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Good news, everyone!

–Hubert J. Farnsworth

Hubert J. Farnsworth (born April 9, 2841), better known as Professor Farnsworth or the Professor, is the proprietor of the Planet Express delivery service and the tetragonist of Futurama. He is pushing the limits of even the 31st century at an agе of well over 160. Professor Farnsworth is one of six living relatives of Philip J. Fry I, together with his own clone, Cubert J. Farnsworth, as well as his only son by means of his sexual relations with Mom while he worked for her, Igner. He has a brother named Floyd, also his parents Velma and Ned Farnsworth are still alive. He is Philip I's nephew thirty times over. Though never stated, he is therefore logically the descendant of Philip I's only sibling, Yancy Fry, Jr. Though never stated, it is likely he is the descendant of Yancy Fry, Jr.'s only known child Philip J. Fry II named after his (Philip II's) uncle. However, since it is revealed that Philip I is his own grandfather and therеfore Yancy's grandfather, as well as Philip II's great-grandfather, due to his time-traveling exploits, Professor Farnsworth is logically in fact Philip I's direct descendant via his brother/grandson/great-uncle Yancy Jr. and nephew/great-grandson Philip II . So the six include: himself, Cubert, Igner, Floyd, Velma and Ned.

Biography

Professor Farnsworth is a senile, deranged, as well as unpredictable old man who is both a maniac and a genius who was born in prison as mentioned in "Overclockwise". He has a gift and passion for the creation of Doomsday Devices and Atomic Supermen and is a danger to himself, his employees, as well as the Universe in general. He has put at least one parallel universe in peril with his inventions.

When he was a teenager he was put in a mental institute but got out 25 years later. Professor Farnsworth formerly worked for Mom's Friendly Robot Company and taught at Mars University. He currently spends the majority of his time inventing ridiculous devices and coming up with equally ridiculous and suicidal missions for his crew members.

Abilities

Hubert's greatest ability is his exceptional intelligence: however, it is hampered by his senility. He does have more unusual "abilities" though: Since Philip I's existence is cyclical and being part of Philip I's bloodline, Hubert himself is an anomaly in the universe. Also, ever since "The Late Philip J. Fry", Hubert has become an out-of-universe observer. It is unknown how this may manifest itself in the future, but logically nothing that happens as a result of time travel in the current universe can affect him, since he is not a part of this universe.

For some unexplained reason, his eyes are never seen. There are only two episodes in which he has ever taken his glasses off. In the episode "Mother's Day", he is shown from the side when he does it and Mom comments "Your eyes were always such a beautiful shade of... milky white." (still not giving away the specific color of his eyes). In the episode "Amazon Women in the Mood", he removes his glasses after Fry mistakenly states that Zoidberg is dead (though the "corpse" is only Zoidberg's empty shell) but promptly covers his eyes with his hand in order to sob.

Catchphrases

Professor Farnsworth is characterized by his catch-phrase "Good news, everyone!" frequently followed by very bad news: often one of his semi-suicidal missions. Another is his exclamation of surprise, "Sweet Zombie Jesus!", which is noted to be clumsily censored on some networks. Also, though not a catchphrase in general, he often says "Wha?" when unaware of the situation, or when someone questions a statement he has just made, showing his senility. Also, he often completely contradicts himself: he told his crew they were to gather "ordinary honey. Just ordinary honey." When one of his crew asked about the mission, he suddenly turned serious and said "This is no ordinary honey!" Another catchphrase he uses is "...Wernstrom!", which he says whenever he sees Professor Ogden Wernstrom, his scientific rival, and "Well I am already in my pajamas....."

Age

Professor Farnsworth's amazingly advanced age manifests itself in senility and general physical decrepitude. While generally friendly, he is sometimes prone to sudden fits of bitter contempt for random things. The Professor is also known for his inclination toward exhibitionism and does not hesitate to appear naked in public, stating that, like pine trees and poodles, the "primitive notions of modesty" of the 20th century are long gone. He also mentions that, being 160-years-old, he is old enough to rent and purchase "ultra-porn". Beyond that, the professor's occasional brief verbal digressions about his own life imply a somewhat colorful sexual past, which he often concludes with a nostalgic "Ah, yes...". He also mentions in Bender's Game that people sometimes call him "The Catman" for his ability to land perfectly on his feet after falling from a high balcony.

