, as he is seen welding it or asking someone to weld it at various times throughout the series. In most cases, his eyes are shown to be extending cylinders with rounded ends but are generally replaceable as necessary for the plot (Looking similar to Light Bulbs or Vacuum Tube).
Bender's chest cavity uses the fictional idea of hammerspace, as Bender frequently pulls and stores objects within it that are far bigger than the laws of physics would normally allow. This access seems to be situational, as his chest cavity has been filled a number of times. Bender has the ability to open the door of his chest cavity hands-free (Less Than Hero). The interior of Bender's chest cavity is actually shown in ''Futurama: The Game'', wherein there are a variety of cogs, wheels, gyros, and various other mechanical components. The interior is shown to be larger than it should be. As with most spin-off material for television shows, the videogame may not be considered canon. In "Insane in the Mainframe", an X-ray like "Gamma Scan" reveals a variety of axles and cogs, as well as a small bat. The heads of Lucy Liu, Jay Leno and Luciano Pavarotti were all stored in the cavity at one point, as well as the full body of Fry after he was inside a Bender turned into car. In the episode, "The Route of All Evil", Bender ferments about 30 bottles worth of ale in his chest cavity, carrying it as though he were pregnant. Bender had a bomb in his chest at one point said to be capable of destroying a planet, placed in him by Zapp Brannigan in "War is the H-Word". Though Professor Farnsworth couldn't remove it, claiming it was "stuck in there with glue or something," Bender detonated it at the end of the episode; it was apparently a dud. Also in "I Second That Emotion" Bender uses his stomach as an oven, to bake a four-layer cake for Nibbler's birthday. The final cake is much bigger than his stomach can handle.
Like his limbs, Bender's head is detachable and retractable, and can continue to function when not attached to his body. An example would be on I Second That Emotion, Bender's body cannot fit in the toliet so instead he flushes himself down piece by piece. Bender's head seems capable of various functions depending on the situation. It has been seen functioning as an audio tape recorder (his pupils can change to play, rewind, eject, record, etc. symbols with function, with stop being the default display), answering machine, CD player, film projector, camera (still and video), martini shaker, a bell, credit card terminal, and a spray can of paint. The camera aspect of his head is a consistent feature, which he uses in multiple episodes, often zooming in on items, people or robots of interest. On top of his head is a retractable antenna, which is multi-functional and can work as a radio transmitter, a remote control receiver, sword, toilet flusher, or laser light show generator. Bender is quite sensitive about it, seemingly equating it with a human penis. In "I, Roommate", Bender responds to Leela's suggestion of removing his antenna with "You're not a robot or a man, so you wouldn't understand." In the same episode, URL sees it and says, in a degrading fashion, "You call that an antenna?" Despite this assertion, he can unscrew it. Also, in "Anthology of Interest II" he is turned into a human. He wonders where his antenna is, then finds it, stating: "I'm not getting good reception on it though. Maybe if I wiggle it around a little." Fry shouts "No! You'll make God cry!" as if Bender were masturbating. In the episode "Bend Her", the final step of Bender's sex change operation to become a fem-bot is the removal of his antenna.
Bender claims to have a total of eight senses, four of the Five classical senses. Although he is equipped with "smision" (apparently a combination of smell and vision), he lacks the regular sense of taste. Aside from his own faculties, Bender has several external devices which he uses in the series. One such device is his "gaydar", which is shown as a black box with a radar array attached - his gaydar apparently detects ''everyone'' he meets as gay, however. He also has a built-in, but unreliable, "cheating unit" for predicting the outcome of his own dice rolls. Bender makes mention of a Hilarity Unit (an opening subtitle for one episode of the show claims this unit may be powered by "Microsoft Joke"). Bender's computational abilities are self-admittedly poor, which he reveals in the episode "The Cyber House Rules". When Bender claims to need a calculator, Fry reminds him that Bender ''is'' a calculator, to which Bender asserts "I need a ''good'' calculator." Bender seems to have four different buttons for deleting information: one on his shoulder, one on his chest, his antenna, and one on his ass. Bender also has a 'Patriotism Circuit' which compels him, when signaled, to fight and possibly give his life in times of crisis. Zapp Brannigan has a device that can trigger Bender's 'Patriotism Circuit', (as shown in "When Aliens Attack") and uses it to draft him into Earth's defense force. When triggered, Bender's antenna blinks and beeps, and Bender stands to attention and shouts a response phrase such as "It is every robot's duty to give his life for the good of humanity!", followed by a regretful moan, or utterance such as "Oh, crap".
According to information from various episodes, Bender is composed of 30% iron ("30% Iron Chef"), 40% zinc ("Fry and the Slurm Factory") , 40% titanium ("A Head in the Polls"), 40% dolomite ("Jurassic Bark") and an unknown quantity of osmium (in alloy with the iron) with a 0.04% nickel impurity ("A Pharaoh to Remember") and he also claims to be 40% lead in Futurama the game but this may not be canon. No explanation for the total of over 150.04% was offered in the series, though it is pointed out in the DVD commentary. David X. Cohen at one point suggests that the various substances may overlap as compounds. Bender's aforementioned calculation skills, or lack thereof, may also be a factor. In "Raging Bender", he is announced as weighing 525 lb (~238 kg).
As revealed in episode 4ACV11 (Where No Fan Has Gone Before) Bender's self-destruct code is "1a 2b 3", a reference to the destruct codes on Star Trek.

