See that robot on the right? Does he look familiar at all? Does he perhaps resemble a certain womanizing, hard-drinking robot from a certain recently-resurrected animated series that rhymes with "Futurama," and is, coincidentally, also called "Futurama?" And didn't I essentially give away the answer in the title of this post?
Internet scuttlebutt has it that the robot featured on the old comic book cover, drawn by artist Alex Schomburg, is what inspired the design of Bender from Futurama. The Web site Samuel Design seems to have conclusive proof that Bender did in fact spawn from this cover. It has a screenshot from the season four episode "Crimes of the Hot" that features a "bending unit" with very similar head features of the nameless robot on the cover.
This sci fi and comic book stuff gets into territory I'm not completely familiar with, so I give the floor to you readers who know more about this than I do. Is it obviously the inspiration for Bender, or is everyone reading too much into it?
Thanks to Wild Bill for the link.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-03-2007 @ 9:46AM
drwagih_salama said...
Really I appreciate this nice thinking for the future
but when the life be roboting and automatic control we will lost the beautiful thing in our life its real love Dr wagih
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2-03-2007 @ 11:59AM
Wild Billl said...
So that means that Bender may be even older than Fry... Whoa, the electric yellow has got me by the brain banana...
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2-03-2007 @ 12:33PM
Akbar Fazil said...
I guess for me, what is the point? Futurama's design has always had that 50's sci fi retro futuristic look to it so of course you are going to find examples of designs in past creations.
Seems like a no brainer to me
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2-05-2007 @ 3:22AM
ManekiNeko said...
Actually, he looks a lot, and I mean a LOT, like the prototype Bender shown in the Galapagos Islands episode of Futurama. You know, when Professor Farnsworth shoots himself with a Mem-O-Ray to bring back memories of when he was building androids for Mom's Friendly Robot Company.
"Does it always shoot out flaming burps?"
"It's not always a burp!"
JR
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3-14-2007 @ 10:30AM
Shayde said...
There's MANY robots that looked like that in 50's Sci-fi. Some would claim that picture ripped others off.
They're inspirations, not plagarism.
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