Characters / Futurama Main Recurring Characters

Futurama Main Character Index
The Planet Express Crew (Philip J. Fry, Bender Bending Rodriguez) | Main Recurring Characters | Planet Express Crew Relatives | Antagonists | Other Characters

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Nibbler (UNMARKED SPOILERS)

Voiced by: Frank Welker
Debut: "Space Pilot 3000" (shadow only), "Love Labours Lost in Space"

The Ridiculously Cute Critter that the Planet Express crew encounter while saving two of every animal from a planet about to implode. He proves to have a voracious appetite, but thankfully, he's Solid Gold Poop incarnate — his species produces dark matter, which is used as starship fuel.

It turns out that his species employs Obfuscating Stupidity in order to defend the universe from the Brain Spawn, and nobody remembers his actions due to his wiping of their minds afterwards. Until he officially assigned himself to Earth as a part of the Planet Express crew.

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• Absurdly Dedicated Worker: To maintain his secret identity, Nibbler will rarely ever break from his dumb animal façade, even when it leaves his own well-being at stake. "I Second That Emotion" is a key example, where his act earns the murderous chagrin of Bender and later leaves him a sitting duck for a sewer monster. He still never breaks from character to preserve himself.
• Alien Catnip: While he and his kind are Big Eaters, they especially love pizza bagels, citing it as Impossibly Delicious Food and the only other reason why they care about Earth besides it being the birthplace of their Chosen One.
• Apathetic Pet: Played with, as Nibbler is in fact The Mole and a highly intelligent surveyor who is pretending to be Leela's dumb pet. His role largely consists of playing this however as his persona is frequently destructive, gluttonous, and never breaks character to help the crew when they are in danger. It's never quite made clear whether it is down to being this trope for real or just taking his role a bit too seriously.
• Badass Adorable: There's practically a whole episode devoted to how adorable the crew find him (much to Bender's chagrin), and in as the series progresses, it is revealed that the Nibblonian race was already 17 years old at the time of the big bang, and are charged with protecting the Earth from the evil Brainspawn and also that Nibbler himself had a fairly big part to play in getting Fry cryogenically frozen for 1000 years in the first place.
• Benevolent Abomination: He's part of a race of aliens older than the universe and capable of eating creatures bigger than him, but he and his race are devoted to protecting the universe.
• Big Eater: And how! Most things he's eaten are bigger than he is.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Present since the series premiere, in fact... if you know exactly where to look.
• The Comically Serious: He's actually a commanding, authoritarian leader with a deep voice... who looks like a monkey in a diaper. This becomes a source of frustration for him in "That Darn Katz", where he can't get the crew to take him seriously because of his adorable appearance.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Despite his overwhelming cuteness, he is a soldier...
• Cute Clumsy Creature: In his first (official) appearance, Nibbler is just a weirdly cute critter among other animals on his planet that the crew tries to rescue. When he's left alone in the hold with the other creatures, he immediately eats them.
• Cute Little Fangs: Well, not exactly little. He has large fangs, but he's still cute.
• Depending on the Writer: While some episodes are shrewd enough to sneak in hints of his intellect, in others Nibbler's actions (which include deliberately endangering himself or the crew or maintaining his act even when unsupervised) make no sense under knowledge of his secret identity, implying the story treats his dumb animal act as being his real personality.
• De-power: After Bender's Game, Nibblonian poop is useless as fuel, being replaced with whale oil.
• Early-Bird Cameo: His shadow appears for a brief second in the pilot episode when Fry falls into the freezer, foreshadowing his important role in the series.
• Eldritch Abomination: Older than our reality? Check (by 17 years). Incomprehensible name? Check (his real name takes several aeons to say). Mindbendingly hideous? Not check. Luckily, his people are benevolent.
• Extreme Omnivore: Able to eat any creature regardless of its size.
• The Fake Cutie: A rare heroic example. As explained, they all thought Nibbler was a cute pet, when he was actually an agent of a powerful ancient alien race... all of them cute as well.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The Phlegmatic, being stoic, the least excitable out of the Planet Express crew (when he's not Obfuscating Stupidity, at least) and arguably the most passive, even though he usually just sticks to being a tag-along.
• Idiot Houdini: Despite Nibbler's actions as a brainless animal frequently causing hindrance or dismay to the team, Leela is usually quick to fend off anyone willing to punish him for it (most often Bender). Considering these are all supposedly just an act, perhaps Nibbler is taking the role too seriously.
  Leela: It's not his fault he's a killing machine!
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Played with. The only reason why Nibbler and the Nibblonians regard Earth as important or special at all are for two reasons: 1) it is the homeworld of the pizza bagel (see above), and 2) due to certain events in 1947 and 1999, it will/does/did produce a savior that will rescue the entire universe from the Brain Spawn. Aside from that, the trope is played straight: Nibbler's log refers to as a "primitive dirtball inhabited by psychotic apes."
• Intellectual Animal: He's not the cute, brainless animal he appears to be, at all.
• Large Ham: He is voiced by Frank Welker.
• Memory-Wiping Crew: Many of his and the Nibblonian's appearances in the series' first run have been wiped from Earth's memory. After the movies, he seems to have simply stopped wiping the Planet Express Crew's memories of him being anything but a stupid pet. His ability to converse normally with them is a major plot point in "That Darn Katz". It's implied that he gave up wiping their memories after discovering in Bender's Game that, since he'd forgotten to wipe their memories after the events of The Beast With A Billion Backs, meaning that they'd known he could speak for some time but simply didn't care!
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He acts like a dumb pet, but he is actually a highly intelligent super-being whose race is responsible for maintaining order in the universe.
• Older Than They Look: See Really 700 Years Old below.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Played with. When he first revealed his true nature to the crew, he decided to stick with "Nibbler," due to certain difficulties in translating his actual name:
  Nibbler: "That name is for your sake! In the time it would take to pronounce a single letter of my real name, a million cosmoses would flare into existence... and sink again into eternal night.
• Out of Focus: He wasn't a major character to begin with but once the crew found out he could talk, he started appearing even less in the series than he had beforehand. Although, this could be justified because by the time the crew found out about his sapience, his Character Arc about him and his kin being the protector of the universe from the Brain Spawn has pretty much long since had its curtains closed by this point and there was pretty much no longer an actual large scale threat to the universe after the movies. Lampshaded in "Game of Tones":
  Amy: I always forget that he can talk.
• Really 700 Years Old: According to one of the Special Feature pages on the DVD, Nibbler is over 3000. His species is older than the universe.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: He's pretty weird looking, but he's small and squeaky enough to make the tough, no-nonsense captain Leela go to pieces and adopt him as a beloved pet. He later gets a little red cape and diaper.
• Shipper on Deck: He ships Fry/Leela; "The Why of Fry" revealed that he's trying to get the two together as a promise to Fry in exchange for the latter (who got warped to the past) freezing his past self to stop the Brainspawn.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Bender tends to loathe Nibbler for being a nuisance or his cuteness stealing his thunder, even once flushing him down the toilet. Some of the things Nibbler does to Bender in his pet role suggest the hatred is mutual.
• Smarter Than You Look: He hides his hyper-intelligence with a mask of ultra-stupidity and a tendency towards doing cute things.
• Solid Gold Poop: His waste is dark matter, which powers starships. At least before Bender's Game. He's also late revealed to be a member of super-intelligent species.
• The Stoic: With the occasional exception, he's got an unflinchingly straight face. It's part of what makes him so Badass Adorable.
• Suddenly Voiced: After The Reveal, starting in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"
• Team Pet: After being adopted by Leela.
• Translator Microbes: Whenever he needs to communicate with someone outside his species, he affects their brain patterns to automatically translate his cute babbling into bombastic English.
• Unexplained Recovery: Nibbler ate himself to escape the space anomaly at the end of "Bender's Big Score". It's unknown how he got back to Earth in "Bender's Game".
• Vocal Dissonance: He is a monkey-looking alien that wears a diaper and has a deep, commanding, authoritative voice. Even once he starts talking regularly, the Planet Express Crew (particularly Leela) don't take him seriously due to his looks.
• Walking Spoiler: It's a little hard to talk about him without discussing his role in "The Day The Earth Stood Stupid."

Twenty-Five-Star General Zapp Brannigan

"When I'm in command, every mission is a suicide mission."

Voiced by: Billy West
Debut: "Love Labours Lost in Space"

"I am 'the man with no name'- Zapp Brannigan, at your service!"

The only military leader we ever see, Brannigan has many medals and a high post despite a strange fixation on killing everybody who he sends into battle, whether helpful or not, whether needed or not. People serving under him tend to die. He's selfish, arrogant, gluttonous, lazy, immature, and an idiot. And those are his good qualities...

In his first episode, he tricked Leela into sleeping with him, something he's never let her live down.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: To Leela. Zapp is quite handsome (if a bit overweight): Leela hates him purely for his personality. On their first encounter Leela sleeps with him out of pity, complicating things for herself for the rest of the series.
• Aggressive Submissive: Despite being actively flirtatious and very forward with his advances, he seems to enjoy his partner taking control in the bedroom. This is most blatantly shown with the Amazonians, where he repeatedly requests for the restraint around his neck to be tighter and then to be spanked.
• Ambiguously Bi: He has flirted with and slept with Leela and Amy and enjoyed getting Snu-Snu from several Amazonian women, yet he apparently went on a date with Richard Nixon's Head in "The Thief Of Baghead". He is also not ashamed to show nudity in front of other men such as Kif. Zapp does not even cover himself in front of other men whenever he is naked and some of the orders he gives out to Kif have some Homoerotic Subtext in them. When Kif finally files a formal complaint in "Zapp Gets Cancelled," many of his anecdotes are forms of sexual harassment, including performing an erotic fan dance in front of Kif and using him as a loofah on his genitals. He was however surprised when Leela pulled a Sweet Polly Oliver that he felt lust for a man but rolled with it.
• Armchair Military: Zapp's approach to a fight is rarely, if ever, to actually be on the battlefield, rather watching from a distance, criticizing his troops for dying en masse. In the original run, he only shows up on a battlefield twice. The first time is on a horse on a hovering pad, rather than actually fighting, and the second is just to show off to the cameras. In "The Beast With A Billion Backs", he observes the hopeless battle against Yivo's genticles from the comfort and safety of the Times Square Applebee's. When he returns for the first time in the Hulu run, he actually tries to fight against giant tardigrades, but he has so few field experience that he can't even activate his gun, and Kif must come to his rescue and fight the tardigrades by himself.
• Bad Boss: Often sends his men on deadly missions, expecting total loyalty out of them over ridiculous causes, and emotionally abusing them — you just know what a prick he is when his Second-In-Command Kif Kroker would rather face almost certain death than work for him.
  Bender, under the influence of a "patriotic program" that Brannigan requested to implant on every robot: I volunteer for a suicide mission.
  Zapp Brannigan: [...] When I'm in charge, every mission is a suicide mission.
• Became Their Own Antithesis: He used to be a legitimately amazing soldier and thoroughly decent person, as per the tie-in comic series. However, this all changed when DOOP attempted to replace their standing army with clones of Zapp and the experiments damaged his DNA, twisting him into the wildly incompetent, low-key sociopathic and all around grossly impulsive Casanova Wannabe he is in the series.
• Big Book of War: He stamped his name onto the Trope Namer. Given his track record, it's not something that should be read by those with any sense of self-preservation.
• The Bully: On both a personal (e.g. his treatment of Kif) and professional (e.g. starting wars with guys like the Pacifists of the Gandhi Nebula) level, Zapp delights in picking on those who can't defend themselves.
• Captain Ersatz: His appearance, attitude, position, and mannerisms are very similar to those of James T. Kirk. In fact, he was originally pitched as "What if William Shatner was captain of the Enterprise?"
• Captain Space, Defender of Earth!: Although unlike most examples of the trope he is more explicitly a parody of Captain Kirk (his character was originally pitched as "What if William Shatner was captain of the Enterprise rather than Kirk?).
• Casanova Wannabe: Despite his attitude, he once admitted that Leela is the only woman who's ever loved him — physically. He did get some action with the Amazonians, but that doesn't count. And judging by a few of Leela's off-handed comments, he wasn't even satisfactory in bed either; not in his opinion though, of course.
• Corrupted Character Copy: He is a clear parody of Captain Kirk from Star Trek, poking fun at his more inept and egotistical moments (he was specifically meant to be if Kirk was more like the actor who played him). As a result, Zapp has Kirk's lustiness and ego cranked up to "parody," but lacks a good chunk of his competence or A Father to His Men traits, instead being a General Failure of a General Ripper constantly relying on We Have Reserves. Leela once had Pity Sex with him, and he never let her forget it.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • He's usually an arrogant, incompetent, idiotic, cowardly, selfish jerk. However, there are a few moments when he genuinely does something awesome like when he got rid of History's Greatest Villains in "Kif Gets Knocked Up". (Of course, this act almost destroyed his ship and killed everyone.)
  • His plan to fool the Omicronians by offering an orangutan in place of Leela in "The Problem With Popplers" actually would have worked if it wasn't ruined by Free Waterfall Jr. tipping Lrrr off to the whole thing. Absent the latter he would've successfully stopped the whole invasion with zero loss of sapient life.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He is only able to triumph over 'enemies' that are pacifistic and do not have an actual military, such as the natives of Eden VII or the retiree people of the Assisted Living Nebula. When facing an enemy who is 'not' a pacifist race and 'does' have a military, his forces are beaten almost effortlessly.
• Damned by Faint Praise: A Running Gag is that whenever Zapp does have an offscreen victory mentioned, it tends to be against friendly-sounding, weak, or pacifistic races (i.e. the Retiree People of the Assisted Living Nebula).
• Delusions of Eloquence: Overlapping with Mala Proper. Not a lot of people try to seduce a woman while pronouncing it "sham-paggan."^note "I didn't know you were such a coin-a-sewer," Leela responds sarcastically.
• Dirty Coward: When the chips are down, he is shown to be this. This is best summed up in the episode In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela, where he wakes up from sleep, his first words are: "I surrender and volunteer for treason!"
• Dodgy Toupee: Zapp is revealed to wear a toupee in "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch", as it almost blows off after he blows a hole in his ship.
• Dreadful Musician: An INCREDIBLY terrible one at that. At one point during "Amazon Women in the Mood", he sings so badly that everyone flees for the escape pods and the glass covering the escape pod button shatters before the hand reaches it. (Doubles as a further reference to William Shatner, who is well-known for his, er... spotty singing career.)
• Dumb Blonde: Male example. He has blond hair (eventually revealed to be a toupee) and is dumb as a rock.
• Eats Babies: He continues to eat Popplers even after discovering what they are... during his peace negotiations with the Omicronians.
  Lrrr: Stop eating our young! And it's pronounced "guaca-mole-ay"!
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He has enough of President McNeal's selfishness and decides to bag him up and send him to the Omicrons.
  • Zig-Zagged. While he has no qualms about sending armies of untrained civilians on suicide missions, whether he draws the line at Child Soldiers varies. In one episode, he didn't care and even commissioned a children's ship for war on the basis that "children are our future", but in Issue 41 of the comics, he was horrified after realizing he was brainwashed into making the camp's children into soldiers and immediately raced to stop them from going to war.
  • While he likely did it to get back in Leela's good books, even he knew her being sacrificed to Lrrr and Ndnd was senseless and devised a plan to save her by using an Orangutan as a decoy (a plan that actually almost worked). Zapp was also genuinely disgusted when Free Waterfall Jr. sabotaged the plan when it was so close to working for no good reason (they ate the decoy as well), which could have led to Earth getting in more trouble and Leela being sacrificed for nothing. Thankfully, it turned out okay.
  • Even Zapp is uncomfortable watching Kif and Amy's offspring get Eaten Alive before they have a chance to get on solid ground for the first time. And he sheds a tear of joy along with everyone else when Amy is announced as the true mother of Kif's children.
  • He's clearly very disturbed with Dr. Kind's actions and is sympathetic to the two other captains that have to work under him. He even avoids making off-handed comments to the female captain while they're under Kind's thumb, only making a crack about her starting a food fight out of nowhere when they were still there.
• Evil Counterpart: To Fry. Both are moronic, lazy buffoons who are heavily in love with Leela, and she constantly rejects both of them. But while Fry proves time and time again that he can be selfless and heroic, sacrificing himself for Leela's safety multiple times, Zapp consistently shows to be a selfish coward who only really cares about himself and his image. Leela eventually warms up to Fry for his kindness, but remains disgusted by Zapp for the entire series.
• Expy: the tie-in comics reveal that he was a hypercompetent and good-hearted man who was known as the greatest soldier that DOOP ever recruited before an experiment to clone him caused him to make a 180, becoming a vain, arrogant, pompous jerk. Basically, he is the reverse of Characters Captain America Title Character. In the same issue, President Nixon even assigned him to a team of superheroes called the Marveleers, complete with expies of Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Boy howdy. He has won offscreen victories, and taken credit for other people's deeds, so he keeps his job, and is even well-regarded by many. Most people think he's an amazing hero and The Ace, until they actually meet him. His men, who are around him constantly, have no such delusions.
• Fantastic Racism: Towards the Neutrals, the Spheroids, mutants, and possibly others.
• Fat Bastard: He has a prominent beer belly and is very sleazy, arrogant, and sexist.
• Fat Idiot: It's not super obvious, but he has quite a gut. Best observed when he goes to a planet with super-high gravity and the force of his belly rips open his girdle. Kif calls him "The Fatso" (behind his back) in their introductory episode. As for the "idiot" part, that's self-explanatory. Though he is fluent in Morse code.
• A Father to His Men: Subverted. While Zapp likes to style himself as a Parental Substitute to his officers, he's anything but.
  • Fully exemplified in this exchange at the beginning of "Amazon Women in the Mood", when Zapp notices Kif in anguish, pining over Amy.
    Zapp: Kif, I'm headed to the men's room and I'll be needing an attendant, so— Oh, I'm sorry. You're crying like a woman. It's alright. I've always thought myself as a father figure to some of my more pathetic men. Kif, old friend, let's rap.
    Kif: Well, I'm in love with this girl—
    [Zapp bursts into a fit of derisive laughter]
    Zapp: Oh, that's rich! [recovers himself] Go on.
• Faux Affably Evil: He tries to act cheerful and amiable, but anyone who hangs around him for more than five seconds can see that he's really just a selfish and dim-witted creep.
• Freudian Excuse: The comics reveal that Zapp used to be an outstanding soldier (both as a person and a fighter) until an attempt by the government to replace the army with clones of him went wrong. The resultant damage to Zapp's DNA left him the egotistical, incompetent jackass he is today.
• General Failure: One of his primary gags. Zapp doesn't have a tactically competent bone in his body, and tends to only come out on top if he either ludicrously outclasses the enemy in terms of numbers and firepower, or has the Planet Express crew do the work for him. Even the first one doesn't save him all the time; in one episode, his army was completely routed by a band of Neanderthals with bone spears. It doesn't help that his first response for anything amounts to "swamp the enemy in bodies."
• General Ripper:
  • Has started tons of unnecessary wars, including against a race of sapient balls on Spheron 1 (which resulted in them being forced off their home planet), the Spiderians, the Neutral Planet, the Retiree People of the Assisted Living Nebula, and the dreaded Pacifists of the Gandhi Nebula. He also attempted to get the Carcarons to declare war on Earth by having them sign a 'peace treaty' that was actually a declaration of war (in English, which the Carcarons don't understand) so he'd have an excuse to deploy the DOOP's fleet to crush them. The implication being that he had done this many times before.
  • President Nixon advocates just about everything Brannigan does, which is why he's able to be such a free wheeler. The Democratic Order Of Planets doesn't seem to really care (the only way he was able to get on their bad side was to destroy their brand new headquarters, otherwise they seem to ignore his attitude towards combat).
• Handsome Lech: To some extent. He'd be played straight if he got rid of the gut.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: With the examples above, there's a valid argument to say that Zapp embodies the worst aspects of humanity in one single entity.
