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Bender Bending Rodriguez or Bender is a character from Futurama who has appeared numerous times on The Simpsons. Bender, full name Bender Bending Rodríguez or designated 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] and by himself as possessing a "swarthy Latin charm."^[2].

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.^[3] Because of this every voice actor that auditioned, no matter what character they auditioned for, was asked to also read for Bender. After about 300 auditions David X. Cohen even attempted to audition after being told he sounded like a robot.^[4] 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.^[5]

Origin

In the series, 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. He swears, fights, argues, smokes cigars, drinks, and gambles. A petty thief, Bender steals other peoples' wallets, watches and other valuables at any opportunity. He claims to have no emotions but occasionally he is portrayed as having them, usually for comedic purpose. 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. 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.^{[citation needed]} His full name is revealed to be Bender Bending Rodríguez in "The Luck of the Fryrish" and in "The Cyber House Rules" the "Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium" is renamed the "Bender B. Rodríguez Orphanarium" after him. Bender was educated at Bending State University and was a member of the Robot House fraternity, as disclosed in "Mars University".

Gold Bender

In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Bender meets his parallel version, who has a gold finish. This stems from the fact that, when deciding on his paint job, Bender flipped a coin to choose between "gold" and "fog-hat grey". Evidently, Gold Bender received the opposite result to normal Bender. Gold Bender's catch-phrase is "Bite my glorious golden ass", instead of normal Bender's "Bite my shiny metal ass".

In the show

On December 31, 2999, Bender was waiting in line to use a suicide booth, depressed after learning that the girders he was programmed to bend were used to build suicide booths. There, he meets Philip J. Fry, and after surviving the booth they go to a bar. Later, in their efforts to evade Leela, an electrical surge alters Bender's programming, thus allowing him to bend deconstructively. These events lead to him being hired by Professor Hubert Farnsworth to work at Planet Express.^[6]

Bender has aspirations to be a chef and folk singer. If a magnet is placed on his head it interferes with his inhibition unit, which causes him to sing folk songs. Bender desperately wants to be a part of the Harlem Globetrotters, but is turned down. By his own admission, he is a convicted felon and thus cannot vote.^[7]

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 Flexo, another Bending Unit he meets, whose serial number is 3370318 (119³ + 119³). This is one of several joke references to obscure mathematical facts; such as the Hardy-Ramanujan number.

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 or farts. He suffers symptoms of intoxication when he stops drinking, becoming disoriented and developing a robot equivalent of a five o'clock shadow. 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".

His "extenso-matic" limbs are extendable, detachable, retractable, and capable of functioning independently of his body. Bender can also retract his limbs and head into his chest cavity. 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 (resembling light bulbs or vacuum tubes), but are generally replaceable as necessary for the plot.

Bender's chest cavity uses the fictional idea of hammerspace, as Bender frequently pulls and stores objects within it that are far bigger than what physics would normally allow. This access seems to be situational, as his chest cavity has been filled a number of times. In the episode, "The Route of All Evil", Bender ferments 5 gal. 6 oz. worth of ale in his chest cavity. Also in "I Second That Emotion" Bender uses his chest cavity as an oven, to bake a four-layer cake for Nibbler's birthday.

Like his limbs, Bender's head is detachable and retractable, appears to be attached to a thin, maneuverable wire ("Insane in the Mainframe") and can continue to function when not attached to his body, even for 1,000 years in "Roswell That Ends Well". Bender's head is capable of various functions depending on the situation. It has been seen functioning as an audio tape recorder, answering machine, CD player, film projector, camera, 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, or an all purpose push button. Bender is sensitive about it, seemingly equating it with a human penis.

Bender claims to have a total of eight senses including four of the Five classical senses and "smision", however he lacks the regular sense of taste. Aside from his own faculties, Bender has several external devices which he uses in the series including "gaydar", a built-in but unreliable "cheating unit" and a hilarity unit. Bender's computational abilities are self-admittedly poor, which he reveals in "The Cyber House Rules". 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 forces 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.

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. No explanation for the total of over 100% is 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", it is revealed that Bender weighed 525 lb (~238 kg).

In "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", Bender's self-destruct code is "1A 2B 3", a reference to the destruct codes on Star Trek. This blew up only Bender's head, leaving his mouth intact. Unlike most other robots in the series, the Bending Unit seems especially tough. Bender and Flexo have both shown incredible resistance to severe physical abuse (Flexo in "Bendless Love" after being hit by a 50 ft. "unbendable" steel girder, and Bender in the robot fighting league). They have withstood crushing, can openers, explosives, fire, water, guns, and even supermagnets. He has been shown to operate in vacuum of space and at the bottom of the sea.

Software

Bender initially could not act against his programming and was deprogrammed after being subjected to an electric current. 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 episode. In "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", Bender's personality is stored on a floppy disk.

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 attacked by a killer whale.

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 The Simpsons:
  • In "Future-Drama", Bart and Homer go through a portal/tunnel in 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. Since this was a hypothetical scenario, coudn't be considered canon.
  • 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 asks Groening to sign his Bender doll.
  • In the episode "Missionary: Impossible", 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.
• Bender is seen in the Family Guy Star Wars episode titled "Blue Harvest, Parts 1 and 2"; in the Mos Eisley Cantina scene Bender appears in the background seated at a table with aliens.

Celebrity encounters

During several episodes, Bender has had encounters with celebrities. In episode Bendin' in the Wind, Bender was parylized by a giant can opener and there he met popular folk singer Beck who offered him to join his band; but after Bender regained motion and tried to fake paralysis but thanks to his "natural showmanship" he started dancing and Beck, Cylon and Art Garfunkel chased him until he gave up the chase and apologised to Beck. In episode I Dated a Robot Bender falls in love with Lucy Liu and she is later seen again with Bender in episode Love and Rocket. In episode Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV it's revealed that Bender has a feud with comedian Jay Leno, this is seen when Bender becomes famous and magazine "TV Week Monthly" says "BENDER: TV's Rowdiest robot opens up about drinking, smoking and his feud with Jay". and a photo of Bender with Jay Leno's head with it's mouth duck taped and inside Bender's chest cavity.

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". It was reused as the name of the smooth talking robot police officer, also voiced by DiMaggio.