Futurama: Most Hated Supporting Characters

Futurama is one of the funniest science fiction series ever to air on TV. The animated classic is the brainchild of Matt Groening who also created The Simpsons. The show’s protagonist is Fry, a less-than-intelligent delivery boy who is cryogenically frozen 1999 and awakens in the year 3000. The show follows his adventures along with his best friend, the robot Bender, and his love interest, a one-eyed mutant ship’s captain named Leela.

While the main characters are fun to watch and the world of Futurama is an interesting and absurd place, not every character is loved by fans. These are the 10 most hated supporting characters in Futurama:

10 Zapp Brannigan

Perhaps the most annoying person in the whole galaxy, Zapp Brannigan is a 25-star general who is completely incompetent and motivated solely by opportunism and ego. A hero based loosely on the worst traits of such iconic sci-fi characters as Captain Kirk and Flash Gordon, Zapp is the sort of braggart whose endless self-confidence is mistaken for competence – a quality he desperately lacks.

No matter how many times he screws up, he somehow continues to fail upward. While it’s funny to watch his antics, Zapp is a genuinely loathsome person. It’s good he loves himself so much, since nobody else could love him after getting to know him.

9 Kif Kroker

Kif is the loyal assistant who follows Zapp everywhere. When Zapp succeeds, it is usually because Kif did something that Zapp stole the credit for. When Zapp fails, it is generally because he ignored Kif’s warnings.

While Kif is a genuinely caring and intelligent person, he is so passive that he continually enables the worst qualities in Zapp. Many of his personality quirks are associated with the type of stock character these days referred to derogatorily as a beta male, though it should be noted that he does grow over the series and eventually marries his long-time love interest, Amy Wong.

8 Zoidberg

Dr. Zoidberg is an alien from a crustachoeon people called decapodions. He works as a medical doctor for Planet Express without having even the most remote understanding of Earthling biology. He is stupid, greedy, and oftentimes downright gross. He also often fails to understand basic rules of social engagement.

It is amazing that Zoidberg has maintained employment given his incompetence and repeated endangerment of his companions. He also has at various points demonstrated an insatiable appetite for aquatic life, both as a favorite food and potential romantic pursuit. In short, Zoidberg is a crazed arthropod addicted to seafood and medical malpractice.

7 Mom

Like many corporate figureheads, Mom is loved by many, despite being basically the personification of a corrupt dishonest CEO. Mom’s main claim to fame is that she makes many of the robots in Futurama, programming them to love her.

Presiding over the companies Mom’s Friendly Robot Company and the slightly more conspicuously named Mom’s Multinational Energy Conglomerate, she tries to market herself as a small business owner with a loving maternal attitude while actually squeezing the life from people and other businesses for the sake of profits.

6 Mom’s Sons

Despite her status as an evil corporate overlord masking as a kindly and wholesome mother, at the end of the day, Mom is just a person–a mean-spirited, greedy megalomaniac, but a person all the same. Her real name is Carol Miller and she really is a mother who has three sons, named Walt, Igner & Larry.

These three are adult man-babies, sniveling and incompetent, but dutifully doting on their dear ol’ mommy. After violently slapping all three of her son in the episode “Bender’s Game – Part 3,” she tells them, “You’ll thank me some day when you’re slapping your own kids.” With such parenting, it’s no wonder how they turned out.

5 Robot Devil

Beelzebot is better known by his title, the Robot Devil. He was first introduced in the episode “Hell Is Other Robots,” when Bender is dragged off to Robot Hell for his sins. In a surprisingly sophisticated detail about the personal nature of religion, the Robot Devil tells Bender that robots only go to Robot Hell if they accept the religion of Robotology and then break its tenants.

In true devilish fashion, Beelzebot even makes deals with people, granting them what they want in exchange for a price. Unfortunately, this character tends to grate on the nerves with his melodramatic antics, bad musical numbers, and convoluted plots.

4 Nixon

Former United States President Richard Nixon spent decades being portrayed in cartoons as a caricature emblematic of government evil (something far more relevant to many than the abstract evil of the devil). As the man was dishonest, cutthroat, and prone to widespread abuses of power, this is basically how he appears in Futurama.

Of course, by the year 3000, the original Richard Nixon had died. His head, however, has been preserved, kept alive and sentient with all of its treacherous egomania. While the episode where Nixon becomes President of Earth is a classic, it has not aged well and most of the references are lost on new audiences.

3 Amy Wong

Amy Wong is one of the smartest characters on the show, a rich Martian girl whose parents spoiled her rotten but also gave her everything she would ever need to succeed in life.

The problem with Amy is her character is all over the place. Sometimes her brilliant intellect is front and center. Other times she’s portrayed as a naive ditz. Also, at different points she is either shown to be a bit of a prude or a hedonistic party girl who is more or less open to any deviant behavior the plot could call for. It’s hard to like such an inconsistent character.

2 Leo & Inez Wong

While Amy is inconsistent, her parents Leo and Inez are consistently annoying. They are both domineering rich ranchers who own roughly half of all the land on Mars. They are incredibly judgmental and regularly pressure their daughter to marry someone.

Beyond being nags, Leo and Inez Wong are written as offensive stereotypes of Chinese people. While this was fairly standard in comedy writing when they first appeared back in 1999, audiences nowadays are uncomfortable with such humor. Also, Amy herself has said that her parents’ nagging is the cause of her own eccentric behavior.

1 Hedonismbot

Hedonismbot’s name says it all: he is a robot whose entire purpose seems to be to celebrate the joys of pleasure and sloth. Perpetually reclining, he dangles grapes into his open mouth while wearing a Roman-style laurel crown.

The way Hedonismbot speaks has a sleepy effeminate quality which suggests stereotypes about Roman senators as rich lazy gay men who just enjoyed life but never put in real work and therefore weren’t considered real men. Making such a character shows writing that is even lazier than Hedonismbot. Worse, as the character himself is so slothful, he never really does anything besides offer the occasional one-liner.

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