Philip J. Fry

Philip J. Fry is the main protagonist and character of Futurama. In the future Fry (as he is referred to in the show) is the first class delivery boy of Planet Express, which his nephew owns. Before being employed by Planet Express in the year 3000 he had worked for Panucci's Pizza during the late 20th century. On New Year's Eve 1999 he was cryogenically frozen by accident while on delivery. The cryochamber timer was set at 1000 years; hence Fry woke to the last moments of the year 2999.

Early years
Phillip J. Fry was born in 1974, somewhere in Old New York; the second son of honest hard working Americans. During his formative years, Fry endured a great sibling rivalry with his older brother. His brother constantly stole his ideas and, shortly after Fry was born, even wanted his younger brother's name. Fry also spent of a lot of time playing video games and watching Star Trek. He was never admitted to public school because his parents felt it would be a waste of taxpayer's money.

Fry never made a success of himself, and during his twenties (or late teenage years) he gets a job at Panucci's Pizza as a pizza delivery boy. While working for Mr. Panucci, he meets up with Michelle and they begin a relationship. On a delivery to a prank call in 1997, he meets up with Seymour Asses, a dog he names after the addressee of the prank call delivery. Seymour becomes his best friend.

Cryogenically Frozen - for a Thousand Years
On the fateful night of New Year's Eve, 1999, he was sent on another prank delivery to I. C. Wiener. When he arrived at the destination, Applied Cryogenics, he realized that it was a prank, but since he could not make it back to Panucci's before the new year, he decided to celebrate it where he was. Then, while leaning his chair too far backwards, he fell into a tube, which closed and he is frozen for a thousand years.

On New Year's Eve, 2999, the tube's timer finished and he woke up again. But Fry is not at all afraid about his entire life so far being gone. He is introduced to Leela who is working to assign unfrozen people to jobs, she informs him that he only has one living relative; Professor Farnsworth. But faced with becoming a delivery boy again, Fry flees. While running around New New York, he spots a suicide booth, which he mistakes for a regular phone booth, where he decides to call his nephew.

Inside the suicide booth, Bender gets impatient with Fry's lack of understanding of how the booth works. So he helps him along, at which point Fry realizes what sort of booth he has stepped into. After avoiding getting killed by the booth, he decides to hang out with Bender. After a couple of drinks, Bender suggests he better leave to go kill himself again, but Fry wants him to stay, because he had always wanted a robot for a friend (or at least ever since he was six). But Leela is still on his trail, after being forced by her boss, Ipgee, to continue the pursuit of him.

While escaping her through the Head Museum and running into the ruins of Old New York, Leela finally catches up with them. But to Fry's surprise, she decides to quit her job instead of forcing the job upon to him. Fry suggests they go to his nephew and see if he can help them. And after confirming his and Fry's relation, he wishes to hire them as a replacement for his old crew.

Planet Express Delivery Boy, First Class
Fry is hired on his nephew's company as a delivery boy. Being faced with the ability to travel around space, Fry is pleased with his new position. At first Fry lives at the Planet Express, but after an apartment hunt he ends up living in Bender's closet. But Fry immediately gets an interest in Leela. But to his dismay, the feelings are not mutual.

His work at Planet Express gets him thrown into a lot of absurd adventures, he is briefly in a relationship with Amy Wong, and while the company's bureaucrat, Hermes Conrad, is away, he had an affair with the company's replacement bureaucrat, Morgan Proctor. Neither lasting very long, but when he almost destroys the Planet Express building, Hermes fire him, Bender and Leela, he gets Leela's former job by accident he founds his girlfriend Michelle unfrozen. But when she does not feel comfortable in the future, she asks him to come with him to year 4000. After they wake up and realising that they were actually just in Los Angeles two days later, she dumps him in favour of Pauly Shore.

On a truck stop he eats a bad egg sandwich, so he gets infected with parasites. The worms gives him a complete tune up, and he both becomes stronger, smarter, and he is capable of impressing Leela with the Holophonor, but Fry fears that Leela has falling in love with the worms rather than him, so he decides to get rid of them. And he appears to be right, she immediately asks him to leave.

The most important person in the universe
At some point the Brain Spawn attack Earth, and in its progress it makes all humans stupid or stupider. Fry however is immune to this as he lacks a certain Delta brain wave. The Nibblonians inform Leela of how to save him, but just as she convince him that the brains are evil, he runs to the library where he meets and battles the Big Brain. Fry beats the Big Brain, and when everyone is back to normal, no one has any memory of his actions and just thinks he is crazy.