Software

Bender initially could not act against his programming. In the first episode, Bender was deprogrammed after being electrocuted by a hanging light bulb. As mentioned above, when his personality is removed (by downloading) his vocabulary reverts to "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
When he comes in contact with a magnet, it disrupts his inhibition unit and he sings various folk songs, including "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain." He is unaffected by magnetism in his shoulder/'neck' area, as he is sometimes shown sticking a magnetic bow tie on there. He is also unaffected by a magnet on his rear end, as in one episode he is carried by a magnet there and responds with WHEEEE! In The Cyber House Rules, Bender is seen to use magnets which do not affect him to hold up a picture on the inside of his chest door.
In the episode "Roswell That Ends Well", Bender's brain (in the form of computer chips) was mistaken as food and was eaten by Enos Fry, yet he functions normally without it throughout the whole episode.
In the episode How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back, Bender's software (and his personality) is stored on a floppy disk. Here and in the episode My Three Suns, his personality is described as "in-your-face".
When Bender is reactivated, he automatically takes on the traits of the first organism he encounters. In "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz", Bender reboots as a penguin after being mauled by a killer whale. His primary tasks in "Penguin Mode" are to acquire food and frolic. When he reboots back to "Human Mode" after being shot by Leela, his two primary tasks are to bend and "Cheese it!"

Appearances outside of Futurama

★ Bender appears with Al Gore in ''A Terrifying Message from Al Gore'', promoting (or in Bender's case, disparaging) ''An Inconvenient Truth''.

★ Bender has made cameo appearances in several episodes of Matt Groening's other show, ''The Simpsons'':

★
★ In "Future-Drama", Bart and Homer go through a portal/tunnel on a hovercraft. At the other side, Bender is seen in between Bart and Homer, saying "All right! You guys are my new best friends". Homer says "You wish, loser!" and throws him out of the car, where he breaks apart.

★
★ Bender also appears in "Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade". Due to a lack of sleep brought on by watching too much TV, Bart begins to hallucinate in class. The characters from various shows Bart had been watching (such as Bender, a bulimic Tom Brokaw, Pikachu, and an anthropomorphic clock) greet Bart and throw him on their shoulders while singing the Jewish folk song Hava Nagila.

★
★ In the episode "My Big Fat Geek Wedding", Groening himself appears, but is identified as "the creator of ''Futurama.''" Milhouse is shown to have a Bender doll.

★
★ In the episode "", Bender appears on the fundraising panel as a phone operator.

★ Bender is also seen in the Deadpool GLI: Summer Spectacular on the Tv Deadpool was watching.

Production notes

★ Bender's apartment number is 00100100, which when translated into ASCII, is the $ symbol.

★ The original proposed name for Bender was URL, which was to be pronounced "Earl".

References

1. Crimes of the Hot
2. Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV