Professor Hubert Farnsworth:
'Fear the Future'
"For as old age is that period of life most remote from infancy, who does not see that old age in this universal man ought not to be sought in the times nearest his birth, but in those most remote from it?"- Blaise Pascal
"Everyone's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, ooh suddenly you've gone too far"-Prof. Farnsworth
Unlike many Mad Scientists, whose backgrounds are shrouded in mystery, we know quite a lot about Professor Farnsworth. He was born in New New York's nerdiest slum, Hell's Laboratory. He studied at Mars University, where he now occasionally pretends to teach a course on the mathematics of quantum nutrino fields. He spent most of his life in a small apartment surrounded by his designs for luxury items. For a while, he worked for the evil industrialist Mom, with whom he had an affair. The Professor left her when she redesigned his cute toy bears into horrible killing machines.
A prolific inventor, he eventually founded the interstellar delivery service Planet Express to fund his research. A fairly small operation, Planet Express is notable for it's low profits and appalling safety record. But, the Professor says, he does not think of it as a company, but as "a source of cheap labour, like a family". Planet Express is staffed by Farnsworth's great-great-great(etc) uncle Fry, the cycloptic Leela, the wealthy intern Amy, the Jamaican bureaucrat Hermes, the incompetant alien Doctor Zoidberg and the lovably criminal robot Bender. Their adventures form the basis of the TV series Futurama.
As the oldest living member of the prestigious Academy of Professors, Professor Farnsworth has had a long career of inventing. His devices include: