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".

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").

[3] 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.

According to one version, suggested by Hermes' flashback,[3] 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.

Before meeting Fry and Leela and joining Planet Express (where he currently works as the assistant manager of sales and as company chef),[7] Bender had a job at the metalworking factory, bending steel girders for the construction of suicide booths.

In "Proposition Infinity", Bender's secret affair with coworker Amy Wong leads to a referendum that, once approved, legalizes robosexuality.

In that film, John Bender told Principal Vernon (Paul Gleason), "Eat my shorts," an eventual catchphrase for another Groening creation, Bart Simpson.

[12] He describes the voice he got the part with as a combination of a sloppy drunk, Slim Pickens, and a character one of his college friends created named "Charlie the sausage-lover".

In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Bender states that he flipped a coin to decide his color, ending up with foghat gray rather than gold.

His body has a "shiny metal ass", two legs, two "Extens-o-matic" arms (right called "Gropie" and left "Cheatie" by Bender) with three fingers each, a head with two replaceable eyes shaped like light-emitting diodes, and a mouth used for fuel intake and voice communication.

Bender's human-like characteristics are reinforced by his display of behaviors often regarded as exclusive to humans, such as whistling, snoring, having bloodshot eyes, crying, feeling physical attraction, being tickled, dreaming, and belching.

Similar to a contemporary computer, he hosts a number of input/output devices: his head has a data socket and remotely operated volume control.

His mechanical nature also makes him far more durable than the rest of the cast, capable of surviving gunfire, explosions, extreme heat, deep water, or hard vacuum.

For example, in "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz", when Bender reboots, his visual sensors detect a colony of penguins, prompting his boot loader to re-initialize him with penguin-like behavior and language.

Due to Professor Farnsworth's flawed design, the energy conversion process inside Bender's body produces an inordinate amount of waste gases and heat.

Bender often exhibits sociopathic behavior; he is a pathological liar and rarely shows any empathy (his most frequent catchphrase to any bothersome person is "Bite my shiny metal ass!").

This desire is finally fulfilled in the episode "Bendin' in the Wind": an accident involving a giant can opener leaves him with a mutilated chest and paralyzed from the neck down.

In "The Problem with Popplers", he creates dinner consisting of nothing but capers and baking soda, and mistakenly expresses his belief that humans eat rocks.

Although the consumption of alcohol is necessitated by Bender's design and should not be generally viewed as a vice for alcohol-fueled robots, he apparently drinks far more than he needs for energy.

If he is deprived of alcohol, for instance during periods of depression, he ceases to function properly and shows signs similar to human drunkenness, including developing a rusty five o'clock shadow.

In "The Farnsworth Parabox" Bender seemingly falls in love with an alternate gold-plated version of himself, stating that he has finally found someone "as great as me".

During "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back", the entire crew travels to the Central Bureaucracy to recover Bender’s brain after Morgan Proctor burned it onto a floppy disk and sent it away.

Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) subsequently risks his bureaucratic license to locate the disc with Bender's brain on it by sorting the entire pile in just under four minutes.

Despite his often immoral attitude, he has a softer side; he can feel guilt and remorse over his actions if he goes too far (even by his own standards), indicating that he is not as selfish or unkind as he appears to be.

Bender was still resting inert in the Simpsons' basement as of 2015 episode "Cue Detective" in which his empty body cavity was used to store the family's cash nest-egg.

Bender also makes a background cameo appearance in the Simpsons episode "My Fare Lady", holding a shovel and bucket at the end of Homer's dream about The Jetsons.

Bender's head is featured in the background of the level "Clockwork Factory" in the tower defense video game, Kingdom Rush: Vengeance.

In "Blue Harvest", he can be seen at the Mos Eisley cantina, and in "The Splendid Source", he is one of the repeaters of a dirty joke whose original author Peter Griffin, Joe Swanson, and Glenn Quagmire are seeking.

In the episode "Boopa-dee Bappa-dee", Peter attempts to use the guide on the television remote, turning Stewie Griffin into a host of past and present Animation Domination characters, including Bender.