List of recurring alien characters from Futurama: Difference between revisions
Pete.Dakota (talk | contribs) |
Pete.Dakota (talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 91: | Line 91: | ||
==Ndnd== |
==Ndnd== |
||
(Voiced by [[Tress Macneille]]) '''Ndnd''', pronounced " |
(Voiced by [[Tress Macneille]]) '''Ndnd''', pronounced "nndunnda", is [[#Lrrr|Lrrr]]'s current wife. Ndnd often accompanies Lrrr on his trips to Earth. She is most often seen arguing with Lrrr and complains about the lack of romance in their marriage in the episode "[[Spanish Fry]]". There is a recurring joke between Ndnd and Lrrr resembling "The Honeymooners" where Lrrr says to Ndnd "One of these days Ndnd, bang, zoom, straight to the third moon of Omicron Persei 8" or "Straight to Omicron Persei 12" |
||
==Nibblonians== |
==Nibblonians== |
||
Revision as of 13:56, 19 July 2007
- This article discusses alien recurring characters. For robotic recurring characters, see List of recurring robot characters from Futurama. For recurring human characters, see List of recurring human characters from Futurama. For recurring animal characters, see List of Futurama animals.
Futurama's recurring characters:
Brain Slugs
The Brain Slugs are small, gelatinous, fist-sized aliens that attach themselves to human heads and act as mind control devices, reducing their hosts to a zombie-like state. Aside from the obvious fact that the person has a Brain Slug attached to them, the Brain Slugs further betray their hosts' possessed state by speaking through their hosts in the third person ("Hermes enjoyed it" being just one example) and in a monotone voice. They may be a homage to Robert A. Heinlein's slug-like parasites featured in The Puppet Masters. Their first appearance shows them as sponsors of the political Brain Slug Party, favoring "unreasonably huge subsidies to the brain slug planet". Their plan for the working man is to attach brain slugs to him. ("A Head in the Polls")
They are later featured in the episode "Raging Bender" when Hermes returns from vacation with a brain slug attached to his head. He orders the rest of the Planet Express crew to "go to the Brain Slug planet and walk around not wearing helmets." Seeing through this ruse, the crew instead goes to the movies. At one point, the brain slug is knocked off, freeing Hermes until Bender helpfully replaces it. Hermes characterizes his brain slug experience as a "nightmare." His brain slug, however, once reattached, thanks Bender for picking him up off the cold floor. Another brain slug attaches itself briefly to Fry's head but soon dies of starvation. According to the episode's DVD commentary, this was due to Fry's lack of intelligence rather than his lack of the Delta Brainwave (as mentioned in "The Why of Fry"). Using a garlic shampoo is suggested as a protective measure, although its usefulness is unclear.
According to creator, Matt Groening, the brain slugs were originally going to make people smarter.
Brainspawn
.jpg){kind=link}
An evil race of flying telepathic brains that came into existence one millisecond after the Big Bang. Their main enemies are the Nibblonians. Their eons-long goal is to destroy all other intelligent life, since the thoughts of other beings "screech at them like the forced laughs of a billion art-house movie patrons." Their method of operation is to swarm a planet, using their "stupefaction fields" to render all inhabitants too stupid to resist. Then they absorb the planet's collected knowledge and destroy it. The Brainspawn's leader personally killed Earth's dinosaurs.
Fry is uniquely immune to the effect (due to becoming his own grandfather in the episode "Roswell That Ends Well", thus meaning he doesn't have the Delta Brainwave which the Brainspawn attack), and manages to drive them from Earth ("The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"). No one affected by the Brainspawn's stupefaction field remembers these events, and Fry is unable to convince anyone what has happened.
Later, under the direction of the Nibblonians, Fry plants a "quantum interphase bomb" on the Brainspawn's space station/knowledge repository, the "Infosphere", sending it and the Brainspawn to an alternate dimension from which, the Nibblonians believe, there is no escape ("The Why of Fry"). Nibbler, using a previously unknown ability to erase human memories, makes Fry forget this second adventure. Fry apparently remembers the first Brainspawn invasion, stating "I remember the square dancing stomachs, although that might have been a mylanta commercial.... Wait! I do remember that, everyone told me I was crazy!"