While the Planet Express crew are watching a supernova about to explode, Fry puts some metal into a microwave in the ship, which causes them to be thrown back in time to 1947 and they manage to crash land in Roswell, New Mexico. During this trip he kills his (supposed) grandfather and meets his grandmother, but after a night with her it becomes obvious that himself is his grandfather.

But the Nibblonians call for his help again and the Brain Spawn have begun collecting all information in the universe, and would then destroy it. The Nibblonians explain that due to his "past-nastification" he lacks the Delta brain wave. It is revealed to him inside the Infosphere that it was Nibbler who made him fall into the tube and original come to the future. But Fry's love for Leela makes him accept it. And in a second attempt, he destroys the Infosphere and the universe is saved.

A deal with the devil
During more events with his crew members, he wound up in a parallel universe where he and Leela is married, he gets his nose cut off, he writes a love note to Leela by moving the stars themselves, he gets in a relationship with Lucy Liu-bot, he becomes the vice chairman of the company during a takeover, the emperor of Trisol and much more.

But his passion and number one thing he always wanted still remains unexplored. He thinks back to when had the worms, and when he could play the Holophoner to impress Leela. Bender suggests that he should make a deal with the Robot Devil, and in an (to the Robot Devil at least) appalling ironic outcome, he gets the Robot Devil's hands. He can play the Holophonor now, and he becomes a famous musician, performing many classical numbers.

Hedonism Bot hires him to write an opera, Fry decides to write it about Leela. And after the first act of the opera, it is already deemed best opera of all time. But meanwhile the Robot Devil is plotting against Fry to get his hands back, because the Robot Devil is getting tired of Fry's hands. And so in the final act, the Robot Devil interrupts the opera and demands his hands back. Fry refuses, and the Robot Devil explains that if so, he will marry Leela for which she has signed (unknowingly for her though). Fry realises that this ultimatum only has one solution, to let Leela go and give up the Robot Devil's hands. And since he cannot play any more, the opera is credited as sucking.

Years of absences
Planet Express is brutally withdrawn its license by the Box Network from which they were fired. But eventually their license is restored- they are back in business. Fry becomes a centre of attention as a tattoo on his rear contains the secret to time travel; when Alien Scammers (led by Nudar) take over the business, they find the machine language time code on his butt. Bender is ordered back in time to steal all of Earth's valuables from the past. But Fry is more upset that Lars Fillmore is getting a chance with Leela.

The scammers feel it best to be rid of the time code once they finally become anxious that the universe will be destroyed. Utilising a mirror, Fry manages to read the code off his butt and escapes back to January 1st, 2000. Here he attempts to get some food from Mr. Panucci, but since he has no money from that era he cannot, except the pizza he delivered to I. C. Wiener, it is here he decides to travel back an hour when the pizza was warm. His time paradox duplicate refuses to do the same thing and walks off. But Fry himself manages to end up inside the same tube he was originally frozen in. When his frozen self wakes up, he closes the tube after him and leaves the timer for 7.95 years to wake up again appropriate to when he had left.

Luckily for him, Lars Fillmore calls off the wedding, and while he is unable to get Leela's attention, at least he and she won't be dating any more. And after having Hermes and Bender save the Earth, he decides on New Year's Eve of 3007, that Lars and Leela belong together. But here it is revealed that Lars is the exact same time paradox duplicated he left at Applied Cryogenics.

Name
Outside the show Fry was called Philip after Phil Hartman, who was to play Zapp Brannigan. Fry was originally named Curtis. Within the show Fry was named Philip by his father after Phillips screwdrivers. The J. is used in many of Matt Groening's characters including Homer J. Simpson, Bartholomew J. Simpson and Mona J. Simpson, and is a tribute to Jay Ward, the co-creator of Bullwinkle J. Moose. The trend is also followed by Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth, and his clone, Cubert Farnsworth.

