Bender Bending Rodriguez

**Bender Bending Rodriguez** is one of the main characters from the *Futurama* series.

A loudmouthed, kleptomaniac, misanthropic robot who also happens to be Fry's best friend. Despite his abrasive personality, has been known to pet the dog on occasion. Bender drinks constantly, because his fuel cells are powered by alcohol. He also smokes constantly because he thinks it makes him look cool.

In the AWA fics, Bender is a student at the AWA Academy.

## **Appearance**

Bender is a gray colored robot with an oblong-shaped head and pointy top, he has black round eyes and radio-like teeth. His cylinder-like body has a door, he has a long, slinky arms with three fingers and has long, slinky legs with stub feet.

## **Personality**

Bender is a selfish and insensitive robot who usually cares about no one except himself. He has been known for getting the Planet Express Crew into a lot of trouble due to his scheming, yet rarely shows any signs of remorse. Bender has no problem committing most crimes, and will gladly do so, ranging from the petty theft of wallets to more serious crimes like kidnapping Jay Leno's head due to their long feud. Moreover, he also does not have one slight grain of sympathy for anyone on Earth, with two exceptions: Turtles, because he identifies with them, and Fry, whom he considers to be his best friend; at Fry's "funeral," he even admitted that whenever he said "Kill all humans," he would quietly amend it with "Except one."

Though usually rude and selfish, Bender does have a rarely seen soft side. More than once he has saved Fry's life. He was genuinely hurt when Fry kicked him out of their apartment because he was interfering with the TV. He once saved the world from a evil sun flame and no one but Fry knew. He supported Fry's playing of the Holophonor, going so far as to attended one of Fry's concerts. He even shed a tear when Fry told him he was going to propose to Leela, saying "He's all grown up".

In general, though, Bender's behavior is defined by a rude and brash nature as well as excessive use of foul language. He also has many vices: He smokes (because it make him look cool), has done electricity (jacking on), and has had many romantic and sexual relations with women who are usually robots like him. He also drinks heavily; technically, though, this is not a vice, as alcohol fuels his power cells--if he was not a robot his behavior would be classified as 'alcoholic' but he needs alcohol to stay sober, and has on occasion been known to not-drink to excess and become 'drunk.' Bender is also a kleptomaniac, and can often be seen looting and thieving from his friends and co-workers, especially Amy, who is Bender's favorite thieving victim because she and her parents are rich. He is also an accomplished con artist, having gained Fry's power of attorney.

Bender is a strong proponent for robots obtaining human rights, and gets very upset when he hears people claiming that human life is more important than robot life. When he is sufficiently frightened or sickened, bricks have been seen to fall from his backside on at least one occasion (a reference to the line "shitting bricks."). A brick shaped chute can be seen on his uncovered underside while looking for his missing parts after being stripped down at a chop-shop. He has also shown the qualities of an avid shutterbug: When he is sufficiently fascinated by something, he may pull out a camera and snap a picture, claiming that the event is "neat."

## **Abilities**

Bending and stealing. He also practices (stage) magic and can speak penguin and Space Bee. Having a robot body, he is also much more durable than a human.

Bender's chest cavity could be considered a magic satchel, as it has been show to be able to hold a whole human, inhuman torch; at least two heads; cigars and even the riches of an entire kingdom.

In "Insane in the Mainframe", Bender speaks French (considered a dead language in the 31st century) while pretending to think of himself as Napoleon, also greeting the crew by saying "*bonjour*", meaning "hello" in French. He can sing, as shown in "Bendin' in the Wind".

Bender has a love for cooking. However, because he has no sense of taste, his food comes out terrible. He is very sensitive about this hobby as he broke down sobbing and even ran away from Planet express after Fry and Leela harshly criticized his cooking in front of him in "30% Iron Chef. As the series progressed, it seems his cooking skills have improved a bit. He managed to make a cake for Nibbler and create an edible salad.

Bender is also very good at tap dancing as shown in the episode Stench and Stenchibility, where he comes in second place in a tap dance contest.

## **Trivia**

* One of Bender's hobbies is photography, having often been seen taking pictures while saying "Neat."
* Bender often disdains singing; this may be related to his court-ordered ban on singing.
* Bender's e-mail is bender@ilovebender.com as revealed in *Bender's Big Score.*
* If one types in ilovebender.com, they will be brought to FOX movies.
* Bender once owned a guinea pig, as mentioned in the episode "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
* During the episode "Overclockwise", it's not only revealed that Bender has an X-Cube account, but also that his gamertag is BenderIsGreat34.
* His vanity plate reads “1 DVS BSTD” (one devious bastard) as Leela guessed while Bender is trying to get them out of prison.
* Bender has hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia - fear of the number 666.
* Bender has named his hands "Grabby and Squeezy", and his footcups "Stompy and Smashy".
* In Firefox, if you type "about:robots" into the address bar, a page with several cultural references to robots is displayed. The fourth bullet point says "Robots have shiny metal posteriors which should not be bitten.", a reference to Bender's famous saying, "Bite my shiny metal ass!".
* Bender's height is revealed in the episode "The Cyber House Rules" when he shows a picture of himself in a police line up to the orphan children. Bender (according to the photo he showed) is about 5'8, with a total 6'2 if you include his antenna.
* Bender weighs 600 pounds. However in *Into the Wild Green Yonder*, he says "all two tons of me".
	+ In addition, Leela states that his and Countess De La Roca's combined weight is two metric tons (roughly 4410 lbs) in *A Flight to Remember*. Averaged between him and Countess it comes out as a metric ton a piece, or roughly 2205 lbs.
* He has been charged for pimping, theft, vandalism and many others. It may, in fact, be easier to list the crimes he has NOT committed.
* In Bender's Big Score, it is revealed that Bender was responsible for the destruction of New York city which was shown in Space Pilot 3000 because of Bender the Second Middle Ages began.
	+ It is also shown that time being destroyed as well, presumably by Bender.
* Bender briefly broke the fourth wall during *Into the Wild Green Yonder*, after hearing that he is having an affair with the Donbot's wife, his co-workers ask if he's crazy, to which he says "No, Fry's crazy in this one", referencing that he went mad in the previous movie.
* Bender's apartment number is 00100100 00100100. This is a binary representation of the ASCII character '$'.
* Alternatively, same number read in little-endian BCD translates to 42, famous Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything, and ASCII symbol for B, Bender's initial.
* Bender's serial number is 2716057. This can be expressed as the sum of 2 cubes. Specifically, 9523 + (-951)3
* The word "bender" can refer to a drinking spree, hinting at Bender's heavy alcohol use.
* Bender is powered by a 6502 Microprocessor (although in "Overclockwise", he is seen with an AMD Athlon in his arse).
* Bender dies at the end of both of his what-if scenarios in each Anthology of Interest and both have one of the characters saying "Goodnight, sweet prince" (Fry in the first and Farnsworth in the second) to Bender when he dies.
* His self-destruct code is 1A2B3...C is not said before he explodes therefore the code does not include C.
* Bender cannot have magnets attached to his head, or it will "screw up his inhibition unit", thus causing him to sing crazy variations of folk songs.
* It seems his birthstone is Robobium, as mentioned in the Game.
* He is able to simultaneously reattach each of his severed arms with the other.
* Until he learned how from the majestic turtle, Bender could not get up when knocked on his back.
* His antenna interferes with satellite television, along with some cellphones.
* He, along with Fry and Leela, appears in all episodes of the series.
* No one can say he doesn't own John Laroquette's Spine.
* Bender may be the most evil robot in the series, as acknowledged by Robot Santa and the Robot Devil.
* Bender's favorite cause of death is being crushed to death by a "runaway semi driven by The Incredible Hulk.".
* He said the last full sentence in all 4 films - "Well, we're boned!" (*Bender's Big Score*), "I love you, meatbags!" (*The Beast with a Billion Backs*), "Whip harder, Professor!" (*Benders Game*), "Into the breach, meatbags. Or not, whatever." (*Into the Wild Green Yonder*). It is worth noting, however, that it was Farnsworth who voiced the last words in the film *Bender's Game*, and not Bender. ("Faster! Faster! Slower!")
* When Bender's personality is removed he continuously repeats the sentence, "I am Bender, please insert girder " or "I am Bender, please insert your dirt."
* Through court order, Bender is prohibited from singing. (It should be noted that the only time Bender says this is so is in Leela's coma dream in "The Sting", though it's possible it's something Leela remembered that the real Bender had said, like many of the other things in her coma dream)
* Bender is a convicted felon and has the longest rap sheet of anyone alive. (*Into the Wild Green Yonder*)
* Through imitating a fembot, he holds five gold medals in the Earth Olympics.
* According to an x-mas story, Bender's mom is a mechanical arm, however, throughout the rest of the series Bender claims his mom is Mom the Oil tycoon. This could, however, just reference the fact that Mom is considered the mother of all modern robots and thus his true mother is the arm. Also, Bender once said, "No crap, my grandmother was a bulldozer".
* The 40% luck that Bender is made of really paid off in *Bender's Big Score* because as stated by Nibbler, everytime the paradox time orb is used, there's a chance the universe could be ripped apart. This said, Bender would have to be very lucky since he used the orb countless times without the universe's destruction.
* Bender has been his fem-bot alter ego "Coilette" twice. First being "Bend Her" the second being "Neutopia".
* Bender's history with Planet Express is murky; in "Overclockwise", the Professor has a flashback turning Bender on for the first time and ignoring the EULA. In another episode, Hermes states "Bender is Planet Expresses' most expensive piece of equipment". Furthermore, in "Free Will Hunting", along with several other episodes, it's inferred the Professor built or designed Bender himself (though in other episodes Bender was born in the factory). However, in the series premiere, it seems Bender has never even been to Planet Express, and starts working at the company the same day as Fry and Leela.
* Bender has made 2 appearances in *Family Guy*, the first in the cantina scene in *Blue Harvest*, and the second he was telling the gang where the dirty joke came from.
* A comment by Bender while being initiated into the League of Robots in *The Beast With A Billion Backs*implies that he has attended med school.
* Due to the events in "Free Will Hunting" Bender now possesses the only existing robotic Free Will Unit. Since it can't be proven that even human beings have free will, it's therefore possible that Bender is the only being in the *Futurama* universe whose thoughts and actions are not inherently deterministic. This is also useful in the episode *Law and Oracle*, with some good detective work from Fry*.*
* In the episode Assie Come Home, on a planet home to two rival gangs, Bender gets stripped down while guarding the Planet Express ship as Fry and Leela make a delivery. After tracking down most of his parts, he points to his bottom and says he is still missing his shiny metal ass. A brick-shaped chute can be seen while he is bent over.
* Bender's retirement plan is to commit suicide (or as he puts it turn his on switch to off).
* Bender has the ability to literally drop in his butt bricks when his scared.
* There is a robot (As described by Leela: A robot Hillbilly. He was shot by the robot mafia four times when he was mistaken for Bender when Bender was in fact working at a pizza parlor) who looks very similar to Bender.
* Bender is the only known robot in the universe to have free will.
* Bender's birthday is on September 4th, the same date where his voice actor, John DiMaggio's birthday was on.

## **External Links**

* Bender Bending Rodriguez at Futurama Wiki