In the DVD commentary for this episode, it's mentioned that the Brainspawn may have been inspired by the movie Fiend Without a Face, which features invisible, flying, tentacled brains that kill by sucking out the victim's own brains. It's also possible that the brainspawn draw some inspiration from the Daleks. This can be backed by the fact that they glow when they speak, and that they speak in a monotone.
Elzar
(Voiced by John DiMaggio) - A famous four-armed Neptunian chef, with his own New New York restaurant ("Elzar's Fine Cuisine", a regular set-piece in the series), and television show. Elzar is a parody of the celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse, while his physique is a nod to the four-armed television chef Gormaanda of The Star Wars Holiday Special. Elzar is crass and unpleasant, and has a very high opinion of himself. He never passes up an opportunity to milk money from his customers. Elzar's favorite cooking implement is his spice weasel, a rodent-like creature which propels a cloud of spices from its snout upon having its body squeezed, which he uses to "knock it up a notch", with his customary "Bam!" The phrase "knock it up a notch," is a parody of Emeril's catchphrase "kick it up a notch", Emeril is also famous for yelling "Bam" when adding spice to his dishes.
Glab
(Voiced by Tress MacNeille) - Glab, the president of D.O.O.P., is a female Amphibiosan. She makes her first appearance in the episode "Brannigan Begin Again" and is a recurring character in the Futurama Comics[1][2]
Horrible Gelatinous Blob
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - Horrible Gelatinous Blob (HGB) is a three-eyed, green, translucent, ill-tempered alien. He contemptuously refers to humanoids as "solids", and ridicules their one-way digestive system. He first appears in a Planet Express television ad in "Episode Two: The Series Has Landed" in which he devours an employee who uses a rival delivery company. He then rewards an employee who uses Planet Express by devouring him as well. He also makes a brief appearance in "The Problem with Popplers" as a customer at Fishy Joe's. Later, he is one of the unsatisfied customers on Cubert's and Dwight's paper route, in which he tells the crew that he will accept their "apology when you kiss my ass. Which I don't have!" He beats Hermes and Professor Farnsworth close to death, though he later apologizes. Mr. Blob is later revealed to be a stock trader at the InterGalactic Stock Exchange, though he claims he works in a plant in the paper route episode, in orbit around Earth and he is one of the fathers in FART on the episode "Bender Should Not Be Allowed On TV".
He has a son named Brett Blob (suggesting that perhaps the father's given name is Horrible Gelatinous). Brett regularly bullies Cubert and Dwight; Brett uses a miniature black hole to reduce their lunches to a singularity as seen in "The Route of All Evil". It is also revealed in this episode, and demonstrated on Brett, that beings of the HGB's species are weak against salt like the average slug.
Two members of his species are briefly shown embracing within sight of the Eiffel Tower in the episode "Love and Rocket", which has a Valentine's Day theme.
Persons and objects devoured by the Horrible Gelatinous Blob (or others of his species) can be seen suspended within his protoplasm. The process of recovery is implied but unclear.
Judging by his appearance and behavior, HGB most likely originated from the likewise malevolent and man-eating "Space Mutants" from Matt Groening's The Simpsons.
The Hyperchicken
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - A 6-foot-plus blue-green rooster attorney with a pince-nez perched on his beak. He has a strong Southern accent (reminiscent of Foghorn Leghorn) and describes himself as "a simple hyperchicken from a backwoods asteroid". His actual name is unknown. His first appearance is in "Brannigan Begin Again".
He is a terrible lawyer, and routinely loses cases for the main characters. He keeps his children in a suitcase and is seen crowing on top of a courthouse (in "A Tale of Two Santas"). At one point he is hired while imprisoned and awaiting a trial "for that there incompetence" ("The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz"). It is, however, interesting to note that in this instance he manages to secure for Bender(who had been accused of vast levels of pollution, and as well as driving with a blood alcohol level of .08%, well-below the legal limit for robots) a deal that requires him to only serve 5 hours of community service for the crime. In one case ("Insane in the Mainframe"), simply hiring him as a legal representative is enough grounds for Judge Whitey to accept a plea of insanity from Fry and Bender. In another ("A Tale of Two Santas"), he randomly pecks at a small girl, one of the witnesses, having mistaken her for corn. Hyperchicken also becomes very agitated if the word "badger" is mentioned.
Hyperchicken often exclaims "I'm just a simple country Hyperchicken", a reference to James Stewart's famous quip from Anatomy of a Murder. In this movie Stewart curries the favor of the jury by repeatedly painting himself as a local, as opposed to the "high-powered" legal team imported from Lansing, Michigan. He repeatedly claims "I'm just a simple country lawyer...". The hyperchicken is a parody of many incompetent attorneys from many movies such as My Cousin Vinny and indeed the Hyperchicken's complete and total lack of legal skill bears similarity to Lionel Hutz from Groening's other series The Simpsons. Though he does sometimes catch a lucky break.
Lrrr
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - Ruler of the planet Omicron Persei VIII, located 1,000 light years from Earth. On numerous occasions Lrrr has threatened to destroy the Earth as a whole, as well as members of the Planet Express crew personally. Lrrr is something of a parody of all clichéd "green-skinned space invaders." His wife is Ndnd, and the two appear to enjoy a relationship which goes through periodic love-hate cycles. Ndnd once mentions that Lrrr was previously married, though his first wife has never been seen.
Lrrr and his inner circle are devout fans of 20th- and 21st-century Earth television which, due to the distance of their planet from Earth, they can watch "live", though Lrrr has a violent hatred of animated shows. It is implied that he is not a fan of Joey from Friends, and indeed that he completely fails to grasp the idea behind the show ("Why doesn't Ross, the largest friend, simply eat the other five?"). He purchases Fry's nose on the black market as an aphrodisiac named "Human Horn" in the episode "Spanish Fry". It is revealed in this episode that Omicronians (or at least Lrrr and Ndnd), when engaging in sexual intercourse, pose a danger to anyone within a 500 meter radius, although the exact reasons for this are not given. Whenever he is seen onscreen, Lrrr tries to appear threatening and powerful, but his intimidating appearance is always foiled by him performing some banal and humorous activity, such as adjusting a slanted painting or scratching his rear on live television.
Lrrr also has a soft spot for animals, which he tries to hide with his threatening persona. However, Ndnd states that the reason she fell in love with him was because of his sensitive, poetic side. He apparently cried when he accidentally stepped on a dinglebunny and nursed it back to health and wrote a poem for Ndnd when they were dating. He also stopped a park ranger from tranquilizing a sasquatch in the episode "Spanish Fry", later composing a short eloquent speech about animal diginity before breaking into tears.
His catchphrase is "I am Lrrr, ruler of the planet Omicron Persei VIII!" (this is usually followed by a would be interruption in speech, such as microphone feedback or a photo falling into disalignment) A young Omicronian named Jrrr may be his and Ndnd's son.
Lrrr, like others of his species, is very tall and strong relative to Earthlings and large enough to consume an adult human in one bite. This was evidenced when in the episode "The Problem with Popplers", he swallows the hippie character Free Waterfall Jr., becoming very high or intoxicated immediately following his "meal" ("Woah that Hippy's starting to kick in").It is also revealed that Omicronians have difficulty distinguishing one human from another. His skin is considerably tougher than human flesh and is left unmarked by a fired tranquilizer dart.
He is often criticized for his eating habits by Ndnd, who claims that he has eating habits stereotypical of unhealthy American diets (excessive amounts of ketchup or salt).
Lrrr also appears in a fantasy sequence in "Anthology of Interest II" as the ruler of planet Nintendu 64, piloting a spaceship resembling those in the computer game "Space Invaders".
Morbo
(Voiced by Maurice LaMarche) - The so-called "News Monster," Morbo is anchor for √2 News, Entertainment and Alien Invasion Tonight, Good Morning Earth, and other shows on the √2 Television Network. Morbo's character design is based on the aliens from the 1957 science fiction movie Invasion of the Saucer Men.
Morbo is actually an undercover scout for an alien invasion, but doesn't bother to be subtle about it and frequently comments on his species' violent invasion plans, and expresses his contempt for humans. His co-host, Linda whom he refers to as "Human Female," seems blissfully unaware of this, and usually responds with an empty-headed laugh to Morbo's contempt. Morbo has a great love for Lipps Inc's song "Funkytown", and apparently has something hideous where his chest is. The physical structure of his skull is different than humans as in "Crimes of the Hot" his head inflates and deflates like a balloon when he pants from the heat. He has uncharacteristic moments, such as in "The 30% Iron Chef"; he describes Bender's food as proving that, "even hideous things can be sweet on the inside," and breaks down into tears, although this is while under the influence of LSD. In addition, kittens give Morbo gas, implying that they are part of his diet.
