Bender Bending Rodríguez (designated in-universe as Bending Unit 22, unit number 1,729, serial number 2716057) is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists in the animated television series Futurama. He was conceived by the series' creators Matt Groening and David X. Cohen, and is voiced by John DiMaggio. He fulfills a comic, antihero-type role in the show, and is described by fellow character Leela as an "alcoholic, whore-mongering, chain-smoking gambler".

According to the character's backstory, Bender was built in Tijuana, Mexico (the other characters refer to his "swarthy Latin charm"), his name a reference to bending in Mexican maquiladoras.

Bender is known for being prejudiced against non-robots. For example, one of his signature expressions is "kill all humans". Those who are not subject to Bender's prejudicial attitude are documented on his "Do Not Kill" list, which includes only his best friend Philip J. Fry and his colleague Hermes Conrad (added after the episode "Lethal Inspection"). However, Bender is also occasionally portrayed as possessing a sympathetic side, suggesting that he is not as belligerent as he claims, a view often echoed by his friends.

Bender, a high-tech industrial metalworking robot, was built in 2996 at Fábrica Robótica De La Madre (Spanish: "Mom's Robot Factory"), a manufacturing facility of Mom's Friendly Robot Company in Tijuana, Mexico. However, the story of his construction remains a mystery. Although different creation processes have been shown, Cohen has stated that the viewer has only been shown Bender emerging from the machine that created him, while what happened inside the machine has not yet been revealed. According to one version, suggested by Hermes' flashback, and also by a reverse aging process shown in the episode "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", a newborn Bender possessed a baby-like body. In "Bendless Love", however, Bender is portrayed with a normal, adult-sized body in a flashback sequence conveying his memory of coming into existence. As Bender's memory chip contains an adult form, the episode's content suggests that the character might actually be recalling a transfer to an adult body, rather than the moment of creation.

Unlike most other robots, Bender is mortal and, according to Professor Farnsworth's calculations, may have less than one billion years to live. Because of a manufacturing error that left Bender without a backup unit, Bender's memory cannot be transferred or uploaded to another robot body. After reporting that defect to his manufacturer, Bender barely escapes death from a guided missile and a robot death squad dispatched by Mom in order to eliminate him and effectively take the defective product off the market.

At the factory, Bender was programmed for cold-bending structural steel. Bender later attended Bending State University, where he majored in bending and minored in Robo-American Studies. At the university, he was a member of Epsilon Rho Rho (ERR), a robot fraternity, where he became something of a fraternity hero for his many shenanigans: one night he chugged an entire keg of beer, streaked across campus, and stuffed 58 people into a telephone booth (although he concedes they were mostly children).

Before meeting Fry and Leela and joining Planet Express (where he currently works as the assistant manager of sales and as company chef), Bender had a job at the metalworking factory, bending steel girders for the construction of suicide booths.

Bender has an apartment (00100100, the ASCII code for the dollar sign "$") in the "Robot Arms Apts." building, where he eventually invites his best friend and coworker, Fry, to live with him. Although the pair enjoy living together, Bender is sometimes portrayed as manipulating his guileless friend. In the series' early episodes, Bender is shown preferring to occupy smaller areas of their apartment, like the closet, referring to them as "cozy", although in later episodes he is shown to have his own individual bedroom, like Fry.