Futurama TMLH

Professor Farnsworth in Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles, as an artificially induced 37.5 years old

Professor Farnsworth is the oldest human being living on earth (excluding those who have been cryogenically frozen or are kept alive as heads in jars), a title he acquired upon turning 160. At this age, all humans are collected by the Sunset Squad Robots and sent to live out the rest of their days in isolation aboard the gigantic Near Death Star. After his crew rescues him, Hubert returns to Planet Express to resume the life he originally had before being removed by the Sunset Robot Squad. After swimming in the Fountain of Aging, reports that he is "Even older! Huzzahhh!".

Although being in his 160s, in Leela's dreamverse in the episode "The Sting", the Professor became quite shocked when Fry, who was technically 1025-years-old after being frozen for a millennium, accidentally died, remarking, "This makes me the oldest living member of my family!" and burst into tears at this realization. This is contradicted when we later learn that both of his parents are still alive in the 7th season episode "Near-Death Wish". However this may be because the Professor loathed his parents("Near-Death Wish") and tries to ignore their existence.

Relationships

Relationship with his crew

Professor Farnsworth rarely worries about the safety of the crew, viewing them as a means to an end. After remarking that he was looking for a new crew for his intergalactic space ship, he was asked "what happened to your old crew?" His response was "Oh, those poor sons of b...but that's not important! What is important is that I need a new crew!" When Fry, Bender and Leela state that they have no career chips, he produces them from a bag labeled "Contents of Space Wasp's Stomach". He quite frequently sends them on dangerous missions even when he has the foreknowledge that they will probably not make it back alive. His missions are typically those other delivery companies won't take, such as delivering subpoenas to mob-controlled worlds or casual deliveries to virus-infested planets. Even the commercial that he had produced for his company makes several remarks to this effect, including, "When other companies aren't crazy or foolhardy enough..." and "our crew is expendable, your package isn't", the former showing the crewman running through a minefield and the latter a crewman being dragged away by a giant bird. When the crew and his ship are sent off to war, he immediately tries to hire another crew. When his old crew returns, he is clearly surprised they survived, remarking, "Oh God you're alive! I mean, thank God you're alive," then remarks to the applicants, "Come back in three days. A week at the most" indicating just how low he thinks their chances of survival are. When the crew was sent to retrieve space honey they found the remains of the previous Planet Express ship buried in the hive's honey. Even his family relationship to Fry doesn't do much, if anything, to reduce his ardor for particularly difficult and deadly delivery missions. His relationship is closest to John A. Zoidberg who he values a good long time friend although Hubert is a speciesist. He employed John because Hubert once saved his life from a yeti and at this time, Hubert was infected with Yetiism, which he mistook for hypermalaria. He made John promise to mercy kill Hubert so he would not die of it and therefore John was employed by Hubert for the sole purpose of carrying out this task. This promise was kept a secret and many lies and cover ups were made until the rest of the crew found out the truth.

Relationship with Mom

While at MomCorp, he fell in love with the CEO, Mom. Igner was born of this relationship. Hubert left Mom and MomCorp when she decided to weaponize his Q. T. McWhiskers toy, an anthropomorphic cat toy that shot rainbows from its eyes.

He and Mom have had continued relations since this time. In a plot to retrieve the Universal Robot Controller from Mom's bra, the Professor brings flowers to Mom's cabin in The Bronx where their love is rekindled ending in a "whirlwind of hot, dry sex". After learning of the plot Mom subsequently dumps him.

Robosexual Relationship

In the episode, Proposition Infinity, the professor reveals he met a girl by the name of Eunice, whom he fell in love with. After dating for 40 years, she cheated on him with a robot. Later in the episode he reveals that Eunice's true name was Unit 47, revealing that he is a robosexual and explaining his hate for them.

Personality

Though knowledgeable and prodigious inventor, Professor Farnsworth is also plagued by intermittent senility. In contrast to his endearingly inept persona and while he's generally friendly mild-mannered, he has several negative character traits. These include arrogance, spitefulness, as well as a general disregard towards his employees and at times, a tendency towards speciesism, especially towards Cygnoids. Being a scientist, Hubert is an active defender of scientific progress and education, as well as is prone to be aggressive towards anyone who express esoteric or religious viewpoints that contradicts his own opinion: as evident in "The Thief of Baghead" when he angrily claimed that life-force isn't the same as an ethereal soul (though he seems to not known the difference between one another, if any) and in "A Clockwork Origin", Hubert claimed that anyone that believes in creaturism over evolution to be ignorant and went as far as to leave Earth when they refused to listen and see his theories and archaeological evidences. Despite this, Hubert is far from being Atheist. Rather, his spiritual faith seems to change from episode to episode, but (and peharps due to it) is generally a liberal one. In "The Farnsworth Parabox", when one of his experiments goes awry and nearly killed him, he starts to desperately scream for help and shouts to several deities of different religions to do so, at one time asking Satan to save him because he owes him one, in another episode, he says "Hail Science" with 666 across his forehead. In Hell Is Other Robots, Hubert claimed that Vodoo and Oprahism are mainstream religions and expresses interest in them. In "Möbius Dick", when he comes to the conclusion that his crew has died on their mission, he decided to pray to Isis.

Also, Hubert has shown tendencies for nudism in "Near-Death Wish" when the Professor yells at his parents, then proceeds to strip and run through the city naked. This is expanded on in "Anthology of Interest I by Hermes: "Let's see, Citation for public nudity, Conspiracy to commit public nudity..."

Family Tree

                   Mr. Gleisner──┬──Mrs. Gleisner  Philip J. Fry IMildred Fry
                                 │                                                  │
                           Mrs. Fry───────────┬─────────────────────Yancy Fry, Sr.
                                                  │   
                                        ┌─────────┴─────────┐                 David Farnsworth┬(?)
                                        │                   │                                     │   

Turanga LeelaPhilip J. Fry I Yancy Fry──┬──Unknown (Many generations) │

                                                                    │                             │
                                              Philip J. Fry II──┬──Njörd(?)               │
                                                                    │                             │
                                                         (Many generations)                       │
                                                                    │                             │
                                                                    │                             │
                                                           Grandma Farnsworth                 │
                                                                (possibly)                        │
                                                                     │                            │
                              Velma Farnsworth─────────┬────────Ned Farnsworth────────────
                                                           │ 
                                                  ┌────────┴─────────────────────────────┐
       (?)Wernstrom────┬───Mom──┬──Hubert J. Farnsworth┬Clone-O-Mat   Floyd Farnsworth
                           │            │                      │               
                      ┌────┴───┐    Igner          Cubert J. Farnsworth
                      │        │         
                  Walt Larry

Trivia

  • The character's name was inspired by real-life inventor Philo Farnsworth, who invented the cathode ray tube television. He is also the descendants of Philo Farnsworth.
  • Professor Farnsworth has the same blood type as Amy Wong (which is the reason he likes keeping her around).
  • He has a "Thug Life" tattoo on his back, based on a tattoo that rapper Tupac Shakur had during his career.
  • His middle initial, "J", is the same as several of Matt Groening's other creations: Abraham J. Simpson, Homer J. Simpson and Bartholomew J. Simpson from The Simpsons, as well as his own distant relative, Philip J. Fry. It is currently unknown what Hubert's middle name is.
  • He religiously invokes the name of Satan on a regular basis: his counterpart in Universe 1 proclaims the Bible to be the "real good news", suggesting he decided his religion on a coin flip (as the outcome of coin flips is the difference between the Universes).
  • According to him, Zeus, Buddha, Jesus and Satan all owe him one.
  • He has had multiple relationships with Carol (much better known as Mom), who he had left and gone back to three times.
  • He taught himself to read while he was still in diapers, at about 8 years old.
  • He must be the oldest man on Earth, except for those who have been cryogenically frozen or preserved as heads in jars. In "A Clone of My Own" it is revealed that everyone is collected at the age of 160 and taken to the Near Death Star except for him (due to certain events in that episode).
  • The character Professor Putricide in the popular game World of Warcraft is largely based on him. Putricide says such lines as "Just an ordinary gas cloud..... but watch out, that's no ordinary gas cloud!" and "Good news everyone! I think I've developed a plague that will destroy all life on Azeroth!".
  • His favorite Christmas tradition is streaking in the New New York City streets.
  • When he was a century and a half younger, he kept a mouse's head stitched on a frog's body as a pet, before it was carried away and probably eaten by an eagle.
  • He resembles to Jonathan Frink who is a Professor from The Simpsons.
  • The Professor has no overall Business Plan for Planet Express.
  • The Professor's bad vision is the result of a botched laser-eye operation (though the Professor is unaware of this).
  • Hubert J. Farnsworth is uncircumcised, as indicated by the quote spoken by bender in "Near-Death Wish" where Bender says "That is one crazy uncircumcised old man.".

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