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Futurama: Bender Bending Rodriguez
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Futurama Main Character Index
The Planet Express Crew (Bender Bending Rodriguez) | Main Recurring Characters | Planet Express Crew Relatives | Antagonists | Other Characters

Bender Bending Rodriguez (Bending Unit 22)

Characters in Futurama: Bender Bending Rodriguez
"I'm Bender, baby! Please insert liquor!"
Voiced in English by: John DiMaggio Other Languages
Debut: "Space Pilot 3000"

"Bite my shiny metal ass."

A loudmouthed, kleptomaniac, misanthropic robot who also happens to be Fry's best friend. Despite his abrasive personality, he's been known to Pet the Dog on occasion. Bender drinks constantly because his power cells are fueled by alcohol. He also smokes constantly because he thinks it makes him look cool.

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    A-L 
  • Abusive Dad:
    • When he adopts twelve orphans for the government stipend he barely feeds them to save money, tries abandoning them at a bar to go off with a female robot, and even tries selling them to a Chinese restaurant.
    • In "The Beast With A Billion Backs" he sells his unnamed firstborn son to the Robot Devil in exchange for an army to wage war and shows no remorse as the child cries for help. This is so evil it startles and impresses the Robot Devil himself. Bender even says, "No backsies."
    • Subverted in "The Bots and The Bees" when Bender accidentally fathers a second son with a soda machine named Bev. To Ben, he's actually a loving and supportive father (in his own way).
  • Accidental Hero:
    • When an evil little girl defeats him in a tapping contest Bender swears that someday he'll tap-dance on her grave. The girl has a heart attack and dies to everyone's sorrow — except Bender, who doesn't want to wait and tap dances over her dead body. The rhythmic tapping over her heart resuscitates it and her life is saved to his dismay.
    • "The Inhuman Torch" begins with Bender, Fry, and Leela answering a distress call at a helium mining camp. Bender, fully intending to abandon his coworkers and friends flees the scene, not realizing a miner took refuge inside his chest compartment until he’s out of the mine, having inadvertently brought the man to safety. Realizing his “heroic act” has been caught on television, Bender is forced to run back in and repeat the process until he’s singlehandedly rescued all miners.
  • The Alcoholic: Played With. Bender is constantly drinking but that's because his system actually runs on alcohol. When he gets depressed he tends to stop drinking and the resulting energy shortage causes him to act like he's drunk.
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Inverted. Because he powers his batteries with alcohol it's the lack of it that causes him to act irrationally. At one point, he crashed a ship full of dark matter and caused it to spill onto the penguins of Pluto.
  • Alliterative Name: Played with. His full name is Bender Bending Rodriguez.
  • Amazon Chaser: Seems to have a thing for particularly gigantic fembots. He attempts to romance the Crushinator in her first appearance and begins dating the giant vending machine Bev, eventually impregnating her. He even has a brief romance with the Planet Express ship in "Love and Rocket".
    Bender: Fry, in order for me to get busy at maximum efficiency, I need a girl with a big 400-ton booty.
  • Ambiguously Bi: He has dated, flirted with and even slept with several robot women in the series but his obsession with soap opera actor Calculon is filled to the brim with Ho Yay. His friendship with Fry is also a funny one as Bender often gets depressed and weepy when Fry does something that makes Bender feel that Fry’s abandoning him. There's also how he complimented Constantine's ass and remarks how he how understands why Michelle left Fry for Constantine.
  • Amicable Exes: With Amy; they dated in "Proposition Infinity" but broke up when Amy insisted on a monogamous marriage. In spite of this they remain friends to the point of dancing together during the Dance Party Ending in "The Mutants are Revolting".
  • And I Must Scream: Played With. Bender's head was stuck in the ground of Roswell for over 1000 years but he was enjoying it until being found again.
  • "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: At least in a metaphorical sense. In earlier seasons especially, Bender is prone to complaining about how human society mistreats and oppresses robots, sometimes out of sincere anger and other times as part of a scam (such as inventing the fictitious robot holiday "Robonica" to get out of work and accussing his coworkers of Fantastic Racism for not knowing about it). His dissatisfaction with life on Earth sometimes mirrored real-life criticisms made by black nationalists, notably in the episode "Fear of a Bot Planet", the episode title itself an allusion to a seminal Public Enemy album.
    Bender: [at a Blernsball game] You humans are afraid of a little robot competition. You would never let a robot on the field.
    Fry: What are you talking about? I see plenty of robots out there.
    Bender: Yeah, doing crap work. Bat boys, ball polishers, and sprinkler systems. But how many robot managers are there?
    Fry: Eleven?
    Bender: Zero! [throws a bottle to the ground, and a young robot comes to clean it up] But look who's scraping up the filth. Is it a human child? I wish!
  • Anti-Hero:
    • Bender is a Nominal Hero. According to the Robot Devil, they looked around and couldn't find a robot worse than him. Yet he’s one of the protagonists and also has quite a few Pet the Dog moments.
    • Even the villains acknowledge his villainy. A prime example is from "A Tale of Two Santas" where the Omnicidal Maniac Robot Santa seeks to recruit Bender for his Xmas "deliveries":
      Bender: Gee whiz, Santa! You want me to help you?
      Fry: Don't do it! He's evil!
      Robot Santa: I know he is, but I have no choice!
  • Anti-Role Model: Parodied in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV". Bender joins the cast of the "All My Circuits" soap opera and his raucous, outrageous behavior makes him an instant breakout star, extremely popular with younger viewers who look up to and try to emulate him despite (or perhaps because of) his total lack of redeeming qualities. At one point on the show, he says, "Try this, kids at home!" (while a brief disclaimer flashes across the bottom of the screen saying not to try it at home) and sets himself on fire. Later in the episode, he protests his own presence on TV and the blame placed upon him. Note that the proverbial last straw for Bender here is that the children who emulated his behavior stole his stuff. At the end of the episode, he gives this gem:
    Bender: And so I ask you this one question. Have you ever tried simply turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?
  • Anti-Villain: Most of the time he's an alcoholic, whore-mongering lunatic with no reservations about any criminal activity you care to name, including adopting kids in a welfare scam and then trying to sell them as meat when he gets tired of them. But when he cares to be he can be very heroic and a pretty good friend.
  • Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence: in "Overclockwise", Bender's intelligence is increased so much that he becomes The Omnipotent and can see into the future. Although it doesn't last.
  • Attention Whore: He'll act out (to varying degrees of violence) if he feels his friends are neglecting him. In fact, this is something he falls to so frequently that he has a pre-printed form that he fills out whenever he's about to do something as a cry for attention to keep from having to draft a new one every time he runs away or tries to kill himself.
  • Attractive Bent-Gender: In “Bend Her”, Bender gets a sex change as part of a scam and ends up being the target of several romantic advances from male robots, notably Calculon.
  • Ax-Crazy: Has repeatedly questioned his sanity and often displays extremely homicidal behavior, especially toward humans. In "The Honking" he strangled Fry simply for drinking his last beer. He’s even been to an insane asylum for robots… more than once!
  • Badass Boast: He often declares how great he is even if no one else shares that sentiment. In "The Why of Fry", Fry used Bender's ego against him in an argument.
  • Bell-Bottom-Limbed Bots: Bender has incredibly long, thick and durable arms and legs. This aspect of his character is so prominent that at one point he considered a legitimate superpower and used it to fight crime as a costumed superhero. Justified because Bender was built for construction work.
  • Best Friend: To Fry. While he does regularly rip on him he seldom enjoys himself with anyone else as much as he does Fry.
  • Beyond the Impossible: On occasion, he's been able to bend things he shouldn't like a brick wall, an "unbendable" girder, or a wooden door. The last one he justified on the grounds that the door was too stupid to know this.
    Fry: You can't bend that door.
    Bender: (whispering) You know that, and I know that, but between you and me, this door looks pretty stupid.
  • The Big Guy: He's well aware he's this but usually goes out of his way to avoid getting pigeonholed (or less tactfully he's too lazy to do typical Big Guy stuff).
  • Bigotry Exception: Despite Bender's hatred of humans he does love his friend Fry and makes a point of declaring him as #1 on his list of humans that he won't ever kill. Though that won't stop Bender from abusing Fry through other (non-lethal) means. His list also doesn’t include Leela, Amy and Hermes.
  • Bizarre Beverage Use: Like all Earth-made robots in Futurama he needs alcohol to fuel his power cells. Drinking it also occasionally makes him burp fire, essentially making him into a sentient flamethrower.
  • "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: The Trope Namer. In "Anthology of Interest I", Bender tries to blackmail Leela after catching her trying to dispose of Hermes' body parts in the garbage disposal. When she asked he responded with "Blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. The 'X' makes it sound cool."
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: When it comes to interacting with humans, he seems to only have a very basic understanding of their limits while missing the fact that approaching those limits is painful. Thus, he's served up a dish of capers and salt (think mashed potatoes except... not), but makes sure that the amount of salt is slightly below a lethal amount.
  • Body Backup Drive: Averted. Bender thought he had this type of immortality but discovers he was built without a backup unit. Fortunately (or not) he never needed to use a backup unit before discovering he doesn’t have one. It's later shown when his robot body does die, he turns into some sort of robot equivalent of a ghost or spirit. So it's still not immortality (fortunately for him) but it's not cessation either.
  • Bowel-Breaking Bricks: When he's really scared he literally shits bricks.
  • Call a Human a "Meatbag": Bender may not be the Trope Namer but he’s certainly the Trope Codifier for this. "Meatbag" was initially used as an insult or Affectionate Nickname for Fry but later episodes revealed this was simply how Bender viewed humans.
  • Camera Fiend: Bender has a hobby of taking pictures of horrifying and/or disgusting events.
    Bender: Neat!
  • Can't Hold His Liquor: Inverted. Due to being an alcohol-powered robot, if he doesn't get enough alcohol, he'll start to slur his words and stumble around, much like a human who's had too much alcohol. Bender even "grows" a five-o'clock-shadow made out of rust!
  • Card-Carrying Jerkass: Bender longs to be the Token Evil Teammate (and he is) but his feelings are easily hurt at any implication he's not the amoral, terrifying (yet fun-loving) killing machine/folk singer he yearns to be. Comes up in "The Farnsworth Parabox" particularly.
    Bender: [sulkily] Ohhhhh, this is awful! Somewhere, there's a more evil Bender than me! I do my best, dammit!
  • Career Not Taken: Bender is a bending unit who's good at bending girders and enjoys doing it (since he was literally built for it), but he's expressed multiple times that he dreams of becoming a Folk Musician, a dream he actually gets around to living out in "Bendin' in the Wind" and "Forty Percent Leadbelly".
  • The Casanova: Bender's had more flings — with mostly Fembots and the occasional human woman — than any of the other characters and also easily gains admirers.
  • Catchphrase:
    • "Bite my shiny metal ass!"note 
    • "♫Let's go already!!♫"
    • "DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!"
    • "We're boned".
    • "Cheese it!"
    • "We're/I'm back, baby!"
    • "Me, Bender."
    • "Bender is great!" and variants thereof. Often used in written form.
    • "It's gon' be fun on a bun!"
    • When someone mentions something like a kind of metal or wiring, he says "I'm [X]% [Y]", usually followed by him knocking on his chassis once or twice.
    • When Bender takes a photo of something he usually says "Neat!"
    • "Shut up baby, I know it!"
  • Character Development: At the beginning of the series, Bender is proudly amoral, but quite bitter and sullen. The first few seasons have him become increasingly more cheerful, boisterous, and outgoing thanks to Fry and Leela's friendship. While he firmly remains the Token Evil Teammate and a jerk, he's much more joyful about it and wears his heart on his sleeve in a way the more reserved Bender of the pilot wouldn't.
  • Child Hater: Bender should never be allowed around children. Ever.
    Bender: I guess if you want children beaten, you have to do it yourself.
  • Cigar Chomper: Occasionally, because "they make [him] look cool".
  • Cordon Bleugh Chef: He can cook just fine, and in fact the other characters have been eager to eat his cooking in the past, but he really shouldn't be allowed to experiment.
  • The Corrupter: Whenever Tinny Tim is involved, Bender tends to involve the kid in home invasions, attempted muggings or inducting him into the robot mafia. And that's without mentioning his antics on "All My Circuits".
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: He's so desperate to prove that his devoted girlfriend Angleyne is cheating on him with her Amicable Ex that he actually manages to drive her back into the other guy's arms through his machinations. When it comes to his friendship with Fry, he takes it to Yandere levels.
  • Crippling Overspecialization: When Flexo is almost crushed by an unbendable girder dropped on him by the Robot Mafia, the only way Bender can think of to save him is to try to bend it anyway; he doesn't know anything about lifting. Fortunately, he's actually able to do it after applying some "Bend-Gay" to his arms.
  • Deaf Composer: Bender loves to cook, but can't taste his terrible cooking.
  • Death Glare: Often utilized, but for no real reason; Bender is consistently drawn, both in the series and in promotional images, with a noticeably angry expression, even if his present situation might not call for it. David X. Cohen often lampshades this in the DVD Commentary, claiming it always gives him a laugh.
    Cohen: See this drawing here of Bender's angry eyes? There's something so funny about him for no reason having that evil look...
  • Depending on the Writer:
  • Didn't Think This Through: A common habit of his. Bender regularly decides to do whatever vice or idea comes to his head regardless of how reckless it may be, and everything past the initial outcome is either something that horrifies him enough to round about and fix it every so often, or he more likely doesn't give a damn about the consequences and proceeds to keep doing what does at the expense of everyone else. If Bender actually takes the opportunity to think and plan, he's going against his usual habits entirely.
  • Dirty Coward: In "Bender's Game", he, Amy and the Professor are trapped by a bunch of orcs in a castle. Bender tells the two of them that he has a plan. The next scene shows him holding them up in the and tells the orcs to take his friends first, just to give him one more second of sweet sweet life. In "Bendin' in the Wind", the crew is plunging off a cliff. Bender grabs a nearby cable, loudly declaring, "I'll save ME!" The rest of the crew is only saved by grabbing his legs just in time.
  • Disappeared Dad: He walked out on his first-born son, who never gave up hope he'd come back. Bender did... sort of.
  • The Ditz: It doesn't come up too often, because he can get away with reckless behavior that would kill the other cast members in his place, but Bender is implied to be rather stupid for a robot. Apparently, he is unable to do simple calculations in his head, and in Bender‘s Big Score, he was apparently the only robot dumb enough to download the Scammers' poorly disguised virus program. He only really looks smart next to Fry, but almost anyone looks smart next to Fry.
  • Do-Anything Robot: Quite literally, but only when he feels like it. Seems Robots in the year 3000 are built for one purpose, but can adapt pretty well to others; Bender himself is Planet Express' resident cook. Bender sees it differently: everything he does is simply a different form of bending, which enables him to bend an entire brick wall (not on the list of approved bendables, apparently).
  • Double Agent: Was this during "Bender's Big Score" when he was brainwashed by the scammers and ordered to steal Farnsworth's doomsday device. Despite his condition, he was still able to think on his own and figured that he'd be better off with it, so after retrieving the decoy he replaced the doomsday device with, he then swapped them again which paid off in the climax.
  • Drama Queen: With a Body Backup Drive, he is in fact immortal. So then why does he scream as a Dirty Coward when there is danger? Because nobody ever said he can't be a drama queen! (He discovered later that he does not have a backup unit, so when he dies... he dies.)
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • Originally, as he explains in the pilot, he was proud of being a Bending Unit. He could bend a girder to a 90 degree angle, 60 degree, you name it. Then he found out that the girders he was bending were being used to build suicide booths. Depressed from this revelation, he tried to use one of the booths himself... which is how he and Fry first met.
    • Though he's mostly lost the urge after befriending Fry, it still crops up sporadically: he mistakes a phone booth for a suicide booth and tries to kill himself after failing to kill Fry in "Bender's Big Score", he attempts to kill himself after being abandoned by Fry in "The Beast With a Billion Backs", and he tries to kill himself out of spite only to be murdered by the suicide booth after she turns out to be his ex in "Ghost in the Machines".
  • Eating Machine: He's frequently been shown or at least implied to be capable of eating food. Examples include mourning Fry's demise in "The Sting" because Fry was the only one capable of making waffles the way he likes them and ordering food from Fishy Joe's in "Fry am the Egg Man".
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas:
    • The closest Bender has to a "mother" is the industrial robot who built him. Still, he gets kind of choked up when he gets an X-Mas card from "her" in one episode.
    • Like all robots built by Mom's Friendly Robot Factory, he harbors immense affection for its owner.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
    • He genuinely loved the Countess and was heartbroken by her death aboard the space Titanic. He also loved Angleyne so much he bent an unbendable girder just so she could be with Flexo.
    • Bender has shown times where he genuinely connects with Fry (and other humans too) and doesn't want to see any ill happen to them. Out of all the Planet Express crew, Fry is easily the one Bender outwardly loves the most and their relationship is a focal point for numerous episodes.
      Bender: All those times I said, "Kill all humans", I'd always whisper "Except one". [sobbing] Fry was that one, and I never told him so!
    • In a later episode, he told Hermes that the latter was on his "do not kill"-list. In fact, the whole Planet Express crew are this to him (even Zoidberg though to a much lesser extent), they're the only people he's shown sincere empathy and love for.
    • While it's initially just a scheme to get welfare money, Bender does come to care about the orphan kids and keeps the picture they drew him on the door of his compartment.
    • "In-A-Gadda-Da-Leela" reveals Bender once had a pet guinea pig. He is visibly saddened when recounting its death.
    • In the crossover episode with "Simpsorama" (the crossover with The Simpsons), he was fond of Homer and Maggie.
    • While it's subverted with his firstborn son, Bender genuinely loved his son Ben and even sacrificed Ben's memories of him just so he could become a bender just like him, one of the most unambiguously selfless things he does in the whole series.
    • In "How the West Was 1010001" he becomes very attached to his pet donkey, Rusty.
    • In "Godfellas", he becomes attached to the tiny organisms that grow on his body and tries his best to act as a benevolent deity towards them. This doesn't go well for them.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: There are moments when even he is hesitant or shocked by something.
    • In the pilot, he was going to kill himself out of guilt for helping to create suicide booths.
    • During "Time Keeps On Skippin'", he was the one who tried to point out the danger of chronitons.
    • In "Love and Rocket", he actually looked unnerved upon seeing the Lovey Bear "Hospital".
    • In "Spanish Fry", he expressed disgust when the porno-dealing monster says that he videotapes his clients so he can blackmail them later.
  • Evil Is Hammy:
    Bender: The cruelty of the old Pharaoh is no more! Let a whole new wave of cruelty wash over this lazy land!!!
  • Evil Twin: His twin brother, Flexo, sports a goatee, but Bender himself is actually the evil twin.
    Fry: So Bender is the evil twin? I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: Looks like typical Cartoony Eyes, until you look closer and realize that he has square pupils. One gag had him playing back a recording, during which his pupils switched to the 'play' symbol.
  • Expy:
    • In this interview, Groening says that he's like a "robotic Homer Simpson". This is made especially clear in the crossover when Homer and Bender become best friends, with Bart and Lisa remarking that Homer and Bender had the same basic design but with certain features added or changed.
    • However unlike Homer, Bender's tendency of being a delinquent and kleptomania appear to be taken from Bart.
  • Extreme Omnisexual: Bender has shown attraction to various non-robotic items (including a toaster, a torpedo, an old-fashioned PC, and the Planet Express ship), Amy Wong, and Lucy Liu's head.
  • Eye Scream: Has fallen victim to it more than once. Fortunately, he's got replacements at hand if they break or melt.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Downplayed in that he's still one of the protagonists and he wasn't really a hero to begin with. In the very first episode, Bender was a neutral construction robot attempting to kill himself for his hand in the creation of suicide booths. However — as stated below — the electric shock from the lightbulb in the head museum (particularly the one with the world's most notable criminals) fried whatever was inhibiting him from committing crimes and bending things not on the list of approved bendables.
  • Fantastic Racism: He really wants to start a Robot War and Kill All Humans (or at least most of them). He's also not too fond of any other form of organic life, either.
  • Farts on Fire: Not only do his burps catch fire, they can go out the other way as well if he wants.
  • Fembot: He becomes a female in "Bend Her" and "Neutopia". Both don't last.
  • Flanderization: His original character has been displaced by a jokey persona. Could be justified as Character Development, as he's a far rounder character now. Before he met Fry, he had no real friends and worked in constructing suicide booths. Now, he has multiple friends and he's lived out most of his dreams to some extent. It makes perfect sense that his personality would change over time. Confirmed by Word of God — the electric shock from the pilot that removed his block on bending non-girder objects ALSO removed all other inhibitions.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Whereas Zoidberg is annoying, Bender's just a jerk.