• Hypocrite: He lays into Fry for his cowardice during a battle in "War is the H Word". Zapp Brannigan, who sends thousands of his men to die in pointless battles without fighting himself, and will surrender to the enemy immediately to save his own skin, is literally the last person to be calling anyone a coward.
  • In "When Aliens Attack", when the Omicronian invasion fleet pop in out of hyperspace and immediately start wiping out the Earth armada, he has the audacity to say:
    "Stop exploding, you cowards!"
• Idiot Houdini: Most of the time, despite endangering people through his constant idiocy and lack of regard for the life of anybody but himself, he rarely suffers any retribution for it.
• Ignore the Fanservice: It's revealed that Zapp doesn't wear underwear and it's only by virtue of the length of his uniform top that he's not always exposed. But don't follow behind him while climbing a ladder. It seems he extended it to the soldiers under his command, and possibly the entire Earth military considering his high position in it.
• Insufferable Imbecile: A sexist, arrogant jerk with next to no redeeming qualities but manages to be funny because of his idiocy.
• Irrational Hatred:
  • Of the Neutrals, since he regards them as untrustworthy (and seems to genuinely think they're up to something).
  Zapp: With enemies, you know where you stand, but with Neutrals? Who knows? It. Sickens. Me.
  • And on several occasions, of Kif, who he treats with undisguised and unprovoked contempt.
• It's All About Me: He doesn't care about the danger any of his actions cause unless he ends up in danger from them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk:
  • He shows himself as one in his very first appearance: after he breaks down to Leela and admits he's just an idiot who never has any idea what he's doing, he uses her sympathy to get her to have sex with him, gloating over it for the rest of the series.
  • In one episode, he accidentally causes his ship to go down, and he says that "the captain must go down with his ship." Kif comments on how noble that is of him; unfortunately, no prison can hold him, even if said prison happens to be a Titanic-styled ship with countless amenities to enjoy and cherish before the inevitable happens, and he immediately promotes Kif to captain before fleeing the ship in a one man pod.
  • Acting broken up by Kif's death in The Beast With a Billion Backs just so Amy would sleep with him. Thankfully he doesn't get off on this one because Kif finds this to be such an offense he finally stands up to Zapp and punches him.
  • His infamous plot to get Leela to have sex with him in "In A Gadda Da Leela".
  • In "Zapp Dingbat," he does have a genuine love and respect for Munda, but insists on being controlling of her in order for her to earn that love by lying to the Carcarons that they're signing a peace treaty, when really the document is a declaration of war. She refuses and instantly dumps him.
• Jerkass: He's got lots of examples that could be cited but a crowning moment might be the time he tried to pass off a declaration of war to a non-English-speaking alien race as a peace treaty, giving him the justification to invade their homeworld when their guard was down. Thankfully his translator, Leela's mother Munda, actually had a conscience and ratted him out.
• Jerkass to One: While Zapp Brannigan is callous and a terrible leader on the best of days - sending all of his male soldiers to die needlessly and single-handedly having female officers banned from the Earth's military via sexual harassment—he is particularly abusive to his right-hand Kif. He insults him, has him do menial labor, takes advantage of what little hospitality Kif offers to give him, and has Kif dishonorably discharged along with him in "Brannigan, Begin Again" for a crime Kif had nothing to do with and sleeps with his grieving Fonfon Ru Amy. That last one bares mentioning since Zapp had Kif dislodge a missile they intended to fire, spamming the launch button while Kif was still stuck to it, leading to his death and eventually sleeping with Amy after the funeral, implying that Zapp genuinely views Kif as a nuisance rather than just a quintessential put-upon lackey.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: He often likes to give a Techno Babble solution that is clearly something he made up on the spot — for instance, the "gravity boost" idea.
• Lack of Empathy: He never shows any remorse for the physical and emotional harm his decisions inflict on others.
• Large and in Charge: He's one of the taller characters (compare him to Fry and Bender here), has a broad upper body, and is rather stout. Occasionally it's shown that he's actually about as strong as he looks, such as in "Brannigan, Begin Again" where he's able to easily restrain Leela, drag the 150+ pound pillows as far as Fry and Bender (despite being fatter than them and logically having much worse stamina), and later effortlessly lift Kif with one arm. Or in "In A Gadda Da Leela" when he easily lifts the branch pinning Leela when he decides he wants to. He's too much of a wuss for this to be too noticeable, though.
• Large Ham: Imagine William Shatner playing William Shatner playing William Shatner... as Kirk.
• Laser-Guided Karma: While he keeps his job depressingly well, most of the time Zapp ends up looking a fool.
• Laughably Evil: In a serious show, he'd be a monstrous villain. See General Failure and General Ripper. But as it happens he's easily one of the funniest characters in the show.
• Lawful Stupid: Played for Laughs. Zapp Brannigan will always enforce "Brannigan's Law" wherever he goes (a parody of the Prime Directive), even though he made the law up, and he has no idea what that law even is. Other than that, he is generally a selfish Dirty Coward who would happily sell out his friends and sacrifice hundreds of people to save himself.
• Lethally Stupid: Whenever he is called for help, he'll come to make things worse.
• Malaproper: He was introduced with the idea that he has issues with actually pronouncing "fancy" words, and he's kept it.
  Zapp: Brave-o! EN-core!
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • In "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela".
  • In "The Beast With a Billion Backs" acting bereaved over Kif's death to bed Amy was probably a new low for him.
• Miles Gloriosus: The patron saint of this trope. He will never rush in to a fight, but obtained a reputation of being a good fighter through his willingness to sacrifice wave after wave of his own men, while avoiding any risk to himself. If he does end up fighting, it's because he believes he has an overwhelming advantage, or is too stupid to realize that he's in danger.
• Modern Major General: At times.
• Narcissist: He's shamelessly vain and full of himself.
• The Neidermeyer: He's especially fond of saving himself by sacrificing those under his command.
• Never My Fault: No matter what death and destruction his actions cause or whatever mistake he causes, he never admits to making a mistake himself. The following scene from "Brannigan, Begin Again" sums his attitude towards accountability perfectly, as he deflects blame and throws Kif under the bus, taking him down with him.

  Glab: Zapp Brannigan, you stand accused of blowing up DOOP headquarters. How do you plead?

  Zapp: Absolutely 99% not guilty.

  [After Zapp is inevitably proven guilty, he stops to speak before leaving]

  Zapp: I'd like to make one final statement. Kif, c'mere and hold up the flag. And wave it a little, for God's sakes. My friends, you can take away a man's title and his uniform but you can never take away his integrity or his honor. Plus it was mostly Kif's fault.

  Kif: What?

  Glab: Kif Kroker, you are also stripped of your rank and dishonorably discharged.

  [Kif groans.]

• New Jobs As The Plot Demands: A minor example; it's a Running Gag that Zapp has a different, invariably silly-sounding rank whenever it's introduced. This has included "25-star General", "General Major Webelos"^note  "Webelos" is a rank in the Boy Scouts, "Rear Brigadier", and "Commodore 64."
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • He bears many similarities to William Shatner. invokedWord of God says this was intentional, as he was pitched as "What if William Shatner was captain of the Enterprise instead of James T. Kirk?" The episode "Amazon Women in the Mood" even features him doing a spoken word cover of a pop song, as Shatner is rather infamous for doing.
  • Reportedly, Billy West based a lot of his mannerisms on Phil Hartman, whom the role was originally meant for. Zapp has a lot in common with the characters Hartman tended to play in The Simpsons—a conceited but deeply untalented and immoral huckster with a smarmy "radio announcer" voice.
• Nominal Hero: Zapp is technically on the side of good and does help out the heroes occasionally, but it's clear he's only doing it for the fame, clout, women, glory and/or wealth, not because he wants to help others or make a positive difference. It's safe to say the only reason he's not an straight-up villain is because he's too stupid to make it work or he knows he wouldn't get half the admiration and wealth he would as a hero.
• The Obi-Wannabe: Especially when giving Kif love advice.
• Of Corsets Funny: "C'mon girdle... Hooolddd..."
• Pants-Free: Not only does he not wear pants, he doesn't wear underwear either. Kif finds this out the hard way when climbing up a ladder after him.
• Parental Abandonment: Zapp's hinted to do this on occasion. He brings up once or twice the fact that he's often got slapped with failed paternity lawsuits from lovers in the past or virtual-reality lovers brought to life.
• Pet the Dog:
  • He's uncharacteristically sincere while providing assistance for Kif during his pregnancy in "Kif Gets Knocked Up a Notch", helping him and the Planet Express crew make the way to the birthing site on his massively swampy home planet, and congratulates him when his children are born safely. Much later in "Children of a Lesser Bog", Zapp offers to be "Captain Uncle" to Kif and Amy's now-maturing kids, and he sheds Tears of Joy with everyone else when Kif and Amy reunite with them at the end of the episode.
  • A bizarre example, but in "Brannigan, Begin Again", when Zapp sends the PE ship barrelling towards the Neutral Planet, he actually invites Kif along with him to safety and even found him a suit and helmet. Though Kif doesn't really have a say in it, the fact he also wanted to save him when he could have easily let him perish is an oddly touching moment. Another odd example comes from this episode when he asks Fry and Bender to be as loyal Kif is, citing him as the prime example of what loyalty means to him in his men. While it's likely just because Kif rarely has the spine to do anything against Zapp, the fact that he sees Kif as his most loyal soldier is quite nice.
  • He has a half-one in "Where the Buggalo Roam" when he compliments Kif on a brave act by calling it "Brannigan-worthy".
  • He genuinely loves Munda when he hooks up with her in "Zapp Dingbat", never mistreats her at any point during their short-lived relationship, and turns down Leela when the latter tries to win him over to try and prove he's an objectifying sleazebag with poor impulse control.
• Pink Is Erotic: Zapp Brannigan is the perverted captain of The Nimbus and Leela's unwanted admirer. In his first episode, he seduces Leela into pity sex and makes all sorts of advances towards women. His bedroom is decorated with pink candles, he has a pink bed, and the walls are decorated in pink.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Pretty much his only battle strategy.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He's very cowardly, dim-witted, immature, and perverted. Though that's more disturbing as he's also a high-ranking officer in the Earth's military, with the authority to get people killed in mass amounts. Which he fully utilizes to do just that.
• Ramming Always Works: His most effective "tactic" is to simply ram his ships into the enemy. His initial plan for the Omicronian invasion force was to have all his ships file directly into the alien cannons to clog them, and his plan for dealing with the "Neutral war machine" is to let the Planet Express ship build up sublight acceleration for several minutes and then crash it into the Neutral capital.
• Screw Yourself: Issue 43 of the comic book has him dream that he's waiting for a date. After Fry enters his dream to sell him President Nixon collector plates, the woman turns out to be a female lookalike of himself. Being a narcissist, Zapp is completely okay with this.
• Shadow Archetype: He's essentially Fry with all of his flaws and none of his likeable qualities. Both of them are ditzes who love Leela, but while Fry respects her feelings and continually tries to better himself for her approval, Zapp only sees her as an object to be won and will never admit to or grow out of his faults. Ultimately, this is why Leela gets with Fry by the end.
• Shout-Out: Between the many William Shatner shout outs, one stands out as he dramatically recites the lyrics to "Lola", imitating Shatner's infamous rendition of "Rocket Man". Not to mention ordering Kif to climb out on the wing and pretend he's a gremlin.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Manly Man to Kif's Sensitive Guy.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Subverted. Someone with his personality would be a Small Name, Big Ego in most situations if not for his absurdly high rank.
• Smug Snake: He does know what noble means, but thinks that that automatically means he also knows that noble is as noble does. Which is why Kif is fully allowed to do noble things, but only for principle's sake, as he's able to convince himself that Kif's triumphs ultimately don't matter; after all, he himself is already living his best life of being a captain who doesn't need to worry about telling "noble" and some weird phrase apart enough to know that they aren't mutually exclusive and are inevitably going to lead to wakes of destruction bound to backfire on him before anyone else 50% of the time.
• The Sociopath: Egotistical, arrogant yet charming, incapable of learning from his mistakes, utterly without guilt for his actions, manipulative, an exceptional liar, and of course lacking a shred of respect for any life other than his own, Zapp shows all the classic signs of sociopathy. It's just that he's an idiot too.
  • The comics reveal he wasn't always this way and was once a legitimately good soldier, but experiments to clone him left his DNA permanently damaged and it changed him into what he is today. While his behavior is unacceptable, Zapp wasn't BORN a sociopath, making him a somewhat different example than most.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Inverted. He started his career as a hyper-competent and genuinely empathetic soldier before managing to get promoted to captain not too long after, but DOOP's attempt to clone him went awry and turned his brain into mush. Now, he's a sociopathic "soldier" in name only.
• Straw Misogynist: His levels of sexism are as complex as they are repulsive. Even after seeming to have gotten off happily with Munda, his backward "no battle of the sexes unless it's a final battle" mindset quickly comes into play, not viewing Munda as a slave, but trying rather forcefully to wear the pants in the relationship by making decisions that endanger other alien races for the sake of war and glamour (in this case, the Carcarons). And then there's his pickup routine... Whatever happened to that book clearly wasn't enough for him to re-learn his approach.
• Teeny Weenie: Implied in The Beast with a Billion Backs.
  Amy: Be careful, my little teeny greeny weenie!
  Zapp: (covers crotch) That's just a fungal infection... Oh, she's talking to you, Kif.
• Too Dumb to Live: In fact, it's even a wonder he is alive since half the things he does nearly get himself killed (the other half gets everyone else killed). Somehow he rationalizes bouncing between asteroids will induce "some kind of gravity boost" and thus he tries to pilot a gigantic space cruise liner through an asteroid field. His stupidity makes Fry look like a Nobel Prize scientist in comparison.
• Ultimate Job Security: He keeps his job despite being a vain, womanizing idiot whose subordinates tend to die horribly, often by his own command. The most egregious example would have to be when it was explained that Zapp was such a rampant sexual-harasser that the DOOP opted to ban all women from serving in the military rather than punish him.
  • A tie-in comic book reveals that following the botched experiment that turned him into an incompetent and arrogant man, Zapp blackmailed President Nixon into granting him the title of "Captain for Life" in exchange for keeping quiet about the botched cloning experiment, coined by Nixon as "Zappgate."
• Villain with Good Publicity: The only possible explanation for how he retains a job.
• Villainous Crush: He sleeps with Leela in his debut episode and usually flirts with her in many of his appearances afterwards.
• Wasted Beauty: He seems at first glance to be the dashing, heroic type, complete with handsome face and fine physique. Those who know him, however, are painfully aware of Brannigan's Know-Nothing Know-It-All pomposity, his Glory Hound arrogance, his jerkass demeanor, and that he has attained command by being Kicked Upstairs.
• We Have Reserves: His method for dealing with pretty much everything? Send wave after wave of men at the problem until it's solved or he runs out of men. In one particular case, he used this as a "clever strategy" to overload the kill counters of the Killbots (a strategy almost as effective as just letting the Killbots run rampant, though he might have been more concerned with preserving property than lives in that case).
• Windmill Crusader: Has provoked wars with the least aggressive, least threatening races in the galaxy because he's convinced that being so unthreatening means they can't be trusted.
• Would Hurt a Child: Has absolutely no problem sending children to their deaths in a battle. In fact, he once ordered the creation of a Children's Ship, on the basis that "children are our future."
• Zerg Rush: A favorite tactic of his.
  Zapp (indicating enemy mothership on chart): ...my strategy is so simple an idiot could have devised it! On my command, all ships will line up and file directly into the alien death cannons, clogging them with wreckage!

(Lieutenant) Kif Kroker

Zapp: "Kif, round them up, and spare me the weary sigh for once."

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche
Debut: "Love Labours Lost in Space"

"But sir, that makes no sense!"

Brannigan's long-suffering personal assistant, Kif just can't seem to get away from the guy. Eventually evolved from merely a Satellite Character for Brannigan to also having a relationship with Amy.

