Philip J. Fry

Philip J. Fry

Philip J. Fry (born 1974), better known simply as Fry, is the central character of the television series Futurama. Technically, if Fry was still living today, he would be aged 31, if he was still living in the year 3000, he would be 1026. He is voiced by Billy West. Fry is a 20th century pizza delivery boy who awakes to life in the 31st century after being cryogenically frozen since the first few seconds of 2000.

Billy West, mentioning jovially that he bases Fry on himself as a self-professed loser, also jokes that he fell in love with Katey Sagal, the voice actor of Turanga Leela, while working on the Futurama voices.

The name Philip J. Fry was also given to Fry's nephew by his brother.

The name "Philip" was given to Fry by Matt Groening as a homage to the then recently deceased Phil Hartman.

Timeline

Childhood

Fry was born on August 9, 1974 (according to the Volume 1 Futurama DVD) in Brooklyn, New York. Named by his parents for Phillips-head screwdrivers, he was the second and youngest son of his parents and had an older sibling, Yancy Fry.

His brother, Yancy, was said to have wanted the name Philip in his adolescence, as well as wanting lots of other things which Fry had worked to achieve. During his childhood, Fry was particularly active. Taking part in dance and basketball, during which he found a seven-leaf clover which gave him the luck to beat his brother at basketball, which later he locked away in the family's bomb shelter in the cover of a Breakfast Club soundtrack, in the "Ronco Record Vault", with the combination "3".

As a child, he participated in a breakdancing troupe, in order to help them win some parachute pants, and performed a septuple headspin with the help of the clover, after his brother copied his dance moves, and his "Outer Space" dance style.

Teenage Years

As a teenager, Fry was a typical loser, and something of a geek. During his time as a teenager, he is rumored to have spent his entire school time playing video games. He particularly liked playing Space Invaders while listening to his all Rush mix tape and drinking Shasta - so much so that his eyes bled from overexposure. He has also had at least three heart attacks, implied to be the cause of drinking excessive amounts of Coca-Cola (over 100 cans per week, as mentioned in Fry and the Slurm Factory).

In an alternate reality shown by Prof. Farnsworth's "what-if machine" (after Fry asked what life would be like if it were more like a video game), Fry's experience became useful when he was called upon to help General Pac-Man defend Earth from actual space invaders, a group of classic video game characters (such as Donkey Kong) from the planet "Nintendu 64", who wanted quarters with which to do their laundry.

Aside from his obsession with video games, he is an accomplished college dropout, dropping out after less than 3 weeks from Coney Island College, which appeared to be a ride. In one episode, he admits to not attending public school - his parents deemed it a waste of taxpayers' money.

Adult Life

By 1999, Fry was dating a woman named Michelle and working as a delivery boy for Panucci's Pizza. On December 31, 1999, after being dumped by his cheating girlfriend, he was delivering a pizza to a cryogenics lab when he realized that it was a prank order for "I.C. Wiener". He was leaning back in a chair while eating the pizza at the lab when the clock struck midnight, and just at that moment Fry fell backwards into an open cryogenic capsule that closed upon him and froze him. He remained frozen for 1000 years, when he was defrosted on December 31, 2999. Needless to say, upon reawakening, he found himself in a world very different than the one he left at the turn of the 21st century.

Trying to adjust to the 31st century, Fry gains the friendship of a cyclops, Turanga Leela, and a bending robot named Bender. Together, they find Fry's closest living relative, the ancient Professor Hubert Farnsworth, who agrees to employ the three of them in his delivery business, Planet Express.

Fish-out-of-water Fry often tries to recapture his past. He came into a large sum of money through a millennium of interest accrued in a bank account and furnished an apartment in a style befitting his twentieth-century era. He discovered the preserved corpse of his dog Seymour in "Jurassic Bark", and was all set to bring him back to life with the Professor's help, until he realized the dog lived twelve years after his disappearance. Deciding Seymour had lived a full life without him, Fry abandoned the project. In a flashback we see Seymour, like Odysseus' dog Argos, waited all those years for his master to come home, never leaving that spot or giving up hope, until old age finally got him. Many fans consider this to be the series' most touching episode.

Although Fry seems to have aged, his personality still resembles that of a child of very low intelligence, and is often portrayed as being very slow to pick up on events that are happening, as well as common sense. However, he is very knowledgeable about certain subjects, such as video games, television, and movies.

Character

Another great source of humor is Fry's lack of intelligence and unabashedly pathetic lifestyle. He lives like a pig with his best friend, Bender, rarely thinks more than five minutes into the future, and frequently injures himself. He enjoys watching TV shows that follow the form "the world's blankiest blank" and singing Walking on Sunshine while showering.

In the episode "Roswell That Ends Well" Fry returns to 1947 and becomes his own grandfather (he "did the nasty in the past-y"). Because of this "past nastification" he has a genetic anomaly that causes him to lack the delta brainwave. This helps him save the universe from a malicious race of disembodied brains, dubbed the "Brainspawn" (see "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid").

Fry is the deciding factor in the galactic conflict between the Nibblonians and the evil Brainspawn. In fact, the Nibblonians were responsible for Fry being frozen: they knew he would be needed to defeat the Brainspawn in the 31st century, but he would naturally have died long before then.

Love Life

Even though Fry is far from the paragon of male figure, form, or virtue in any century, he does manage to accrue some romantic experiences.

Michelle

Fry's girlfriend from the 20th century. Michelle dumped Fry on New Year's Eve 1999.

After Fry was frozen, Michelle realized he was the man she really loved, so she froze herself in depression. When Fry was fired from Planet Express, and in a mixup involving career chips, Fry ended up with Leela's old job at the cryogenics lab, where he unfroze Michelle and they continued dating. Unfortunately, Michelle started to complain about the 31st century being too "weird", and the couple froze themselves; their tube was dumped in Los Angeles, and when they were thawed, they entered a few more arguments and then broke up conclusively.(see "The Cryonic Woman").

Turanga Leela

Fry met Turanga Leela shortly after being defrosted when she was working as a career counselor at the cryogenics lab. Afraid of getting a career chip implanted in his hand by Leela, he ran from her, but eventually befriended her after she gave up her job as career counselor and joined Planet Express with Fry. Later on, Fry turned his attentions to Leela, and in subsequent seasons began his quest to woo her.

In the episode "Parasites Lost", Fry becomes infected with worms after eating a bad truck stop sandwich. However, the worms are very beneficial to Fry, doing everything from making him more physically fit to making him smarter. Leela finds this more intelligent and more sensitive Fry to be much more attractive. Fry is even able to woo Leela by learning to play the holophoner, a musical instrument with which the operator creates both music and visuals, which is very hard to play. The holophoner piece he plays for Leela depictes the two of them dancing in an array of stars with an enchanting violin solo. But Fry realizes that it is likely that Leela only loves him for what the worms have made him, and not who he truly is. So, in order to find out for sure he confronts the worms and threatens to hurt his own body (the worms' home) in order to get the worms to leave. He succeeds in getting rid of the worms, and goes back to his old self. Unfortunately for Fry, Leela no longer seems interested in him.

Towards the end of the series there are hints that Leela and Fry were beginning to fall for each other. The clearest example of this is in the episode "The Sting", when Fry is stung by a space bee. Leela thinks that Fry is dead. However, in reality, Fry was alive and Leela was in a coma. He had stayed by her bedside the entire time.

While traveling through time, Fry was present at the time of his past self's freezing. However, Nibbler gave Fry the choice this time, and for Leela's sake, Fry froze himself. Nibbler's and Fry's shadows are visible in a view from underneath the table Fry is sitting at when he falls backward into the cryogenic tube.