    Fry: We've gotta save Bender!
    Amy: Why?
    Everyone: [awkward silence]
    Leela: Those arguments aside, we're still gonna do it.
  • Funny Robot: Gallows Humor-Black Comedy-type-funny, but makes you laugh your ass off.
  • Gasshole: He usually burps every time he takes a drink of beer (and it comes out as fire), fitting his careless, self-centred behaviour.
  • Gender Bender: He becomes a fembot in two episodes, once by choice and the other by accident.
  • Genius Loci: A result of non-stop overclocking in "Overclockwise".
  • A God Am I:
    • In "Godfellas". He doesn't like it much, mainly because his worshipers keep bothering him; they eventually wipe themselves out with nukes.
    • When in "Overclockwise" Cubert overclocks him to improve his video gaming skills, Bender's computing capabilities grow and grow exponentially, until he becomes virtually omniscient and godlike.
  • Gold Digger: It's not uncommon for Bender to hook up with female characters because they're rich or have something he wants.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: For a Cigar Chomper like Bender, Smoking Is Cool probably goes hand-in-hand.
  • Hammerspace: The compartment in his chest can seem to hold anything; beer, the keys to his apartment, a "gay-dar" detector, a tube of "Bend-Gay", and much more. Fry was able to fit in there more than once.
  • Hates Everyone Equally: Yeah, totally. In "I, Roommate", the third episode, he openly states that his entire philosophy is that everyone is a Jerkass and he acts like such to everyone, including Fry and the few other people that could be called his friends, only showing he cares about them in very rare moments.
    Bender: Yeah, but everybody's a jerk. You, me, this jerk. That's my philosophy.
  • Have You Seen My God?: While he's met the actual God, Bender undergoes many theologically-inspired misadventures as he grapples with topics like of free will and mortality. Mostly by trying to find his direct earthly creators so he can complain about how they did a shabby job, inflict violence towards them for the perceived shabby job, or both.
  • The Hedonist: Because of his smoking, drinking, and whore-mongering. Of course, he's a paragon of sobriety and chastity compared to Hedonismbot. Bender's segment in "Anthology of Interest II" takes this extreme. When Bender transforms into a human, he fails to exhibit any self-control. Lacking the advantages of a robot body with no metabolism, he spirals into a massive, obese flesh pile that can barely breathe, let alone move. Ultimately, this lifestyle leads to his demise by the end of the episode, although not before he throws a massive party to share his lack of inhibition with the rest of humanity.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Bender has no problem betraying his friends for some petty reason, and then helping again for some incredibly lame reason. For example, he once helped Zapp Brannigan capture Leela, and then helped her escape from prison... because, by helping her, his criminal record would still be higher than hers.
  • He's Back!: Usually whenever he shows up after a brief absence: "I'm back, baby!"
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Fry, who's one of, if not the only human who Bender shows genuine affection towards.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Bender has an interest in folk music, art (he has an odd argument with the Planet Express ship early on in 'Love And Rocket'), cooking, and others that really seem out-of-place in a bending unit, much less a sociopathic whore-mongering criminal like him.
    • Bender first met Fry whilst waiting in line for a suicide booth, having become depressed and suffering a crisis of conscience, upon learning that the girders he had been bending were used in their construction.
    • He's really sweet at certain points; for example, when Fry's depressed over Leela's apparent death, he tells him that "The pain slowly fades while the love remains".
    • As much as he might come across as a meathead (so to speak...), he still has a computer for a brain, meaning that he can flawlessly perform calculations in his head. A few episodes have acknowledged that this essentially makes him a mathematical genius by human standards.
      Bender: Hey, brobot! What's your serial number?
      Flexo: 3370318.
      Bender: No way! Mine's 2716057!
      (they both laugh)
      Fry: (laughs) ...I don't get it.
      Bender: We're both expressible as the sum of two cubes!
  • Humongous Mecha: In "Anthology of Interest I", the What-if machine shows him what would happen if he was 500 feet tall. And in "Benderama", he manages to turn himself into a giant Bender with the help of the thousands of smaller microscopic Benders.
  • Hypocrite:
    • "I Dated a Robot": Complains all through the episode about Fry dating a robotic version of Lucy Liu. When he deletes her, Bender instantly starts making out with Lucy Liu's head.
    • "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV": Didn't care at all if his stunts on TV were imitated by his younger fanbase. At least until it was his stuff that wound up stolen from their acts. This spurs him to join the protest to get himself banned from TV.
    • "Proposition Infinity": In addition to the above, all of a sudden he now fully supports human-robot relationships since he and Amy were dating. But when all is said and done, he dumps Amy when he realizes he won't be able to date more then one girl.
    • "31st Century Fox": Inverted in this case, he ignored Leela's complaints about fox hunting. But when he realized it was a robot fox, he took up the protesting.
  • If It's You, It's Okay: With Amy in "Proposition Infinity"; at least, until he discovers Amy wants a monogamous relationship and says "Hasta la vista!" Though of course of he had previously been with one other human: Lucy Liu's head to be exact.
  • I'll Take Two Beers Too: Bender says "This calls for a drink!" and pulls out three beers, when there are three characters present. He then drinks all of them at once.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: On more than one occasion, he's suggested he doesn't mind eating humans — suggesting Fry and Leela fight to the death so he can cook the loser (telling Leela he'd prefer Fry tenderized), and is the only one of the trio to enjoy the food on Cannibalon (the cannibal planet).
  • Immortality: As a robot this is unsurprising but it's the way he exploits it that really pushes it over the top, as he has used The Slow Path several times to jump between the past and the present. At this point his aggregate age probably outdates any known civilization.
  • Informed Attribute: Played for laughs. He constantly brags about his lack of emotions but is probably the most emotional person in the series. He's also not above commenting on the flavor of whatever he's drinking, despite having no sense of taste.
  • It's All About Me: He loves to be the center of attention. On his worse days, Bender will refuse to acknowledge that anyone else's existence matters more than him ("My life and by extension everyone else's is meaningless").
  • Jerkass: Bender's callousness reaches such extremes at times it leads even the Robot Devil himself to be taken aback.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Zig-Zagged. With all his heinously selfish (if not outright sociopathic) tendencies he isn't above an occasional Pet the Dog moment. Bender does sometimes feel guilt for some of his harsher actions and that doesn't even take into account what Fry and Leela ''really'' mean to him. In "Xmas Story", the others were surprised when Bender said he wanted to volunteer at a liquor kitchen for homeless robots, but he actually just wanted to pose as a homeless robot to get free booze.
  • Joke of the Butt: He's subjected to a lot of humor revolving around his rear end.
    • Most notably, his Catchphrase is "Bite my shiny metal ass!"
    • In "The Honking", there's his response to Farnsworth pointing out that the portraits with moving eyes at his inherited castle have motorized sensors attached to motion detectors.
      Bender: So does my butt, but I don't frame it and put it on the wall! Although...
