Futurama: Every Planet Express Crew Member Ranked

He’s Scruffy. The janitor.

It’s very tempting to just leave it at that and have this entry speak for itself the way Scruffy intended, but doing so wouldn’t allow for discussion of just how clever a character he really is.

Scruffy is a riff on the classic crotchety janitor trope, but he’s far less antagonistic than, say, Groundskeeper Willie. He doesn’t actually do a whole lot of anything, and was just supposed to be a stock character brought in for a joke about how Leela had never seen him before.

However, despite not really saying or doing much, David Herman’s delivery was so great he became a long-running character. Futurama have form here; they gave Mayor Poopenmeyer a ridiculous name thinking he’d only be in it once, only for him to become a recurring character each season.

With the exception of his exchange with the wash bucket in Amy’s body, you could argue that he never has any jokes, set ups or punchlines. However, he’s such a brilliant character that he manages to be hilarious anyway. It’s a huge credit to the writers and to Herman that he’s so popular.