Futurama: 15 Best Bender Quotes

What would Futurama be without Bender, the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, crime-committing four-year-old robot? As part of the main ensemble, Bender was at once a foil to the rest of the crew’s more law-abiding tendencies and also a lovable mascot for the Planet Express crew.

With superb voicework provided by the incomparable John DiMaggio, Bender quickly became one of the most popular characters on the show, and although someone like Bender could have quickly become irritating, there was still enough heart and personality under his cold, metal exterior to keep him endearing. Here are ten of the best quotes that show just how great Bender really was.

Updated on February 1st, 2021 by Scoot Allan: With so many fan-favorite long-canceled, shows finding new life with series revivals on streaming and network services, fans are still hoping to see the return of Futurama, which the cast has revealed they are open to seeing return again for the series’ second third time. One of the biggest reasons fans are hoping to see the return of Futurama is due to the character of Bender, who quickly became one of the best parts of the sci-fi comedy due to his unique outlook on life and humanity that resulted in a number of amazing quotes that keep fans coming back for more.

15 “I’m Bender, baby! Oh god, please insert liquor!”

One thing about Bender that makes the character so loveable and separates him from the other Bending robots is his unique personality, which the Planet Express crew almost lost in the second season’s “How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back.”

After Bender threatened to expose Planet Express’ new Bureaucrat for having an affair with an employee (Fry), his memory card was removed and almost lost until Hermes was able to recover it from a paperwork nightmare. Bender returned in a predictable fashion with a brief declaration of self and his mission statement.

14 “Hey, sexy mama. Wanna kill all humans?”

Bender and Fry weren’t just best friends on Futurama, they were also roommates who had a rough time finding a place in the first season’s “I, Roommate” after Fry requested they move out of Bender’s closet.

Not only were they forced to get cozy in the cramped quarters, but Bender talked in his sleep to female robots about his desire to eradicate humanity, which can be a little disconcerting if you happen to be a human trapped in a closet with a powerful bending robot. Thankfully they were able to upgrade to a bigger space and Bender only occasionally tried to kill humans.

13 “Compare your lives to mine…”

The second season of Futurama saw the price of titanium skyrocket after a mining disaster in “A Head in the Polls,” which inspired Bender to sell off his mostly titanium body for cold, hard, cash which he flaunted in front of his co-workers.

It wasn’t enough to just wave the cash he was clutching in his mouth in front of his friends, but instead, he wanted them to recognize that they didn’t have as much going for them as he now did and should probably just end things. A rude and terrible thing to say to someone? For sure. Classic Bender? Definitely.

12 “I hope he didn’t die. Unless he left a note naming me his successor, then I hope he did die.”

Bender Bending Rodriguez was always down to make a quick buck, as fans learned when he literally sold off his body for money, though he also revealed that he was also happy to take cash and power at the expense of someone’s life, which should be more surprising of a reveal than it is.

When Professor Farnsworth disappeared to his lab for days while creating his clone Cubert in the second season’s “A Clone of My Own,” Bender showed a touch of compassion by hoping he didn’t die, until the thought of a possible inheritance crossed his cold, robotic mind.

11 “Well, if jacking on will make strangers think I’m cool, I’ll do it.”

Only Futurama could introduce a new form of energy addiction and then have Bender turn it into a subtle masturbation joke about conforming that brought the roof down, but that’s exactly what they did in season one’s “Hell Is Other Robots.”

After Bender was tempted with the prospect of a new drug by “jacking-on” and abusing energy, he quickly said yes with the hopes that it would make him look cool, though he quickly became addicted and hit rock bottom, which is pretty low for a character like Bender.

10 “I’m so embarrassed. I wish everybody else was dead.”

Bender has always been the kind of character who boasts a huge but fragile ego. Even when he faces defeat, he is still fully aware of how great he is and that even though he is feeling a lot of shame, it should be everyone else that feels it instead of him.

Bender is the sort of robot who makes “kill all humans” his catchphrase, so it’s natural that he would not really care about the sanctity of human life. In fact, to him, the idea that human life is sacred would be enough to elicit a huge laugh.

9 “My story is a lot like yours, only more interesting ‘cause it involves robots.”