    • "Put Your Head on My Shoulders" has Bender upset when the shock-absorbing bumpers the mechanic installed make him look like he has big blue buttocks, claiming the mechanic has "defaced a national treasure". He demands that the mechanic undo this, but not without the mechanic warning that this will result in his ass exploding later.
    • In "A Pharaoh to Remember", he tries to achieve fame by spray-painting a depiction of himself flexing and the phrase "Bender lives large and kicks butt" onto a building, only for it to be ruined by Sal demolishing the building, resulting in the depiction of Bender turning into a giant rear end (with a literal butt crack) and the phrase now reading "Bender licks butt".
    • "Assie Come Home" has Bender wind up in pieces and eventually put back together. His ass remains the one part of him they can't recover for a while, and this makes him rather forlorn.
      Amy: Bender, come join us, we're watching Rear Window!
      Bender: I used to stick my rear out the window...
      Zoidberg: If you prefer, we could watch Behind the Music.
      Bender: My behind used to make music...
      Hermes: Backdraft is on.
      Bender: Even my ass wouldn't watch that.
  • Karma Houdini: Due to Rule of Funny, he tends to get away with doing some pretty horrible things. "A Pharaoh to Remember" has him take over Osiris-4 and become a slave-driving tyrant; although he's ultimately driven out and his statue is destroyed, he still gets off with little more than a slap on the wrist and even gets the legacy he desired.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: On occasion, there are instances where he has been punished, such as being beaten up for trying to cheat in a poker game, getting caught for stealing a priceless cigar (even lampshaded by him: "Alright, closure!"), getting chased down by Beck when he tried to scam him for a charity check and losing a crown he tried to take from a king when he forgot it was in the king's compartment when Bender was within his body.
  • Kavorka Man: He's a rude, amoral, alcoholic, kleptomaniac robot who's hooked up with several fembots and even a few human women, though this may be chalked up to All Girls Want Bad Boys.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • In "A Pharaoh To Remember" he makes the decision to become the next pharaoh of Osiris 4 after its previous pharaoh dies in an accident. He then proceeds to make all the slaves of Osiris 4 take on the grueling task of building him an oversized statue with a flamethrower in a mouth that constantly screams "remember me" as Bender desired to be a remembered figure. His actions in that episode even had him treat Fry and Leela like slaves.
    • In "The Beast with a Billion Backs", to make a Deal with the Devil he sacrifices his firstborn son so readily and so callously even the Robot Devil is shocked.
    • Perhaps the cruelest instance of him doing something bad to another person just because he can would be in "Assie Come Home", where his quest to recover his scattered body parts leads to him discovering that Tinny Tim received his legs as transplants. Caring more about being whole again than he does Tinny Tim's happiness, he saws the transplanted legs off to have them back. For good measure, he even steals the wheeled cart Tinny Tim had to use for transportation now that he had no legs, all so he can use it himself when he already had his legs back and callously toss it into the trash the moment he stopped enjoying using it.
  • Kleptomaniac Hero: Well, a hero who is also a kleptomaniac, although hero might not be the right term.
    Bender: I love stealing, I love taking things.
  • Lack of Empathy:
    • Notable in that he is capable of love, but not empathy. For example, he loves Fry with all his heart, but in a completely narcissistic fashion, as he only cares about Fry being alive and present so that Bender can love him, not about Fry himself being happy.
    • In the episode "I Second That Emotion", Prof. Farnsworth installs an "empathy chip" in Bender in order to teach him to feel for others, forcing him to feel whatever emotion Leela is feeling at the moment. The episode ends with Bender not learning a thing and continuing to be a Jerkass and Leela learning to be more like a jerk.
  • The Lancer: To Fry.
  • Large Ham: He manages to upstage Calculon. Enough said.
  • Laughably Evil: The Token Evil Teammate and easily one of the most hilarious, entertaining characters.
  • Lazy Bum: Bender is typically shown drinking, smoking, and playing with hookers rather than doing his job at Planet Express.
  • Lazy Mexican: Played with. Bender is incredibly lazy, usually does nothing but drinking and lying on the couch. The "Mexican" part comes into play since he was literally built in Mexico and considers himself Mexican.
  • Lethal Chef: Being a robot means he doesn't have a sense of taste which doesn't hinder his aspirations of becoming a chef as much as it probably should; although he does bake a (seemingly) edible cake, suggesting he can cook as long as he follows recipes and doesn't experiment. His problem is that he’s utterly unable to realize what humans actually eat so he'll serve a meal that consists largely of salt or suggest trying to cook rocks in mud. Apparently not even Zoidberg can stomach his meals.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: As revealed in "Lethal Inspection", robots (those made by Mom at least) can simply Body Surf into a new body (he acted like they didn't because he's a Drama Queen) and jokes at humans being capable of (easily) dying. As it turns out he doesn't have a backup chip, prompting him to be scared of his newfound mortality which is at most a billion years.
  • Loony Fan: Bender absolutely idolizes Calculon, the star of All My Circuits, and has stalked him and invaded his privacy on numerous occasions.
  • I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Towards Anglelyne in "Bendless Love". Another non-romantic example in "Bend Her": he backs out of a potentially hugely profitable scam because he doesn't want to hurt or humiliate Calculon, and does it by faking his own death in the most over-the-top way possible because Calculon can handle "soap opera pain" better than anything realistic or commonplace.
  • Lovable Rogue: Invoked; to the Planet Express crew anyway. He even considers himself the "lovable rascal".
    Leela: Bender, we didn't mind your drinking, or your kleptomania, or your pornography ring.
    Zoidberg: In fact, that's why we loved you.

     M-Y 
  • Made in Country X: Bender was made in Mexico. (See his last name.)
  • Mad Libs Catchphrase:
    • "I'm [percentage] [substance]!" Which added up to well over 100% over the course of the series.
    • He would often say variations on his signature catchphrase, including:
      • "Bite my red hot glowing ass!"note 
      • "Lick my frozen metal ass!"
      • "Bite my colossal metal ass!"
      • "Bite my glorious golden ass!"note 
      • "The modern world can bite my splintery wooden ass!"
      • "Bite my shiny metal face!"
      • "Bite my shiny metal hat!"note 
      • "Bite my tiny metal ass!"note 
      • "Byte my 8-bit metal ass! note 
      • “Wipe my tiny metal ass!” note 
      • "Bite my shiny metal axe!"note 
      • “That guy can bite my shiny metal clamps!”note 
  • The McCoy: He's quite impulsive. Also, he usually doesn't do anything moral but when he does it usually fits this trope.
  • Meaningful Name: "Bending unit" — a robot who was manufactured for the sole purpose of bending metal objects. Also, one slang meaning of "bender" is "bout of heavy drinking" which is appropriate for Bender since he runs on alcohol.
  • Meet My Good Friends Lefty and Righty: He names his hands Grabby and Squeezy and refuses to trade them with the Robot Devil. He also names his footcups Stompy and Smashy and his arms Gropey and Cheaty.
  • "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: How his full name was established in the show. The Planet Crew needed someone who was good at bending and Bender replied with "Bending is [his] middle name." It really is.