Family
Fry's family tree is a bit convoluted, due in part to the reuse of common names, but mostly because Fry went back in time and became his own grandpa (3ACV19).
 * Professor Farnsworth, Fry's many-times-great-nephew and at the same time many-times-grandson.
 * Cubert Farnsworth, Hubert Farnsworth's clone.
 * Yancy Fry, Jr., Fry's older brother and grandson.
 * Philip J. Fry, Fry's Nephew (and great grandson), named in Fry's memory.
 * Yancy and Mrs. Fry, parents (Yancy is also technically Fry's son, and is also his own grandfather)
 * Enos Fry, assumed paternal grandfather, actually unrelated.
 * Seymour, his dog in the 20th century.
 * Turanga Leela, ex-wife.
 * Mildred Fry, paternal grandmother.
 * Mr and Mrs. Gleisner, maternal grandparents.
 * One or more of Mom's children (rumored)
 * Lars Fillmore, time paradox duplicate.

Age
Fry was frozen at age 26 for 1000 years making him 1026. Then 4 years later at age 1030 chronologically, was youthisized to age 14, reverse-aged to near unbirth, then re-aged, supposedly to his correct biological age, 29, in the fountain of aging (4ACV09). 4 years later at age 33 he went back in time and was frozen yet again for 1007.95 years making him 2040 but still biologically only 33. Based on Leela's speculation there is a chance after the fountain of aging he is less than 30: the professor never scans them with his age detector.

Lars Fillmore
In Bender's Big Score, he has a duplicate that hangs out in Old New York with Leelu and everyone. He was thought to be killed by an explosion caused by an obedience virus controlled Bender, but it actually burns off his hair and damages his voice box, turning him into Lars Fillmore.

Trivia

 * Probably the greatest Star Trek fan still alive, with the possible exception of Melllvar.
 * Tried to make out with a radiator once. And succeeded.
 * Used to drink 100 cans of cola a week back in school, right until his third heart attack.
 * Probably sterilized by the F-Ray, if only temporarily. Speculation leads us to believe that when Fry was infected with worms, he was unsterilized.
 * Addicted to Slurm.
 * Usually is the first character to declare something as "dead", although he has no medical experience.
 * Once ate a big heaping bowl of salt.
 * Is a slob.
 * Briefly achieved a higher state of existence after consuming 100 cups of coffee.
 * Temporarily became convinced he was a robot as a survival mechanism after being admitted to a robot insane asylum.
 * Used to find "edible mushrooms" on his bathmat.
 * Tried to swap his lungs for gills.
 * Great at video games, but bad at most other things.
 * Possesses creative musical talent, but lacks the ability to physically express it.
 * Once possessed a lucky seven leaf clover.
 * Very impulsive, he has been known to eat food of his head, dance the hustle for days on end, and place his head in craters, to name a few.
 * Dropout of Mars University and Coney Island College.
 * Loves anchovies.
 * Destroyed the Hubble Telescope in an epic space battle.
 * Cannot swim, or at least not in Slurm, or in Royal Jelly (as far as he knows).
 * Has no problems in dealing with robots and aliens, may even be a xenophile.
 * Almost snu-snued to death.
 * Is his own Grandfather.
 * Has stupid fingers, which prevents him from playing the Holophonor properly without outside help.
 * Was briefly employed at Applied Cryogenics.
 * Very occasionally has flashes of profound insight, but instantly reverts to his usual self and forgets whatever it was he thought of.
 * His favorite song is Walking On Sunshine by Katrina And The Waves.
 * He, along with Leela and Bender, appears in all episodes of the series.
 * Was once the Planet Express Ship Capitan, and Also Thinks That Those Fools Should Make Tankers With 6000 and 1 Hulls.
 * Had nose stolen by gray, big headed, human poachers.
 * Almost had his "wing dang doodle" cut off.
 * Is the Most Important Person in the Universe. This may also be true of his parallel self in the Parallel Cowboy Universe.

Quotes
Fry:Well I had more but, you go ahead.
 * Fry: No I'm... doesn't!
 * Fry: Bender! Have you seen my Sombrero?
 * Fry: People said I was dumb, but I proved them.
 * Fry: That's the saltiest thing I've ever tasted. And I once ate a big, heaping bowl of salt!
 * Fry: Leela, let's turn back. There is absolutely no shame in wussing out.
 * Fry: Did everything just taste purple for a second?
 * Fry: I did do the nasty in the past-y.
 * Fry: OW! My sperm!
 * Leela: Now, if you're all finished being stupid...

Appearances
While Fry appears in every episode/film/comic, these categories may be of interest:


 * A plots focusing on Fry
 * B plots focusing on Fry