• In the series premiere, Nibbler's shadow is seen - the creators had planned the details of Fry's fateful night from the conceptualization of the show. On the DVD commentary for the first episode, Matt Groening and David X. Cohen noted "Secret!" when Nibbler's shadow was visible.
• In the episode "Jurassic Bark" (Season 5, Episode 2), the eye of Nibbler can be briefly seen peeking out of the trash when Fry was sitting in the cryogenics lab's office. In the scene as he falls backward into the tube, two sets of extra shadows can be seen, presumably of Nibbler and Fry.

In return, Nibbler helped Fry get together with Leela by giving him a flower, which Fry then gave to Leela after she had a bad date (see "The Why of Fry").

At one time Fry actually managed to marry Leela only to be followed by a speedy annulment. (see "Time Keeps On Slippin'").

The episode "The Farnsworth Parabox" explores alternate universes, and in one such universe Fry and Leela are happily married, due to a reversed coin flip (Leela flipped a coin to decide if she would make up an excuse or go out with Fry).

In the last episode for season 4, "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings", Fry tries to improve his Holophonor skills in order to 'get Leela to love him'. Unable to do so effectively with his original hands, he takes the advice of Bender to make a deal with the Robot Devil to exchange them for new and better robotic hands via transplants from a 'random' donor (selected from a Wheel Of Fortune type of board), only to find the 'random' donor to be the Robot Devil himself. With his new hands, Fry's skill in the Holophonor improves considerably, allowing him to go on to public recitals and having his musical works sold with great fanfare. Inevitably, Fry was commissioned by Hedoism Bot to write and perform a full opera. Fry agrees, but only if the opera is about Leela herself. Fry writes his opera, but on the day of the performance, Leela was accidentally deafened by Bender, due to the plottings of the Robot Devil, but she goes anyway. The first half of the opera is performed with great success, but Leela, unable to fully enjoy it due to her deafness, makes an hurried deal with the Robot Devil during the intermission to get robotic ears in exchange for 'her hand'. During the second half of the opera, angered by the portrayal of the original deal with Fry, the Robot Devil demands Fry to return his hands back. Fry initially refuses, until the Robot Devil threatens to claim Leela's hand in marriage. Fry relents, getting his old hands back, and thus unable to perform the remainder of the opera. While the rest of the audience leaves in disgust, only Leela remains, and in a touching conclusion to the episode/series, she asks Fry to continue and to see 'how it ends'.

Throughout the series, Fry maintains an interest in Leela, but he is frequently rejected by her. The idea of a romantic connection between Fry and Leela is explored more so in the later episodes of the series.

Lucy Liu

After having a crush on Lucy Liu for as long as he has known, Fry dates a copy of Lucy Liu which has been holographically projected onto a blank robot (despite the protests of the other characters), which he downloaded from "Nappster" on the Internet. Fry's love for the real Lucy Liu causes him to erase his Lucy Liu robot clone, just as the real Liu is falling in love with Bender (see "I Dated a Robot").

Amy Wong

Fry and Amy Wong have a short relationship in the episode "Put Your Head on My Shoulder". After spending time together Fry and Amy recognize their commonalities that lead to a relationship. However Fry quickly feels as though Amy is not giving him enough space, and decides to break it off. Unfortunately before he can tell her Fry, Amy, and Dr. Zoidberg are in an accident in which Fry's body is damaged to the point that Fry's head must be transplanted to Amy.

Others

Fry also fell in love with a Southern belle-type mermaid named Umbriel, but fled when he discovered the disadvantages of her piscine lower-half (see "The Deep South"). Perhaps his most distressing romantic escapade, however, was backstage at the Miss Universe pageant, when he made out with "the radiator woman from the radiator planet", only to be informed afterwards that it was actually just a radiator (see "The Lesser of Two Evils").

In a brief trip to the past, he had a one-night stand with his Grandmother in 1947.

He once had a nearly fatal snu-snu experience (see "Amazon Women in the Mood").

Additionally, Fry carried on an affair with Morgan Proctor, the bureaucrat that had replaced Hermes Conrad at Planet Express for a brief time.

