Planet Express / PLANETEXP

CREATION

Planet Express was founded by Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth as method of funding his research in 2961. At that time, Zoidberg was already an employee, and a delivery crew had recently been hired, consisting of Lando Tucker, Candy, and Lifter, although on their first delivery, the three were swallowed by a Four-dimensional space whale. (Zoidberg panicked and took the escape pod), which began the long line of delivery crews. The first employee of the year was then 13-year-old Amy Wong. Amy has supposedly not worked with the company from the beginning, as she does not seem to know any of the multiple previous crews before the current. While little is known about Planet Express’ early history, we know that Hermes Conrad has been with the company for as early as 2993.

Besides regular staff, such as Hermes Conrad, bureaucrat, and interns, such as Amy Wong, the company’s most important positions are the starship crew, who pilot the Planet Express ship during deliveries, and essentially support the business itself. Even though it is not officially in their job descriptions, the rest of the staff often tag along on the ship during missions.

Planet Express has had a history of security issues, several prior crews to Turanga Leela, Philip J. Fry and Bender Bending Rodríguez have apparently been lost or killed during difficult missions, which Farnsworth relentlessly sent them out on. The current crew can be assumed to be the most successful crew so far, in terms of survival, although the professor still asserted that they are not as good as his previous crew.

At least two former crews are known to exist, one lead by Captain Musky and another which was killed by either Space wasps or Space bees. Alternatively, these may have been two crews entirely. The first crew was swallowed by a four-dimensional space whale, but survived until 3010, with Lifter and Candy not aging, while Lando Tucker nearly sucked dry due to the whale’s feeding. According to this crew, they too were not as good as the crew prior to them. Farnsworth may simply tell all his crews this as a form of motivation. Farnsworth himself doesn’t think highly of the chances of his crew surviving, at one point he is evidently looking for a replacement crew before they even leave.

IN THE BEGINNING

In early 3000, after being unfrozen, Philip J. Fry, along with his new found friends, Turanga Leela and Bender Bending Rodríguez joins Planet Express as its new crew. In the new crew’s early beginnings, they start out with simple missions, but Farnsworth also gets himself involved with charity missions, such as saving the animals on Vergon 6.

For not informing the authorities of his vast amount of security issues with the company, the professor thanked his crew by inviting them onto the cruise ship Titanic, which was, most unfortunately, sucked into a black hole (1ACV10).

BREAU-CRAZY TIMES

In 3001, during a nervous breakdown from Hermes, the company’s bureaucrat was replaced temporary by Morgan Proctor, whose changes to the company was not entirely pleasing for the crew, except Fry, who Proctor had an eye for. However, in an attempt to get Bender’s brain back, Hermes regained his lust for bureaucracy, and during a sorting of the master inpile, Hermes felt upon a form discrediting Proctor’s stature as a bureaucrat, and Hermes was hired back at the company – at severely reduced pay of course, and so was the rest, apparently.

The sons of Farnsworth and Hermes, Cubert and Dwight, in an attempt to impress their fathers, created a competing business, Awesome Express, and after some successful paperwork, they took over the business of Planet Express as well. This takeover, much to Farnsworth’s and Hermes’ dismay, were eventually annulled when Leela discovered that they had not even delivered the newspaper they were hired to.

PLANEX ERA

The company’s logo during the reign of Steve Castle (3002).
In 3002 came perhaps the biggest takeover of the Planet Express corporation, by a former 1980s stockbroker, Steve Castle, replaced Farnsworth as the CEO of Planet Express, inc. after suggestion from Fry.

When Steve Castle became CEO of the company, he changed the focus of the company to brand and image rather than actual package delivery. He changed the logo and name of the company as well to “PlanEx” (“Planet Express”), as well as a styled 1980s advertisement for the company.

Steve Castle’s foremost for PlanEx was the giant corporation of Mom’s Friendly Delivery Company, which controlled most of Earth’s planetary and interplanetary deliveries. Despite being ruled as an impossible feat, Fry and Castle assured the board of the company that they would take of the battle.

Castle and Mom met at Elzar’s Fine Cuisine, which they negotiated about the future of both companies, and eventually Castle decided to sell Planet Express to Mom, so “she can gut us as competitors”.

The sale of PlanEx were held at the Intergalactic Stock Exchange, where it turned out that Dr. Zoidberg owned 51% of the company up until that point, which Steve Castle had purchased, resulting in him being able to cast the vote required to sell the company. However, despite the employees’ discontent with the sale, they soon discovered that their stocks were worth over 100 a piece, at which point they wanted Mom to buy the company regardless.

Unfortunately, just as the purchase of the stocks were to go ahead, Steve Castle’s fatal disease of boneitis kicked in, and died upon the stage. And after telling his story, Fry eventually made the stock price fall to 3 cents, apparently “worth less than when they were worthless” according to Hermes.

The Planet Express headquarters in the past universe’s year 3050 (6ACV07).
Licence

In 3005, the Box Network shut down Planet Express. However, the company was revived in 3007 (BBS).

In 3013, Mayor Poopenmeyer decreed Planet Express to be New New York’s new fire department (7ACV18).

FIRST INCARNATION’S FUTURE

When Fry, Bender, and the Professor started testing the forward time machine and were accidentally sent 6990 years into the future in “The Late Philip J. Fry”, the remaining Planet Express crew thought they had died, so Leela seized control of the company. She laid off Zoidberg and there were tough times. Leela, Hermes, Amy, and possibly Cubert pulled together, and 20 years later the delivery service had become incredibly successful.

In 3050, Planet Express had achieved even more, and kept growing and growing, despite Hermes becoming a head in a jar and Amy getting a robot body. Unfortunately for the company, the guys would return two incarnations later to maintain the poor management the company was used to in the first universe. Futurama is now set in the third incarnations, where all is back to normal.

PERSONNEL

The three primary crew members (from left): Leela, Bender and Fry.
While having changed crew on several occasions, it has stayed fairly steady since the year 3000, when the majority of the current crew joined. Amy Wong has stayed with the company since 2998, Scruffy has stayed since 2995, and Dr. John A. Zoidberg has been employed at the company since 2961.

Three former employees, the first official delivery crew for the company in 2961, were revealed in “Möbius Dick”. The captain was Lando Tucker, the robot was Lifter, and the female was Candy. They had been very friendly towards Zoidberg until they disappeared on their very first interplanetary mission.

CEO

Although Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth founded the company, and still runs it as of 3013, it has at times changed owner for minor periods of time. He has named his clone Cubert Farnsworth as heir to the company.

Cubert and Dwight took over the business when they inherited it because the Professor had been declared dead after sleeping in a ditch. Under these owners, the company was rebranded as Awesome Express.

In 3002, Steve Castle was elected CEO and ran the business as “PlanEx”, with Fry being the vice president. After Castle’s death due to boneitis, Fry gained control of the company and sold it back to the Professor.

In 3007, the Scammer Aliens, led by Nudar, took over.

In an alternative timeline, in which the Professor disappeared in 3010, Leela took over the company, and managed it much better than the Professor ever did (6ACV07).

In 3011, during the Omicronian take-over of Earth, the Omicronians (led by Lrrr) took possession of all Earth companies, including Planet Express. The crew can be seen re-painting Planet Express Ship in a distinctive olive-drab green during this period, with a modified company logo. The logo changes back in the next episode.

All relevant Planet Express history found at : http://theinfosphere.org/Planet_Express