He has a wife, Fawn, of the same species, mentioned in "The 30% Iron Chef" and seen briefly in "Three Hundred Big Boys" and "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings". Morbo speaks to her with his characteristic hostility but she pays no attention. When asked "How's the family?" by Nixon's head, he grumpily replies "Belligerent and numerous".
Morbo is good friends with President Richard Nixon's head. In the episode "A Head in the Polls", Morbo is the mediator of the debate and refers to the candidates as "Puny human number 1, Puny human number 2, and Morbo's good friend, Richard Nixon." He has made only two appearances in the series where he doesn't threaten to destroy Earth. As a TV host who hates humans, he often makes comments such as "Tremble puny humans, one day my race will destroy you all!" followed by a sinister laugh.
On the DVD commentaries for Futurama, Maurice LaMarche always points out that various characters he voices "sound nothing like Morbo or Lrrr" as a running gag.
"Morbo" means "morbid curiosity" in spanish, this is related with the sensationalism of his news broadcasting.
Ndnd
(Voiced by Tress Macneille) Ndnd, pronounced "nndunnda", is Lrrr's current wife. Ndnd often accompanies Lrrr on his trips to Earth. She is most often seen arguing with Lrrr and complains about the lack of romance in their marriage in the episode "Spanish Fry". There is a recurring joke between Ndnd and Lrrr resembling "The Honeymooners" where Lrrr says to Ndnd "One of these days Ndnd, bang, zoom, straight to the third moon of Omicron Persei 8" or "Straight to Omicron Persei 12"
Nibblonians
The Nibblonians are a powerful race from the Planet Eternium, which is located in the center of the universe. According to them, their race is ancient and powerful, having come into existence 17 years before the rest of the universe (how is unknown); as a result they are probably the most advanced race in the universe, and know the meaning of life (a hint is that "every religion is wrong"). In the episode "The Why of Fry", it's revealed that Nibblonians have very large life spans, in excess of 1000 years, but don't have the ability to time travel. Nibblonians eating habits are often considered disgusting by many that observe them, and somehow have a stomach capacity many times the size of their own bodies. They have been seen to eat whole live animals, and drink an entire swimming pool's worth of water. In the episode "Love's Labours Lost in Space" it's implied that a single Nibblonian ate two of every species of the planet Vergon 6. In the case of Nibbler, his strange eating habits may account for the fact that he excretes dark matter, which is extremely dense. It's unknown if all Nibblonians have this trait. According to almost everyone else who encounters them, they are excessively cute, a fact which they find annoying. Their arch enemy are the Brainspawn. They believe Fry is the only hope of the universe in that he can stop the Brainspawn due to his lack of the delta brainwave. They have appeared in the episodes "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" and "The Why of Fry", although Nibbler's shadow is seen in the pilot and he is formally introduced in "Love's Labours Lost in Space" and appears regularly in episodes after that. It's also said they will appear in the upcoming direct-to-DVD film "Bender's Big Score". The three main Nibblonians are Nibbler, Ken, and Fiona.
Fiona
(Voiced by Tress MacNeille) Fiona is the main female Nibblonian. She is never seen without her orange bow on her eyestalk. Both Ken and Fiona believe the Dave Matthews Band doesn't rock. She believes that the Nibblonians are a fierce species, and rejects any claims of the Nibblonians being too cute as "niggle-snoosh". She also behaves like a cat when content, purring and rhythmically pawing.
Ken
(Voiced by Billy West) Ken is one of the two main male Nibblonians. His main difference in appearance with Nibbler is that he has a slightly larger head. Ken's official tunic also sports triple epaulets (like Fiona's), in contrast to the double epaulets on Nibbler's seldom-shown Nibblonian uniform. Ken refers to Earth as the "homeworld of the pizza bagel", enjoys being petted, and sometimes expresses the fretful concern that the Nibblonians might in fact be cute.
Nibbler
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
branwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ [1] Futurama Comics #4