Relationships

Bender Bending Rodriguez

Fry initally meets Bender in the first episode of the series, after Bender's failed suicide attempt, and from then on the two form a strong bond (As Bender put it, "Of all the friends I've had, you're the first.")

After working at Planet Express together, they become close to each other when they decide to rent an apartment together, and for the sake of the friendship, Bender cuts off his antenna so the TV will get reception. However, they decide to leave that apartment, and they move into Bender's previous apartment, where the living room is the size of a closet, and vice-versa.

Bender and Fry, while being rather odd, have a strong relationship, and have sacrificed things for each other over the years of their friendship, such as fame, money, and even their own lives. Their friendship is tested when Seymour, Fry's old dog is unearthed, and Fry spends time worrying about it instead of spending time with Bender.

Seymour

In the 20th century, while Fry is a pizza delivery boy, he meets a dog named Seymour Asses who eventually becomes his best friend. Seymour is able to sing "I'm Walking on Sunshine." In the 31st century Seymour is found in a museum, preserved and encased in dolomite, and Fry successfully stages a protest in order to get back his dog. After much deliberation, Fry decides not to clone Seymour as he finds out that Seymour lived a full 12 years after Fry was cryogenically frozen. Unbeknownst to Fry, Seymour spent the 12 years waiting for Fry outside Panucci's Pizza, where Fry used to work.

Achievements

• Made an Honorary Globetrotter by Bubblegum Tate.
• Was briefly a multi-billionaire from the 1000 years of interest accrued on bank account balance of 93 cents.
• Still has over 8 billion dollars (pre-tax) lying out of circulation from the sale of Popplers. He made 50 cents per dozen popplers sold, with 198 billion sold, together with Bender. He may not know this (or it may have been lost or frozen and considered illegally earned when it was discovered that Popplers were the intelligent offspring of the Omicronians of Omicron Persei 8).
• Saved the entire city of New New York from a giant ball of 20th century garbage with his 20th century garbage making skills.
• Saved the entire planet Earth from invaders from the planet Omicron Persei 8 when he remembered enough of a 1000 year old TV show ("Single Female Lawyer," a spoof/satire of Ally McBeal) to write, direct and produce a believable ending to an episode that was knocked off the air (by Fry himself).
• Won a contest (a Willy Wonka parody) to tour the Slurm factory, then discovered the secret to Slurm and decided it would be better kept a secret.
• Discovered the location of the original 1969 moon landing site, which had been lost for centuries.
• Briefly an executive (Vice President) of Planet Express (PlanEx) in the episode "Future Stock".
• Briefly an executive (Executive Delivery Boy) of Planet Express in the episode "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back".
• Performed the septuple headspin, with the help of a seven-leaf clover.
• The only known person in history to be his own grandfather, and subsequently, the only person without the Delta-brainwave (he did "do the nasty in the pasty").
• Defeated the Brainspawn twice: once by imprisoning the Master Brain in a badly-written book and again by setting off a bomb, destroying their InfoSphere which was almost ready to destroy the universe.
• Was twice an accomplished Holophonor player, first after parasites made him super-intelligent, and second after acquiring the Robot Devil's hands.
• Was the sole owner of the Earth's last can of anchovies before eating them on a pizza.
• Fry is considered by the Nibblonians, to be the most important person in the universe as, due to his special mind, he is the only person capable of defeating the Brainspawn.
• Was, for a short period of time, Emperor Fry the Solid of the planet Trisol, which lies in the darkest depths of the Forbidden Zone in the Galaxy of Terror ("It's only a name!").
• Successfully dropped out from Mars University
• Can sort of dance like a robot
• Fry has had three heart attacks, largely due to his excessive consumption of soda pop.
• Made an undisclosed sum of money from this Holophonor performances when Fry had the Robot Devil's Hands during his second time as an accomplished Holophonor player.
• Wrote, and performed with limited success, a full opera about Leela.
• Having a low paying job, several friends and a room in a robot's closet, Fry envied no man.