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• Alliterative Name: Kif Kroker.
• Beleaguered Assistant: To Zapp. He currently provides the trope image.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He turns out to be a pretty demanding boss when he has an underling of his own, and after learning that Zapp used his temporary death as an excuse to sleep with Amy he snaps and punches Zapp right in the stomach.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: His digits can stick to walls and ceilings, he has no muscles or bones (his body is supported by bags of fluid instead), and we've also seen him inflate his head (to scare off predators on his home world) — and only his head, get your mind out of the gutter. He reproduces via touch ("No glove, no love.") and it seems anyone in his race can reproduce, regardless of gender. His race is otherwise amphibian (they are born as tadpoles that are water-bound then become bipeds that can live on land about twenty years after being born). Also, his race has a late metamorphosis stage in which they become clouds of Hive Mind-operating fly-like creatures (his father is this form). In Proposition Infinity, Kif says that he would be the closest related to the Sea Cucumber out of all of Earth's aquatic animals.
• Butt-Monkey: Zapp frequently has him do humiliating things, and Kif often gets the blame when Zapp makes a mistake.
• Camp Straight: He likes the color pink and other typically feminine things, but he's in a happy relationship with Amy.
• Character Catchphrase: An exasperated sigh seems to be his, always in response to whatever dumb thing Zapp has just said. It seems to be contagious: in "Into the Wild Green Yonder", Bender does it with him.
• Characterization Marches On: In his early appearances, he was a Deadpan Snarker who was clearly disgusted with Zapp's stupidity; the creators actually came up with him based on the question "What if Spock had hated Kirk?". In subsequent episodes, he quickly evolved into an Extreme Doormat, miserably suffering under his boss' idiotic commands.
• The Chew Toy: In the comics, to some extent (though it doesn't make him any less of a lovable Nice Guy). See Nice Job Breaking It, Hero below.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Zapp, despite not wanting to be, although he can't bring himself to stop. In one of the comics, he becomes extremely depressed when Zapp gets a new toady (and goes into an Unstoppable Rage when said toady is manipulating Zapp).
• Deadpan Snarker: Especially early on, before he hooked up with Amy.
• The Dog Bites Back: In "The Beast With a Billion Backs", where he punches Brannigan in the stomach for sleeping with Amy. It was a long time coming. Played straight in the episode ''Zapp gets Cancelled" where he reached his breaking point after Zapp use him for as a towel/loofah during his shower, and squirting his alien blood like a hose at an alien enemy. Kif filed a formal complaint against Zapp, who was stripped of his leadership and force to go to sensitivity camp.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Turns out to be this once he gets a subordinate. It's mostly the result of pent-up stress from serving under Zapp, though.
• The Eeyore: He's almost always in a depressed mood, and only perks up when around Amy. Justified, since he's constantly mistreated by Zapp.
• Endearingly Dorky: He serves as Zapp's meeker, smarter alien assistant. He tends to be a very insecure, neurotic and socially awkward pushover and becomes painfully shy when he's around his love interest, Amy, a very pretty human girl who actually returns his feelings.
• Extreme Doormat: It starts in Season 2, when Kif is fired with Brannigan, and yet inexplicably goes along with him into homelessness and prostitution. Even more so after he hooks up with Amy, he becomes less of a Deadpan Snarker and much more passive.
• Freudian Excuse: In the comics, he puts up with Zapp's abuse because Kif feels guilty for betraying Zapp by helping with the cover-up and leaving him a frozen body in space.
• Full-Frontal Assault: "Children of a Lesser Bog" has him rescue Zapp from some giant tardigrades while nude, removing his clothes mainly to ensure the effectiveness of his camouflage ability.
• Green-Skinned Space Babe: A male example in-universe. Females in at least two cultures of humanoids find him attractive.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Hypercompetent might be pushing it a bit, but he's got a good head on his shoulders and is usually standing near Zapp.
• Hypocritical Humor: In "War is the H-Word", Fry is demoted to Kif's assistant and Kif proves to be an even worse boss than Zapp, being openly hostile towards and constantly yelling at Fry, even calling him a "worm." Then again, working for Zapp definitely has led to some severely repressed anger on Kif's part, and Kif has more than enough decency to at least not find a way to endanger Fry's life like Zapp would, so it could always be much, much worse.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: A couple of times. He does pretty well, all things considered.
• Informed Attractiveness: Out of Zapp, Kif, and Fry, Kif is apparently supposed to be the best looking. At least, according to the Fem-Puter. The art style makes this pretty difficult to tell.
  Fem-Puter: Kif, as the most attractive male, will be snu-snued by the most beautiful women of Amazonia... then the large women... then the petite women... then the large women again.
• Insecure Love Interest: He has awful self esteem that causes him great anxiety whenever he tries to impress Amy, especially due to her immense wealth and cuteness, but she always reassures him that he's good enough for her.
• Interspecies Romance: He's an amphibious alien and Amy is his human girlfriend.
• Invisible Streaker: In "Children of a Lesser Bog", he removes his clothes when he rescues Zapp from the giant tardigrades to ensure the effectiveness of his camouflage ability.
• Let's Get Dangerous!:
  • In "Where the Buggalo Roam", Kif rides the Martian equivalent of a cow through a sandstorm to save Amy from a tornado.
  • "300 Big Boys" shows that Kif is actually capable of holding his own in a fight, when he's put on the front lines of the Spiderian War.
• Little Green Man: He fits the bill for being small and green. However, neither he, nor his species, have hostility towards humanity.
• Mister Seahorse: He becomes pregnant in the aptly-named "Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch". Apparently, his species has a strange method of reproduction.
• Nervous Wreck: He tends to stutter and hyperventilate incomprehensibly when he's nervous. He also tends to lose control of his camouflage reflex when under stress.
• Nice Guy: He's kind of snarky early on, but grows more into a shy, sensitive nice guy through his relationship with Amy. He also doesn't have any bad blood with Fry after the events of "War Is the H-Word", even giving him a friendly greeting after getting launched into space by Zapp in "The Beast with a Billion Backs".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As we learn from Zapp's origin story, after Zapp became a jackass as a result of botched cloning, he was frozen in carbonite and sent into space forever, and would have remained that way... but Kif put a note in his prison telling people to return him, and the two blackmailed the government into giving Zapp his position. If it weren't for Kif, Zapp wouldn't be around at all.
• No-Respect Guy: He is put upon a lot because Zapp blames him for his own failings.
• No Social Skills: He has issues interacting with other people due to abuse from Zapp.
• Occidental Otaku: In the comics, he's shown to have various anime posters hanging in his room.
• Only Sane Man: When you work with someone like Zapp, you're this by default.
• Punny Name: "Kroker" as in "croaker" as in "frog."
• Rubber Man: A mild form of this. Being an amphibian-like alien with no bones, he can stretch himself to a considerable degree, though this causes apparent discomfort and isn't really treated as a superpower.
• Running Gag:
  • Kif being accused of being spineless, causing him to explain he doesn't have a spine and his body is supported by a series of fluid-filled bladders. He often gets cut off though before he can finish.
  • One from the early seasons is Kif's disgusted reactions when following Zapp up a ladder, implying that Brannigan eschews underwear in addition to pants.
• Sarcastic Devotee: He sticks behind Zapp no matter what (probably because it's his place in the military), but makes it painfully obvious that he hates Brannigan for it. Oddly enough, Zapp is never fazed by Kif's commentaries.
• Satellite Character: Initially, he was only ever really seen alongside Zapp and is usually a snarky Beleaguered Assistant that was always far more intelligent than his boss. Averted in episodes following his Relationship Upgrade with Amy, in which he started having comparatively more screentime to himself.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Savvy Guy to Amy's Energetic Girl.
• The Scapegoat: Official Zapp policy seems to be blaming Kif whenever he does something wrong.
  Kif, stand by to take the blame... now!
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Sensitive Guy to Zapp's Manly Man.
• Shrinking Violet: Usually a Deadpan Snarker when dealing with Zapp (at least in early episodes), but seems to show this side when his Love Interest Amy is around. In the episode that brought them together as a couple, she kept getting phone calls of someone breathing and panting heavily on the other end; she assumed they were prank calls, when it was really Kif calling to tell her how he feels, but too scared to say anything, thus hyperventilating until he hung up.
• Teeny Weenie: It's implied his penis size is unimpressive in "Proposition Infinity", where his quarrel with Amy at the beginning of the episode has him respond to Amy calling him a jellyfish by stating that he's more closely related to the sea cucumber, with Amy retorting "Not where it counts."
• Undying Loyalty: A bizarre example: he clearly despises Zapp, but goes along with everything he does and is always at his side no matter what. Kif goes into homelessness and prostitution with Zapp despite the latter getting him fired in "Brannigan Begin Again", and he even trusted Zapp enough to make him the best man during his wedding to Amy in "The Beast with a Billion Backs". The comics eventually reveal that Zapp stood up for him when he first joined the army, saved his life numerous times, and was actually a good friend to him; Kif genuinely doesn't think Zapp is a bad person at his core, but only after what the government did to him changed his personality, making it more understandable.
• Uptight Loves Wild: The world-weary and cynical Kif and the fun party girl Amy fall for each other.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: "Brannigan, Begin Again" has him find a competent boss in Leela, and despite his irritating her with his tales of how awful Zapp is, he still enjoys the feeling of being free from Zapp's command. Then Zapp mutinies, and Kif is dragged back into being his assistant.

Calculon

"I've seen better acting from extras in Godzilla movies!"

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche
Debut: "I, Roommate"

Robotic star of the hit TV show All My Circuits and Bender's hero.

