Bender (Futurama)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Futurama character | |
| Bender Bending Rodriguez | |
 |
|
| Age | Unknown thousands of years due to overuse of time travel;[1] head is 1055 years older than body[2] |
|---|---|
| Gender | Man-Bot |
| Species | Robot |
| Planet of Origin | Earth, specifically Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico |
| Job | Assistant sales manager and cook for the Planet Express Delivery Company |
| Relatives | Builder: Mom's Friendly Robot Company Mother: Robot Arm Father: Unknown (Deceased) Uncle: Vladimir (Deceased) Aunt: Rita Same-Model Robot: Flexo Temporal Duplicates: Hundreds due to overuse of time travel (All deceased)[1] |
| First Appearance | Space Pilot 3000 |
| First Line | "Bite my shiny metal ass." |
| Voiced by | John DiMaggio |
Bender, full name Bender Bending Rodríguez, 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 with an in-your-face attitude."[3] and by himself as possessing a "swarthy Latin charm".[4]
Contents |
[edit] 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 heavy drinker, smoker, and gambler. He also constantly steals, ranging from the petty theft of wallets to much higher crimes.
Bender is a robot built by Mom's Friendly Robot Company at its plant in Tijuana, Mexico, circa 2998. He is a Bending-Unit 22, serial number 2716057, chassis number 1729. He was created for the task of bending metal girders for the construction of suicide booths. 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.[5]
[edit] Character
[edit] Creation
The name Bender was chosen by series creator Matt Groening as an homage to the character John Bender from The Breakfast Club.[6] The design for Bender went through multiple changes before reaching it's 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".[7] Bender's antennae, which would have been positioned in place of his ears, were also changed to give him a more streamlined appearance.[7] 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.[8]
[edit] 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.[9] 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]
[edit] Reception and cultural influence
Bender has made several cameos in in different episodes of the Simpsons, another series by Matt Groening. Within the Simpsons, Bender has appeared episodes "Future-Drama", "Bart vs. Lisa vs. The Third Grade", and "Missionary: Impossible".[citation needed] He also appears as one of the enemies in The Simpsons Game along with Zoidberg.[citation needed]
In 2008 Bender took second place behind the Terminator in a poll for the "Baddest Movie Robot" on Techradar.com.[13]
[edit] References
- ^ a b Bender's Big Score
- ^ "Roswell That Ends Well"
- ^ Crimes of the Hot
- ^ "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV"
- ^ Cohen, David X. (2003). Futurama season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ "Intellectual Names", Sci-Fi Baby Names: 500 Out-of-this-world Baby Names from Anakin to Zardoz, 119.
- ^ a b Sterngold, James (2008-06-10). Bringing an Alien And a Robot to Life; The Gestation of the Simpsons' Heirs. New York Times.
- ^ Groening, Matt. (2003). Futurama season 4 DVD commentary for the episode "Crimes of the Hot" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Cohen, David X. (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "Space Pilot 3000" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Cohen, David X. (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "The Series Has Landed" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Dimaggio, John. (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "Space Pilot 3000" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Dimaggio, John. (2003). Futurama season 1 DVD commentary for the episode "Hell Is Other Robots" [DVD]. 20th Century Fox.
- ^ TechRadar staff (2008-06-10). Baddest movie robot: the votes are in!. Retrieved on 2008-06-10.
|
||||||||||||||||||||