  • Mighty Glacier: His Super-Strength allows him to bend giant steel girders, and he is literally Made of Iron, but he moves no faster than an organic person. This is most noticeable in „Less than Hero“, where Fry and Leela gain Super-Speed, and he is shown being unable to keep up with them running around.
  • Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Bender honestly tried being a benevolent ruler to the Shrimpkins in "Godfellas", but he accidentally started a civil war and made them all kill each other instead.
  • Mini-Me:
    • Bender uses a machine that makes two smaller copies of whatever it scans to make three of himself in "Benderama", and then each clone decides to make their own smaller copy of themselves as well. By the third act there are over two thousand microscopic Benders.
    • "Into the Wild Green Yonder" revealed the crew tried to sell "Tickle-Me-Bender" dolls. The sales were abysmal.
  • Morality Pet: The Planet Express crew, and especially Fry, are about the only people in the world who he would willingly put himself on the line (or not do something he wants to do) for.
  • Multiple-Choice Past: The circumstances of his "birth". Word of God once implied the viewers were just seeing him getting new bodies built for him as he grew older.
  • Must Make Amends: In the same episode as the Fry example, Bender, in a fit of jealousy, kicked said dog's fossil into hot lava. After realizing what he did, he dove into the lava to save it — successfully, though his eyes melted afterwards.
  • My God, What Have I Done?:
    • In the first film when Bender had an obedience virus installed in him, he was ordered to kill Fry. After he thought he killed Fry he broke down in tears. Subverted when he shifts the blame on anyone else.
    • Played straight in the pilot episode. When he realizes the girders he bends are used to create suicide booths he attempts to kill himself.
  • Narcissist: In "The Farnsworth Parabox" he seemingly falls in love with an alternate gold plated version of himself, stating that he has finally found someone "as great as me".
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain! : His attempts to confirm Angleyne's sentiments for Flexo by impersonating him only caused her to go back to her ex-husband.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: Of both the Made of Iron and Spare Body Parts varieties. He can take a swim in molten lava (thanks to being partly comprised of dolomite — the tough black mineral that won't cop out when there's heat all about!), survive at the bottom of the ocean, and even be at ground zero of more than one doomsday device without any ill-effects.
    Bender: What does it take to kill me?
  • The Noseless: Though in one episode he says he does have one, he just never wears it.
  • Older Than They Look: When the series started, despite his adult appearance and habits he was only a few years old. But thanks to getting stuck in Roswell and LOTS of time travel, by this point he's older than any human alive. Without the time travel and other factors, however, "Overclockwise" stated his model is 12 years old.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • When he briefly becomes bored with kleptomania, having stolen everything in Alcazar's palace:
      Bender: I think I might have finally stolen enough.
      Fry: [slaps him] SNAP OUT OF IT!
    • The idea that Bender might be telling the truth makes everyone scream in terror ("The Honking").
  • Other Me Annoys Me: Played straight during one scene of Bender's Big Score, where all three Benders involved take a dislike to one another. The second Bender even decides once he's done trying to murder Fry he'll even try and murder himself out of nowhere.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: When he dies in "Ghost in the Machines", his disembodied software shows up as a spirit which can possess other technology. Including robots.
  • Parental Sexuality Squick: The "Radiorama" podcast has him grossed out after learning his mother’s merged with Klaxxon which is humorously depicted as an allegory towards learning that one's parent is dating a new partner.
  • Parental Substitute: Played for laughs in "The Devil's Hands are Idle Playthings", when Fry asks him to come to his holophoner recital, in lieu of Fry's parents, and he's mistaken for being Fry's actual father.
    Mrs. Mellenger: Mr. Bender, I simply cannot train your child!
    Bender: Then good day, madame!
  • Pet the Dog: Sometimes, he would do something nice for someone without asking for anything in return; the majority occurs in the comics. One of the biggest is saving Fry's petrified dog in "Jurassic Bark", mostly because he was the one who endangered it in the first place.
  • The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Despite being a Bending Unit, his laziness means we rarely see Bender actually bend things. It's later revealed in "Bendless Love" that his pent-up urge to bend caused him begin bending things in his sleep. Even Bender assesses his own skills thusly:
    Bender: I need a calculator.
    Fry: You are a calculator?
    Bender: I mean a good calculator!
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: In one episode Bender becomes a human. Since he never developed the concept of modesty he doesn't think to cover his crotch. Hermes does it for him.
  • Psychopathic Manchild: An alcoholic, amoral gambler who deals porn and has no qualms with hurting children. He occasionally becomes incredibly childish, most notably in the Mom-centric episodes.
    Bender: Mom! Mom! Look at me, Bender! Hey-ho, I want attention!
  • Punny Name: "Bender" can also mean a drinking spree or something similar. So Bender is a bender who goes on benders.
  • Put Them All Out of My Misery: "I'm so embarrassed, I wish everybody else was dead!"
  • Really 700 Years Old: And then some. It's subtle, but post-Bender's Big Score he’s actually existed for eons due to various time travel incidents where he goes into the past then waits until the present day (from where he came) arrives again. Even before that, as a result of the time traveling in Roswell That Ends Well his head is over a thousand years older than his body (his head fell out of the ship just before they returned to the future).
  • Really Gets Around: He has numerous flings with robot floozies. And Amy.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Despite being a rude, alcoholic, kleptomaniac womanizer he has his moments.
    • He fits this temporarily in his stint in the Ultimate Robot Fighting League. He's forced into the character of The "Gender Bender", complete with a pink tutu and curly, blond wig. Though he appears to hate the outfit he DOES take the time to carefully put it on a hanger and store it in his personal storage space, in the middle of a fight no less.
    • He has many examples: he earnestly enjoys the robo soap opera All My Circuits, he was once "pregnant" with beer, his number two most repeated word is "daffodil", he has a deep love of cooking (and is extremely hurt when told it sucks), he's obsessed with (and has stalked) the aforementioned soap-opera's star, and once ALMOST MARRIED SAID STAR and displays some emotional aftermath at episode's end.
    • How much of the personality of Planet Express Ship, his one-time girlfriend stuck with him?
      Bender: Bender is a lone wolf, a solitary eagle, a cuddly baby tapir, and that's the way I like him.
  • Redemption Failure: Played for Laughs in "Hell Is Other Robots". Bender converts to Robotology after his usual hedonistic tendencies get more destructive than usual, and soon becomes kind and pious. His friends quickly find the new Bender to be a boring stuffed-shirt, and Fry and Leela trick him into relapsing back into the immoral but fun-loving boozehound they love.
  • Repetitive Name: His first and middle names are "Bender" and "Bending".
  • Required Secondary Powers: Bender's super strength and invulnerability are all side-effects of his ability to bend. He can also do anything as long as it's an extension of bending (like pumping, unlike turning).
  • The Rich Want to Be Richer: In "A Head in the Polls" he becomes rich after literally selling his body, then tries to get even richer by cheating at a casino.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: The poster boy for this trope. He himself considers robots as a separate race rather than man-made tools. To be fair though, the robots in this series practically are.
  • Robosexual: Bender was initially against robosexuality but this all changed when he started dating Lucy Liu. Later on, he falls in love with Amy and even goes so far as to propose to her. Ultimately, he decides to not marry her upon learning that their marriage would be monogamous.
  • Robosexuals Are Creeps:
    • Bender doesn't want others to mistakenly believe that he's dating Fry and be disliked for it.
    Bender: Well, ok. But I don't want people thinking we're robosexuals. So if anyone asks, you're my debugger.
    • In "I Dated a Robot", he makes it clear how much he's against robosexuality when Fry starts dating a robot version of Lucy Liu. However, by the end of the episode, Bender hooks up with the actual Lucy Liu, much to Fry's annoyance. Then, in "Proposition Infinity", he falls in love with Amy and decides to lead a campaign in favor of robosexual marriage so that he can marry her (without having to go to Space Massachusetts where it's already legalized).
  • Robot Buddy: The best buddy of Fry and the worst Robot Buddy ever.
  • Robot Soldier: He is forced to go into war in "War is the H-Word" within only a second of becoming eligible for the draft.
  • Sadist: He has no qualms when he has the opportunity to hurt someone and is implied to enjoy doing so.
  • Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Whenever his plans go awry or the cops show up:
    Bender: Cheese it!
  • "Second Law" My Ass!: Or shiny metal ass as he might put it. Bender is profoundly lazy and staunchly refuses to do any kind of work whenever he can avoid it. He once declared that robots aren't made to make people's lives easier because "[He’s] never made anyone's life easier, and you know it!"
  • Second Place Is for Losers: Really hates coming in anything below first place. Examples: Entering Zoidberg as a pet in a Pet Show and getting second place (which in his own words, "is a fancy word for losing!"). And getting third in a cook-off contest. So much so he murders the top two winners just to get the first place trophy during the commotion with neanderthals.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Manly Man to Fry's Sensitive Guy. Fry is the Socially Awkward Hero while Bender is the boisterous hedonist.
  • Series Mascot: Bender is treated as the face of the series for being the source of much of the darker humor and his recognizable Tin-Can Robot design.
  • Silicon Snarker: Bender is as sarcastic as they come. And he would object to the trope being a case of Servile Snarker as, when Fry suggests robots are built to make humans' lives easier Bender protests that he'd never made anyone's lives easier and they know it.
  • Single-Task Robot: Bender was designed and built specifically for bending metals. Of course, the show itself subverts and plays with this.
  • Sir Swears-a-Lot: To the point of being weaponized in "War Is the H-Word" when he's unwittingly wired with a bomb that will go off when he utters his most frequently-used word which, unsurprisingly, is "ass."
    Bender: Bite my shiny metal—
    Fry: [bursting in] Stop! You can't say the next word!
    Bender: Up yours, chump. I said it nine hundred and six times before lunch.
  • The Slow Path: This is Bender's preferred method of time travel. For whatever reason he never, ever gets bored or runs out of power and has declared with regards to being buried in the New Mexico desert for a thousand years that "[He] was enjoying it until [the Planet Express crew] showed up!"
  • Small Name, Big Ego: Bender has a Big Ego constantly at odds with his Small Name, as most vividly seen in "A Pharaoh to Remember". Pointing the latter out is one of his biggest Berserk Buttons.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Invoked.
    Bender: I need plenty of wholesome, nutritious alcohol. The chemical energy keeps my fuel cells charged.
    Fry: What are the cigars for?
    Bender: They make me look cool.
  • Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: A robotic sidekick who indulges in vices ranging from gambling, whoring, robbery and casual violence and often expresses a desire to kill or maim his friends as a punchline. That said his friends do explicitly like him for his personality.
  • Sociopathic Hero: Zigzagged. He's a selfish kleptomaniac with signs of addictive personality disorder, additionally indulging to excess in gambling, women, and drugs. A recurring joke is his unconscious desire to "kill all humans". However he would by no means be diagnosed as sociopathic in real life as he values the lives of others and considers his own life less meaningful without them. He's even risked his life for them a few times - a true sociopath considers even long-time friends completely replaceable.
  • Spotlight-Stealing Squad:
    • He had dozens of episodes focusing on him whereas characters like Leela and Zoidberg only had a handful. In addition to that almost every episode that doesn't have him as the main character has him in a subplot, two of the movies have his name in the title (Bender's Big Score had more to do with Fry and Leela), and the two that don't have very long subplots involving him.
    • Amy and Hermes are easily the most underused characters in the series. Season 6 tries to correct this by having one Hermes episode and two Amy episodes. The catch is that both the Hermes and one of Amy's episodes are centered on Bender.
  • Sticky Fingers: Stealing is one of his hobbies. If he's not seen actively robbing or pickpocketing someone in an episode, odds are good that he either brags about or openly displays something previously stolen, up to and including human remains.
  • Strong as They Need to Be: Being a robot makes him stronger than a normal human, but exactly how strong he depends on Rule of Funny or whatever the plot requires at the moment. On the high end, Bender can bend explicitly unbendable metal alloys, punch through walls, and carry several peoples' weight, plus his own, on his retractable arms. On the other end, Leela is occasionally able to beat him up. On bad days, he can't even do a push-up without his arms spontaneously falling off.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: Bender's two sons note  look almost exactly like him. Probably justified with of all of them being Bending Units.
  • Stupid Crooks: Played With. When he puts in serious effort, Bender is actually quite a skilled criminal, especially when it comes to theft and burglary. However, being Bender, he's far more likely to just half ass it. The majority of his scams are either blatantly obvious and only work on complete idiots (like Fry) or contain a glaring flaw that comes back to bite him. Similiarly even when he hits upon a good scam, Bender is likely to get cocky and blow it (i.e. him exposing he was wearing X-ray specs to cheat at Poker by being to flippant whilst boasting).
  • Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids He was designed for bending struts, yet...
  • Team Chef: Officially Planet Express' cook.
  • The Team Wannabe: Wanted to join the Harlem Globetrotters in "Time Keeps On Slipping". Sadly, he wasn't funky enough.
  • Teeny Weenie: Hinted at. His antenna is often used as a euphemism for male genitalia and he gets very defensive whenever the size of it is questioned.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: "Well, we're boned!"
  • Time Abyss:
    • Due to hundreds of repeated one-way time travel, Bender would clock in at the thousands of millennia. This may be a Shout-Out to Marvin.
      Fry: Bender! What was it like to spend a thousand years buried in the sand?!
      Bender: [scowling] I was enjoying it 'til you guys showed up!
    • The What If? Christmas episode seems to indicate he can last at least another 500 million years.
  • Tin-Can Robot: Looks like a robot out of the 1950s, since he's supposed to be a industrial girder-bending robot. This has the added advantage of making him durable and fairly easy to repair, to the point that he has (or can easily acquire) replacement arms and legs.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Even his best friend, Fry doesn't hesitate to call him evil — nor does Bender seem particularly affected by the statement. Though other characters have their shady moments as well, none of them is as openly (and proudly) callous as Bender.