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• Ambiguously Bi: One plotline in All My Circuits has him cheating on Monique with his male Human Friend, though it's unclear if this reflects Calculon's actual identity or simply his acting talent.
• Back for the Dead: The Planet Express crew brings him back to life in the late series episode "Calculon 2.0", only for him to die again at the end of the episode.
• Back from the Dead: In "The Impossible Stream", he is brought back to life to star in a revival of All My Circuits. Unlike in "Calculon 2.0", he remains alive for the rest of the episode.
• Berserk Button: Rob him of an Oscar and he will passionately threaten to kill you. With said Oscar.
• Big "NO!": He has this down to an art form:
  Calculon: Funny story. The script called for me to say 'Yes', but I gave it a little twist.
  NOOOO!! En-Oh-Oh-Oh-Oh!!
• Break the Haughty: After being revived, Calculon discovers that people developed a rather low opinion of him after he died—this is largely because, with the exception of Fry and Bender, people finally realized that Calculon just doesn't have any "acting abilities" outside of being super hammy and over-the-top. This ends up helping him learn legitimate emotion.
• Brotherhood of Funny Hats: He's the leader of the League of Robots, until Bender takes his place.
• Chewing the Scenery: To say that he's a terrible actor is not quite true: he's not acting. Even when he's not in front of a camera, exaggerated and ludicrous emoting is the norm for him.
• Deal with the Devil: He made a deal with the Robot Devil to gain his "unholy ACTING TALENT"!
• A Death in the Limelight: His second death in "Calculon 2.0," an episode wich revived him just to focus on his poor acting talent, then kill him off again (until "The Impossible Stream").
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • He respects Howard Zoid (Zoidberg's uncle) too much to kill him with his own Oscar.
  • He's horrified that the network executives would put Bender on All My Circuits behaving in such a horrible manner, pointing out how children watch the show and that Bender would be a terrible role model.
• He Really Can Act: In-Universe: after being brought Back from the Dead in "Calculon 2.0", Calculon - who's primarily known for being a Large Ham - delivers a genuinely heartfelt, emotional speech during his time as an extra on All My Circuits that sincerely moves the production crew to the point of applause.
• It's All About Me: An egomaniac of the highest caliber. He even tries to make himself the center of attention at the Donbot's daughter's wedding in "The Silence of the Clamps"-

  Calculon: [addressing the newlyweds] Hey, this one's for the new couple. It's your day! It's all about you. [sings] Who's that singing at your wedding? It's Calculon, Calculon, Calculo-on!

• Irony: Calculon gives the best, most heartfelt, most moving speech of his life, the one time he isn't acting.
• Jerkass: Until he gets some very belated Character Development in Season 7.
• Julius Beethoven da Vinci: Calculon claims to have been all of history's greatest robot actors, including Thespo-Mat and David Duchovny.
• Killed Off for Real: Double subverted.
  • He consumed food coloring during the World Acting Championship as a chance to win it, which is very fatal to robots, and died (presumably permanently). By the way, he didn't win.
  • He's resurrected a season later, only to be killed off again — only to be revived again in "The Impossible Stream," the first episode of the Hulu revival.
• Large Ham: He's generally very hammy and over-the-top when it comes to his acting abilities—and he's finally called out on this in "Calculon 2.0," as in the year since he died, viewers have gotten savvy to this and finally realized that Calculon just isn't that good of an actor. Ironically, when Calculon stops doing this and shows genuine emotion, he's actually a good actor.
• Really 700 Years Old: It's revealed in "The Honking" (the closest that Futurama ever got to a Halloween Episode) that Calculon's well over a thousand years old—after Bender questions him on it (pointing out that Calculon's biography says that he's only 27), Calculon explains to him, Fry and Leela that he changes it up every now and then to prevent people from getting suspicious about how old he really is. While the exact date and year of Calculon's "birth" is never revealed, it's revealed that, at one point, he was a robotic arm used in the factory that created/built "Project Satan" back in 2019.
• Oscar Bait: The reason he starred in Harold Zoid's The Magnificent Three is because he was promised an Oscar, so he could get out of that "festering rat's nest called 'television' once and for all."
• Senseless Sacrifice: Killed himself on stage to try and defeat Langdon Cobb's ego. It didn't work, Cobb ended up winning the contest and Bender eventually brought him down another way.
• Take That!: As mentioned above, he claims to have been David Duchovny (among others made for the show), but what he's claiming to be are history's greatest acting robots.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: So much so that the Robot Devil deliberately lost a deal just because it meant Calculon's soul would be out of Robot Hell.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: After his Senseless Sacrifice, no one seemed to care about his inert body.

Linda van Schoonhoven

"Thanks, Morbo."

Voiced by: Tress MacNeille
Debut: "A Big Piece of Garbage"

A human anchorwoman for Channel √2 News who works alongside Morbo. She often smiles and laughs at the wrong times.

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• The Alcoholic: She's implied to be an extremely hardened alcoholic, and once broke down in tears after Earth's alcohol supply was wiped out by Bender's Grey Goo clones.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: She asked Morbo to show off his bare chest for Freedom Day. Whatever she saw drove her into screaming hysterics.
• The Ditz: She pretty much epitomizes this trope: she's bubbly and airheaded, much unlike her co-anchor Morbo.
• Dumb Blonde: Not exactly, she is more a ditzy blonde. Given the revelation of her status as a barely functioning alcoholic, it's possible that her ditziness is because she's constantly sauced.
• Eaten Alive: Gets eaten by one of the Bart-monsters during "Simpsorama" (the crossover with The Simpsons). Though considering the groan she makes as it swallows her, the alive part probably didn't stick.
• Kent Brockman News: With Morbo. As his co-anchor, she often gives him airheaded laughs.
• Perpetual Smiler: Linda keeps on a cheery face even when bad news is announced.
• Stepford Smiler: Apparently her drinking allows her to cope with her job and kids. But she breaks down in tears after all alcohol on Earth is consumed by microscopic Bender clones.
  Linda: I CAN NO LONGER FACE MY CHILDREN!!

Morbo

"In lighter news, the city of New New York is doomed."

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche
Debut: "A Big Piece of Garbage"

A green alien who is Linda's co-anchorman. He often speaks condescendingly about humans, and openly implies that he is an advance agent for a genocidal alien invasion.

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• Ambiguously Evil: He behaves like a Card-Carrying Villain and frequently threatens to destroy people, and claims that his species plans to invade Earth some day. However we never actually see him act on any of it, and he never really does anything evil at all besides acting like a Jerkass and making bombastic threats, implying that his demeanour is at least partially an act.
• Berserk Button: He gets really worked up over misunderstandings about windmills.
• Body Horror: We never see it, but whatever is underneath his clothes is so horrific that it made Stepford Smiler Linda break out into hysterical screaming.
• Damned by Faint Praise: Morbo, an evil, misanthropic alien, is a close friend of Richard Nixon. That should tell you everything you need to know about Nixon.
• Delusions of Local Grandeur: Subverted because his superiority complex doesn't come from being one anchor of "Entertainment and Earth Invasion Tonite" but from the fact that he's a Fantastic Racist alien who sees humans as puny, inferior, and deserving of annihilation.
• Evil Is Hammy:
  "Windmills do not work that way! Good night!"
  "Hello, little man... I will destroy you!"
  "Tonight at eleven-" " DOOOOOOOOOOOOM!! "
• Evil Sounds Deep: He subverts this by having a deep voice and an expressed desire for destruction of all of humankind, but only works as a news anchor. In his first appearance his voice was pitch-shifted lower by the crew but for all subsequent appearances Maurice LaMarche just lowered his voice to the right level.
• Explosive Breeder: His species, apparently.
  Nixon: Hello, Morbo! How's the family?
  Morbo: Belligerent and numerous.
• Fantastic Racism: His hatred of humans is very comparable to Bender's, and in fact he's threatened to start an Alien Invasion and Kill All Humans a few times.
• Hates Everyone Equally: He hates humans, calling them "puny", "insignificant", and other insults (which his human co-host Linda oddly doesn't seem to mind), but he seems to hate and insult robots, other aliens, and pretty much everyone, even his wife. The only friends he seems to have are Richard Nixon and Linda.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He seems to consider Linda a friend, and once implied that he may actually love his wife deep down. He also breaks down when eating Bender's hideous food and microdosing LSD in "30% Iron Chef" because it showed that even hideous things can be sweet on the inside.
• Kent Brockman News: He and Linda are presented in a format similar to Kent Brockman himself, but with Morbo often talking about how he hates all other living things, especially humans.
• Little Green Man: He certainly isn't little (he's about the size of a well built human), he has green skin and hates humanity.
• Mood Whiplash: Prone to this, thanks to his job.
  Morbo: Across the galaxy, my people are completing the mighty space fleet that will exterminate the human race! But first, this news from Tinseltown.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Is sympathetic towards swarms of turtles seeking refuge from a heatwave by migrating to Holland. It's about the nicest he's ever been to anyone.
  • When Bender saves all of the miners in a helium mine, he starts crying, claiming he must be suffering from eye parasites.
• Third-Person Person: "All humans are vermin in the eyes of Morbo!"
• Villainous Friendship: Is good friends with Richard Nixon.

Scruffy "The Janitor" Scruffington

"Scruffy's work here is done."

Voiced by: David Herman
Debut: "A Fishful of Dollars"

"I'm Scruffy. The janitor."

Originally a recurring background character in the series, Scruffy was randomly tossed about the series and held multiple jobs, much like The Simpsons' Wiseguy or his fellow background character Sal. However, during the episode "Anthology Of Interest," the writers ran out of characters to kill^note In a non-canon "what-if" segment and decided to feature his character as another victim as a result. Ever since then, he became an Ascended Extra and his job was cemented into the full time janitor at Planet Express.

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• Almighty Janitor:
  • He does own more than four times the rest of the employee's stock in Planet Express.
    Scruffy: Scruffy believes in this company! (sniffles)
  • When asked what he did at Planet Express by Hermes, who was looking to reduce overhead, he replied, "Turlets (toilets) 'n boilers, boilers 'n turlets. Plus that one boilin' turlet. Fire me if'n you dare."
• Ascended Extra: He shows up to comment on things when all other characters are used up. He's also occasionally featured as being even lazier than Fry, spending all his time in the basement reading porno magazines.
• Back from the Dead: Implied, as Hermes mentions bringing him back as a zombie in "Law and Oracle".
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Borrows Bender's as part of a joke in "Ghost in the Machines":
  Hermes: As you can see, since Bender's death, requests to bite one's shiny metal ass are down 98%. (Interrupted by Scruffy vacuuming) Do you mind doing that later?!
  Scruffy: Bite my shiny metal ass.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "Yyyup"
  • "[I'm] Scruffy. The janitor."
  • "Second."
• The Comically Serious: Not even nearly dying in an explosion fazes him that much.
• Dark and Troubled Past: According to "300 Big Boys", Scruff's well-acquainted with prison, and not fussed about it.
  Scruffy: Jail's not so bad. You can make sangria in the terlet. 'course it's shank or be shanked.
• Distracted by the Sexy: In "2-D Blacktop", he broke his spine by walking into the Planet Express ship while admiring Leela's breasts.
• Expy: His voice seems to be based on Karl Childers. Mmmhmm.
• Five Temperament Ensemble: Leukine. He's aberrant both sexually and professionally, but doesn't thrive on it any more than he might simply relish in it.
• Hidden Depths: Scruffy apparently has quite the vocabulary, though it's Played for Laughs.
  Scruffy: (after learning about Fry being Kicked Upstairs) What fever dream is this that bids to tear this company in twain? (picks up and starts reading National Pornographic)
• Lazy Bum: He is lazy and can usually be found in the basement of the building, watching the boiler and reading porn.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: He's rarely seen without some humorously named porno magazine (e.g. National Pornographic, Chef Play-Boyardee, and Astounding Tales [Of Doing It])
  Scruffy: Scruffy's gonna die the way he lived. (licks finger, turns page of magazine)
  • Lampshaded in "Children of a Lesser Bog". When trace DNA is detected in Kif's children^note since at that point only Leela was believed to have impregnated Kif due to the circumstances and the others look at him, he simply says "Scruffy's stuff gets around."
• Loved by All: Played for Laughs. On the occasions the crew remember that Scruffy even exists, he's their best friend and confidant. When the Professor suggests firing him rather than Zoidberg, everyone goes ballistic.
• Mutual Masquerade: No-one remembers who he is, and he doesn't remember them.
  Leela: Who're you?
  Scruffy: I'm Scruffy, the janitor.
  Leela: I've never seen you before.
  Scruffy: I've never seen you before neither.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In "Farewell to Arms", he manages to save Leela after her arm had been torn off with nothing but a ladder. Being Scruffy, he's nonchalant about it.
  Scruffy: Don't thank me. Thank the ladder.
• Our Zombies Are Different: It is been implied that Scruffy died once, as Hermes mentions bringing him back "as a zombie" in "Law and Oracle".
  "Life and death are a seamless continuum."
• Recurring Extra: He is often present and makes comments on situations that have nothing to do with him.
• Repetitive Name: According to the 2008 Futurama wall calendar, his full name is "Scruffy Scruffington".
• Running Gag: No-one ever remembers that Scruffy works at Planet Express. Except Fry, who apparently befriended him at some point. He never remembers them, either.
• Secret-Keeper: Apparently serves as one for Fry. Except when it came to the whereabouts of his seven-leafed clover.
• Sixth Ranger: Though he was initially a minor character, Scruffy was later promoted to the janitor of Planet Express, essentially making him the eighth recurring crew member after the main seven.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: In "The Prisoner of Benda", it is revealed that his robotic washbucket harbors romantic feelings for him which it confesses to when its personality is transferred to Amy Wong's body. Scruffy tells Washbucket that nothing can come of its love because deep down he knows that it's just 'janitorial equipment', he then tells Washbucket to leave before he begs it to stay. When Washbucket leaves, he cries, implying that he returns its feelings.
• The Stoic: He almost never shows any significant emotion.
• Third-Person Person: Scruffy almost always speaks in the third person.
• Ultimate Job Security: Based on his performance review with Hermes, he knows no one else is either capable of or willing to do his job.
  Scruffy: Fire me if'n you dare.
• Verbal Tic: "Mmmhmm."

The Planet Express Ship

Voiced by: Maurice LaMarche, Sigourney Weaver ("Love and Rocket")

The main (and only) vessel Planet Express use for their deliveries, built by Professor Farnsworth and equipped with a special engine that allows it to move reality around itself.

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• A Day in the Limelight: "Love and Rocket" is the only time the ship's explicitly given a personality.
• Applied Phlebotinum: It is reliant entirely on the all important L-unit, without which lightspeed "is but the fevered dream of a madman". To viewers, the L-unit looks like a featureless block of metal shaped like an uppercase L (not lower - lowercase doesn't count!)
• Big Beautiful Woman: Bender's opinion of her when they start dating.
  Bender: In order for me to get busy at maximum efficiency, I need a woman with a big, 300-ton booty.
• Corrupted Character Copy: "Love and Rocket" turns into a parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with Ship in the role of HAL. Only where he turned due to a logical inconsistency, she turns because she got dumped.
• Cuteness Proximity: Much to Bender's tedium, when they date she likes going to zoos and cooing over baby tapirs.
• Depending on the Writer: Whether it's a case of The Alleged Car or What a Piece of Junk will alternate depending on which is funnier or more dramatic. Several episodes have intimated it's a piece of crap barely held together with tape and wishful thinking, while others have it holding its own in military engagements.
• Easy Sex Change: In "Love and Rocket", Ship goes from being male (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) to female (voiced by Sigourney Weaver) simply via the Professor adjusting a dial.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Another person who fell in love with Bender and got burned. Unfortunately for Bender, Planet Express Ship wasn't willing to let him go that easily.
• Made of Iron: The ship can take a pounding. Several times it's shrugged off being blasted, smashed, crashed or crushed completely flat. It's even survived going to the bottom of the ocean, over a thousand times the amount of pressure it was designed to withstand.
• Older Than They Look: Bender was offended when he saw Ship had been lying about her age.
• Sudden Name Change: The Professor randomly names the ship Bessie in "2-D Blacktop" and sticks with it in "Leela and the Genestalk."
• Took a Level in Kindness: Thanks to some upgrades from the Professor, Ship goes from a stuffy jerk to a more mellow personality.
• Yandere: Thanks to some brutally callous dumping from Bender, Ship decides she'll make him one with her again, one way or another, either by flying into a quasar or merging personalities with him.

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