Bender Bending Rodriguez

(Born September 4, 2996)

Designated Bending Unit 22, and commonly known as Bender, is a bending unit created by a division of MomCorp in Tijuana, Mexico and his serial number is 2716057. His mugshot id number is 01473. He is Fry's best friend.

Bender regularly emits "flaming burps," and "sometimes they aren't burps." He gambles, smokes cigars, consorts with hookerbots, and has 100,000 terabytes of porn on his hard drive.

He's constantly trying to gain attention, apparently to maintain his already over-inflated ego. He is equipped with Gaydar, though it typically indicates that everyone is gay. He hates his "self-destruct sequence."

He lives with Fry in his closet-sized Apartment, fully equipped with an apartment-sized closet.

He has an affinity for turtles (as they both can't get off their back), penguins, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Bender was made Pharaoh on the planet O'Cyris IV, but his servants, fed up with inhumane treatment, sent him to his grave (before he actually died).

Bender is also fascinated with cooking, though he is shown to have no sense of actual human taste, often creating dishes that can even kill plant life. He also thinks that humans eat rocks. Magnets, when attached to his head, cause him to lose his sense of inhibition and act like a folk singer. Bender has also stolen his best friend Fry's kidney.

Before Planet Express

Bender was built in the year 2996 in Tijuana, Mexico. He was built without a backup unit, which is meant to help him backup data so that if his body were destroyed he could upload his data into another body if he wants. Without this unit, Bender was recognized as defective and in order not to tarnish Mom's Company he would need to be destroyed.

However, Hermes (who worked at Mom's Robot Company as a bureaucrat back then) was in charge of destroying defective robots and chose not to kill Bender. He authorized Bender's approval and Bender left the factory defective and mortal; however, in the episode "Ghost in the Machines" Bender can possess all electronics (as a robot ghost), meaning he was at least theoretically capable of backing himself up.

As a bending unit, he spent his life before he met Fry bending girders to be used for suicide booths. After learning this, he tried to kill himself but was unsuccessful.

Fry then suggests Bender take charge of his own life, a suggestion Bender categorically rejects. A second later. he breaks a light bulb with his antenna, receives an electric jolt, and suddenly agrees with Fry's advice. The rest is history.

Along with Leela and Fry, he joined Planet Express as a crew member on January 1, 3000.

Death

When the Planet Express crew threw Bender a fake funeral to prove they would remember him when he died, Fry said that Bender's favorite way to die would be none other than being crushed by a runaway semi truck driven by the Incredible Hulk; Bender was touched that Fry remembered that fact.[

Additionally, Bender's retirement plan is to turn his "on-off" switch to "off."

In Bender's Big Score, several time paradox duplicates of Bender died by explosion and one by destruction code from bladder failure.

In Lethal Inspection, it was revealed that all robots have a wireless back-up unit that will download them into a new body if their current body is destroyed. However, Bender did not have a back-up unit due to Inspector #5 overriding a quality control failure on Bender, so when his hard drive is destroyed he will die.

In Ghosts in the Machines, Bender is murdered by his ex-girlfriend (a suicide booth named Lynn) and becomes a robot ghost in limbo. He is returned to his normal self at the end of the episode by saving Fry's life and redeeming himself.

In Where No Fan Has Gone Before, George Takei said a destruct sequence that made Bender blow up. Technically he didn't die, but he did explode. The sequence was 1A 2B 3C...

In War Is the H-Word Bender exploded because Zapp Brannigan programmed him to explode when he said "ass" because it was the most common word for him to say and he was using Bender as a weapon when at war with the floating brains. He exploded when he was taken to Earth and since Professor Farnsworth couldn't disable the trigger he changed the word to "antiquing" and when Bender was trying to guess the word he said "antiquing".