Who's your favorite Futurama minor character?

You should get the DVDs and find out. It was a great ending. :slight_smile:

If you can’t wait, I’ll give a brief synopsis, but this doesn’t do this amazing episode justice, so proceed at your own risk.

[spoiler]Fry is desperate to impress Leela, and decides to learn how to play the holophoner to do so (it worked a while back when he had heightened ability dues to wormsin his system). The holophoner is a very difficult instrument to play (only a few people in the world know how, and they’re not that good), so Bender suggests that to get good he may metaphorically need to make a deal with the Devil. He then clarifies that by Devil he means Robot Devil, and by metaphorically he means get your coat.

They proceed to robot hell and meet the Robot Devil, who tells Fry that he’ll never get any better because his hands are physically incapable of playing the instrument well. He suggests switching Fry’s hands with the hands of a robot by spinning a giant wheel with a bunch of robot names on it. No problem, it’ll probably not even be a robot that he knows! Fry proceeds, and while it almost lands on Bender, it skips at the last minute and lands on “Robot Devil,” who is understandibly upset.

With his new hands, Fry easily becomes proficient with the holophoner, to the point that he becomes famous, selling records and filling concert houses. To tell Leela how he feels about her, he decides to write her an opera.

The Robot Devil, unhappy with his end of the deal (Fry’s hands keep touching him in places), begs Fry to switch back. When fry refuses, he approaches Bender with a deal. Bender won’t give up his hands, but trades his ass plate to the Robot Devil for an air horn installed on his head, so he can be even more annoying. Leela walks through a door to find him on the other side, and he blasts her with the air horn as a joke, deafening her instantly. The Robot Devil howls with laughter as she instantly realizes that she won’t be able to hear Fry’s opera that he’s writing for her.

As opening night approaches, Leela pretends that nothing is wrong, afraid that Fry would be devastated if he found out she can’t hear his opera. She has Amy bring flashcards with different emotions written on them so she can emote properly during the show so Fry won’t suspect anything.

The opera is great. Huge sets, dozens of characters, and beautiful music all coming out of Fry’s well played holophoner. The audience is enraptured.

At intermission, the Robot Devil makes his final attempt to get back his hands. He approaches Leela with a deal, he’ll give her robot ears so she can hear the rest of the opera, in exchange for one of her hands, the left one. She agrees, and signs a contract to the effect.

Back on stage, Fry’s opera depicts the hand switching transaction between him and the Robot Devil. The Robot Devil is angered by his depiction and Fry’s poor writing. “You can’t just have the characters say how they feel! That makes me feel angry!” He demands his hands again. When Fry persists, the RD reveals the deal he made with Leela - robot ears, for her hand… in marriage!

To prevent Leela’s deal from happening, he finally relents to the Robot Devil, and they switch back to their normal hands. As Fry begins to slink off stage, Zoidberg stands up and shouts to him to continue playing, as the music was in his heart, not his hands. Emboldened, Fry picks up his holophoner and continues, but sadly the Robot Devil was right - there was just no way Fry could play well with his old hands. The theater clears out instantly as Fry sqeals out a few sour notes.

He drops the holophoner again and starts to walk off the stage, when Leela’s voice breaks the silence behind him. “Don’t stop playing, I want to see how it ends.”

He smiles, sits down, and starts playing again. A crudely drawn version of himself and Leela appear on the stage. They kiss, grab hands, and walk together into the sunset. Roll credits. :)[/spoiler]

Can you tell I like this episode? Amazing that one of the most touching series finalies for me is one from a cartoon show. :wink:

Aaaaaaaaaaaah, I had seen that one. (I think. It was probably one of the episodes I’ve seen only once)
Just didn’t know it was the finale.

Llr.

Morbo.

Malfunctioning Eddie.

The Robot Devil.

The robot preacher.

Leonard Nimoy.

QBert (Cubert?).

Gary Gygax.

Since she’s included as a minor character instead of a major one, Amy.

I hate Zoidberg.

Another vote for Morbo.

Gary Gygax and Al Gore as a team. Best. Episode. Ever.

I do think Morbo is the best character ever, though. That whispered “I will destroy you” was brilliant.

She’s not my favorite, but I love Mom’s swearing- there’s always at least one more insult than necessary. “Jam a bastard in it you ape!” “Some snot-eating bastards say it made me a bitter woman…”

Morbo is great. As is Lrrr and any member of the Waterfall family.

Amy (may not be a minor character, but I wanna do her)

Scruffy

Not to mention her kids. One of my all-time favorite moments was the stockholder vote they took to take over Planet Express. Mom casted her vote, good for 99.7% of the company stock. The first two sons also voted yes, and the screen changed to 99.8% then 99.9%. The last son looked at his remote and panicked. As he voted, the screen buzzed and “Pat Buchanan” appeared at 0.1%.

He exclaims, “The ballot was confusing!”
Mom asks, “How about a hand recount?”
His face picks up and he excitedly says, “Ok!”
She proceeds to smack him across the face. :smiley:

Ah, that’s a good choice. Old Man Waterfall is great.

I prefer Free Waterfall Senior: “A good way to avoid frostbite, folks, put your hands between your buttocks. That’s nature’s pocket!”

I’ve got one word for you: Thundercougarfalconbird.

As for my favorite minor characters, I haven’t watched Futurama in a while, but I do love Morbo (“Kittens give Morbo gas.”), and Scruffy’s got that really funny voice I love. I also think Sal is funny (“These papers aren’t going to delivers themselves! Only the Sunday edition can do that”), but that may partially be involved with the fact that I once created a Mafioso-type character for my own amusement who addeds the letters “S” to the ends of practicallys everys words he saids, similars to whats Sals does.

Roberto, Santa Claus and Mom are among my favorites.

Welshie!

Well, he’s not my actual favorite, but he’s got to have had the shortest appearance in the entire series of a named character. And that’s got to count for something!

Whale Biologist: …and the fifth reason whales kill is for the sheer fun of it!

How 'bout Kissinger’s head? “Mr. Ambassador, our children tell the same story…this is not a productive area of discussion.” The best thing on any cartoon, ever. Period. That wasn’t actually Kissinger doing the voice…was it?

I like that old woman, who first appeared in “I, Roommate” as Bender’s and Fry’s new landlady. “He picked up all this crap traveling all around the whatchamacallit…universe.”

She’s definitely a regular minr character. I don’t recall her ever getting a name, though.

I’ll also give props to Zapp, Morbo, Lrrr and Wernstrom.

Zoidberg was great for a while, but his shtick got old pretty quickly. Seafood doesn’t stay fresh for too long.

Seymour. :frowning:

Leela’s parents, Morris and…Munda, I think? Especially Morris. (“No beer till you finish your tequila!”)

I’d just like to say that I’m glad I’m not the only one who lusts after Amy.

It used to make me feel all loserish and Lister-like, but now I feel as though I’m in good company. :smiley: