Futurama: 10 Character Fates Worse Than Death

Captain Lando Tucker must have been begging for death!

By Scott Banner /

In the year 3000 there are suicide booths on every street corner, devices called Killamajigs, and the odd alien invasion and hoard of robots attacking the people of Earth. In spite of all this however, the only notable character to truly die in the series is Calculon (which he actually did twice).

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That's not to say that people didn't suffer, as the future offered more than enough sources of pain, discomfort, and trauma, some of which were actually worse than death itself.

There are all kinds of dangers in New New York, Old New York, and across the universe, that Professor Farnsworth was happy to send his crew directly into, while other threats were less obvious. Even something as innocent as downloading an app could ruin your life in the 31st century.

When Bender crashed a huge tanker of oil on Pluto, his punishment was 500 hours of community service. Clearly he thought this was worse than death, as he asked his lawyer to go for the death penalty instead. This list however, is full of fates that are genuinely worse than death, rather than a workshy robot having to get up off his shiny metal ass and do some work for once.

10. Knowing Everything

No one likes spoilers, right? When there's a new movie or TV show out, people will often go to great lengths to avoid finding out what happens before they are able to experience it themselves, as already knowing what happens robs the moment of any real emotion, surprise, or gravity.

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Imagine if this was what your entire life was like. Imagine going through life already knowing every little thing that was about to happen, every would-be surprise around every corner, having every one of life's moments spoiled for you. This was Pickles' life.

Pickles was created by the New New York Police Department in order to see crimes in the future before they happened, allowing the likes of URL and Fry (when career chips apparently stopped existing) to apprehend the culprits before they even had the chance to break the law.

The ultimate man/machine hybrid was implanted with the brain cells of history's greatest detectives, and the burden of never being surprised in his life and knowing the punch line to every single joke, drove him to drinking the Maltese Liquor and purposely killing the human part of his brain.

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