Robots are cool, and Bender is acutely aware of this. Even in the year 3000, when robots are pretty much everywhere, Bender knows that they are a lot cooler than pretty much any other lifeform.

Bender says this line when he meets one of his culinary idols serving up food in a hobo camp. Bender feels that their stories are incredibly similar, but obviously, his is a lot more fun because it involves robots (particularly it involves Bender, the coolest robot out there).

8 “This is the worst kind of discrimination there is: the kind against me!”

There’s nothing worse than having someone say no to you, and Bender knows this all too well. When he and Fry try to use a military discount to purchase ham-flavored gum, they are quickly rebuked by the store clerk, who informs them (correctly) that the discount is only for people in the military.

Bender utters this line, which to be fair, is all too true. What makes the situation even worse is that right after, Bender and Fry enlist in the army to get the discount, but right after signing their papers, “war were declared.”

7 “Anything less than immortality is a complete waste of time.”

When Bender finds out that he was improperly built without a backup unit, he quickly realizes that all of the times he put his life on the line were really, well, him putting his life on the line.

Bender utters the line when Hermes tries to comfort him about being mortal, and how having only a short time on Earth makes everything matter a lot more. This episode ends with a really touching montage about how Hermes was the one to spare baby Bender’s life back when he was first working as a robot inspector.

6 “‘Hands in the air’ rhymes with ‘just don’t care…’ And finished!”

When Bender is finally mangled by the can opener that he has always been afraid of, he loses the use of his body. However, with the help of Beck, Bender learns how to use small robot arms to play his body like a washboard. He quickly becomes a folk music hero and decides to write his own song about broken robots.

It’s while writing this masterpiece that Bender says this line, delivering it like the final lyrics to his song are a stroke of genius. The joke pays off later when Bender finally gets to perform his song, and out of nowhere, he really does tell the audience “put your hands in the air like you just don’t care.”

5 “How can I be so bad at everything I try, and still be so great?”

We already talked about how Bender has a healthy (or unhealthy, depending on how you look at it) ego, and even when he’s been utterly defeated, he still manages to somehow see himself as being the greatest.

This line comes in the episode “40% Leadbelly.” After Bender realizes that he can’t write a hit folk song after all (which he should have realized the first time he tried to do it with Beck in “Bendin’ in the Wind”), he has to deal with the fact that somehow being great doesn’t translate to talent.

4 “My life, and by extension everyone else’s, is meaningless.”

When Bender is shut down from ever being a Harlem Globetrotter (he looks deep in his heart and must admit that he is not funky enough), he seems to have a bit of an existential crisis. After all, if he can’t achieve his dream, then what is the point of anything anymore?

Bender utters this line just as he is about to put the doomsday device in place in order to solve the temporal issues taking place throughout the universe. If only he had been around when Bubblegum Tate declared everyone in the room an honorary Globetrotter…

3 “Of all the friends I’ve had, you’re the first.”

When Bender and Fry first meet, Bender can barely believe that anyone would want to have a robot as a friend. In a way, it is Fry’s friendship that gives Bender’s life meaning. After all, the two met while Bender was waiting in line to use a suicide machine.

In the episode “I, Roommate,” Bender and Fry decide to move in together, and after a rocky few nights of Fry trying to sleep in Bender’s tiny apartment (which is essentially just a closet), they move to a much bigger place. Even though Bender and Fry’s friendship is tested, they stick together, and in the end, Fry ends up living in Bender’s closet (a massive apartment).

2 “I’m going to build my own theme park! With blackjack! And hookers!

“You know what – forget the park!” In the second episode of Futurama, Fry makes his first delivery with the rest of the crew from the future. They head to Luna Park, a theme park built on the moon. To everyone else, it’s a pretty conventional trip, but Fry can barely contain his excitement.

Bender spends most of the episode making all sorts of trouble (obviously), and after getting kicked out of Luna Park, he declares he is going to start his own theme park with all of the things that he wants.

1 “Bite my shiny metal ass!”

How could any of Bender’s other quotes take the top spot over this one? It might just be the most frequent phrase that he says, and there are plenty of variations on it (“bite my glorious golden ass,” “bite my red, hot, glowing ass,” and so on and so on).

Bender’s catchphrase essentially became the catchphrase for the entire show, encompassing not just the show’s attitude, but also its futuristic setting.