  • Token Robot: He's the only robot on the crew. Averted when the Planet Express Ship temporarily gained sapience and a personality.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Compared to Fry's literal lack of deeper thought past his impulsive actions Bender straight up doesn't care about consequences. The results can be self-detrimental like selling his body for quick cash only to realize he's just a talking head with no way to spend it to nigh-suicidal like yet another probable reason he causes himself to explode once again. Were it not for the Negative Continuity kicking in with some episode outcomes he'd have doomed the Planet Express crew multiple times over.
  • Took a Level in Cheerfulness: Bender started the series off as a depressed, sullen robot who wanted to kill himself out of guilt for building suicide booths. However, after meeting Fry and losing his bending limitations, he becomes much more gleeful and content with life.
  • Took a Level in Jerkass: Later episodes, particularly in the show's Un-Canceled era, increased his sociopathic tendencies, where he goes so far as to commit outright murder and at one point even damns his own son to Robot Hell, something that surprises the Robot Devil.
    [Bender goes to Robot Hell to strike a deal with the Robot Devil and get his army of the damned]
    Robot Devil: I rather think we could strike a deal, Bender. I shall give you your army of the damned and in return I ask just one thing, just one itty-bitty thing; your first born son! [laughs evilly]
    Bender: Jus' a sec.
    [in a suburban neighborhood, Bender approaches a small robot with a blue cap and shorts on]
    Robot: Daddy! I knew you'd come back! [Bender gives the boy a huge hug]
    Bender: [to the Robot Devil] Here ya go!
    [Bender boots his son out of a window and into a vat of liquid which bursts into flames upon contact with the child]
    Robot Devil: Wow! That was pretty brutal, even by my standards.
    Bender: No backsies!
  • Treasure Chest Cavity: He can hide all kinds of stuff inside his robot body — children, robot clowns, Fry... At one point he proved to have so much space available that a small doomsday device went off inside him and didn't damage him. But when it came to carrying around an entire castle's worth of loot he started to show difficulties.
  • Troll: Most of the time he's just an ass just because he enjoys pissing people off.
    Bender: Ha ha haw ha ha!... oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder. Haw ha ha haw ha ha!
  • Turn to Religion: In "Hell Is Other Robots", Bender finds religion after becoming addicted to electricity and becomes extremely pious. The others get tired of the new Bender and conspire to have him go back to being a sleazy lowlife, after which Bender gets sent to Robot Hell.
  • Tyrant Takes the Helm: Any time Bender is given an ounce of authority. Like on Osiris 4, when he makes the entire planet build a ludicrously oversized statue of him, then complains when they do just that.
    High Priest: But, sire! We built it to your exact specifications!
    Bender: Too exact if you ask me! Now tear it down and start again. But this time, don't embarrass yourselves.
  • Unskilled, but Strong: Played with. Bender is talented at dancing, theft, burglary, and fraud; skills which do not require strength. However, he is only able to fully utilize his considerable robotic strength in applications related to bending.
  • Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: "Bite my shiny metal ass". Most of the main cast have strong Jerkass tendencies (except for Fry and Zoidberg), but Bender is easily the worst.
  • Verbal Tic: Whenever Bender refers to himself as "me", he always tacks on his name to make it "me, Bender", seemingly just to make sure no one forgets who they're talking to.
  • Villain Protagonist: He has committed many crimes, including outright murder.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds:
    • With Leela, on occasion, even moreso as the seasons go on and both take Levels In Jerkass. Starting in Season 1, she admits she likes Bender for his "in-your-face personality". In Season 2, when prophesied to murder his best friend while a were-car, Bender goes straight for Leela, rather than Fry. The two hang out, but Leela is more than willing to respond with violence whenever Bender's a jerk.
    • With Fry; the two may insult and occasionally mutilate each other, but they care for each other and will always have the other's back.
  • Vocal Evolution: In the first season, Bender's voice sounded noticeably slurred and nasally. Starting with the second season, his voice is higher-pitched, much clearer, and has a faint accent.
  • What, Exactly, Is His Job?: It's been noted a couple of times that, while Bender is employed by Planet Express, he doesn't have a clear role in its hierarchy. He has a self-appointed role as the crew cook, but being a Lethal Chef means this role isn't given much respect, and though he tends to work with Fry, he isn't considered a "delivery boy" the way Fry is. Most of the time, he's just hanging around doing anything from load-lifting to interfacing with computers to folding sweaters (when he can be bothered, anyway). Bender's Big Score labels him as "Assistant Manager of Sales" — something he's never been shown acting as, suggesting it's an empty title. "Möbius Dick" has Hermes claim that he's considered one of Planet Express' appliances. Whenever Fry is absent — due to him quitting, being presumed dead, or some other reason — Bender continues to accompany Leela on deliveries, but they are shown to have nothing to talk about without Fry (although when Leela's memories of Fry were erased she observed that a two-man crew felt too small).
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: He's programmed strictly for bending purposes, which turns out to be more than enough. When necessary, his bending even allows him to perform explicitly impossible feats, such as folding a wooden door in half.
    Bender: [about to use a water pump] Like everything else in life, pumping is just a primitive, degenerate form of bending.
  • With Friends Like These...: While he usually has lines he won't cross towards his friends, he's still liable to do some nasty things to them, like rob them, con them, or strangle them in anger. He even had Fry and Leela enslaved during his brief stint as a Pharaoh.
  • Wolverine Publicity: Given his status as the Series Mascot, Bender tends to be prominently advertised even in episodes or movies where he plays a minimal role. Notably, his name is on the titles for Bender's Big Score and Bender's Game, even though he's a Decoy Protagonist in the former and, despite setting up the titular world, is ultimately little more than comic relief in the latter.
  • Would Hurt a Child: "If guess if you want kids beaten, you have to do it yourself." Aside from the incident with his first-born mentioned above he's the most willing to hurt Cubert for being annoying and gleefully joins Robot Santa on one of his rampages.
  • Writers Cannot Do Math: Done as a joke when explaining Bender's composition. He is 40% titanium, 40% zinc, 30% iron, 40% dolomite, 40% luck, 40% chromium, 60% storage space, 40% scrap metal, 40% wire, 40% steel and 40% tin with a .04% nickel impurity. That adds up to 450.04%.
  • Yandere: A non-romantic example with Fry. He likes hanging out with Fry and looks forward to spending time with him doing things watching TV shows together. However, Bender has proven that he can get jealous over Fry spending time with someone or something else. When Fry found the remains of his dog Seymour and plans to clone him, Bender gets so jealous of Fry is spending time with his dog that he throws Seymour in a volcano and boasts about how he’s all Fry has while hugging a shocked Fry.
  • Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: He's very mischievous and his eye bulbs are a light yellow.
  • Younger Than They Look: Before "Roswell that Ends Well", Bender was actually the youngest Planet Express member, being built a mere three years before his first appearance. If it weren't for time travel, he'd be in his late teens by the series finale.
  • Your Answer For Everything: If Bender can't find a more obvious answer to problems his next best thing is to bend them. In the fourth movie this included a brick wall.
    Bender: All situations have the same Plan C: bending.

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