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Futurama character
John A.[1] Zoidberg
Age	Unknown
Gender	Male
Species	Decapodian
Planet of Origin	Decapod 10
Job	Staff doctor of the Planet Express Delivery Company.
Relatives	Uncle: Harold Zoid Cousin: Zoidfarb Brother: Norman (deceased)
First Appearance	Episode Two: The Series Has Landed
First Line	Excellent, excellent!
Voiced by	Billy West

Doctor John A. Zoidberg is one of the principal characters in the television series Futurama. He is a lobster-like (though at times, he has traits of an Octopus or Squid, among others) alien from the planet Decapod 10, working as the company doctor for Planet Express, even though he knows very little about the physiology of humans. Zoidberg is voiced by Billy West and speaks with a Yiddish-inflected accent.

Contents 1 Character development 2 Early life 2.1 Family 3 Current life 3.1 As a doctor 3.2 Other aspirations 3.3 Poverty 3.4 At work 3.5 Loneliness 3.6 Jewish references 4 The Decapodians 5 External links 6 References

The names Zoidberg and Zoid come from a game that David X. Cohen made in high school, which was rejected by the company to which he sent the game. Part of the inspiration for Zoidberg was that he would be the opposite of Dr McCoy from Star Trek. Where Dr. McCoy is a human who is often called upon to work on unfamiliar alien races; Zoidberg is an alien who constantly treats humans, whose anatomy and physiology he is unfamiliar with.^[2]

The series shows conflicting views of Zoidberg's childhood. In "A Taste of Freedom", he is seen in child form; but in "Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles", when the crew reverts to their younger forms, he goes through rapid larval stages, including stages where he resembles a slug, trilobite, clam, lamprey, anglerfish, sea urchin, starfish, sea anemone, and sea sponge, before growing into his present form (When the crew were first de-aged, they were assumed to be 13 years old, so Zoidberg's form above might be post 13.) His age is never revealed in the series. While still a youngster on Decapod 10, Zoidberg was supposedly bullied by a Hermit Crab named Vinnie in a tide pool, further reinforcing that Zoidberg had developed from larval stages. Upon returning to his home planet in his adult form for the mating frenzy, he finds the hermit crab and says "Who's the tough guy now Vinnie?", and devours him.

Zoidberg is the nephew of Harold Zoid, the famous silent-hologram comedian, whose name is a play on both Harold Lloyd and the former practice of Jewish actors changing their names. Even though Zoidberg is neither human let alone Jewish, he and his species have characteristics that are stereotypically Ashkenazic Jewish, including an Eastern European Yiddish-derived accent. He has three parents, named Norm, Sam, and Sadie. It is likely that two of them are his biological parents. The episode Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love? indicates Decapodians only have two parents, who die during mating) and one is the woman who raised him (seen in A Taste of Freedom), though it is also possible that Decapod reproduction requires a third mate who does not die afterwards. He has a cousin named Zoidfarb. He also seems to have several siblings who budded from him in his sea sponge phase, including a brother called Norman (Teenage Mutant Leela's Hurdles), who is now dead.

Zoidberg is an old friend of Professor Farnsworth, and is the doctor at Planet Express. Although he claims expertise in human medicine, his knowledge of human anatomy and physiology is actually pitiful: he once mistook Fry for a woman and another time a robot (which he pronounces 'rowbut', and is frequently the way he refers to Bender), and the chart of human anatomy on his office wall is upside-down. He is often confused by the "strange" features of humans, such as their skeletal system, lack of multiple mouths, or the fact that blood is thicker than water (literally or metaphorically). He believes that humans have dorsal fins, that the heart is part of the digestive system, that humans are susceptible to fin rot, and even that the human gonads are in the neck; he has also alluded to forgetting that humans possess bones on more than one occasion. When he operates on the staff, he makes spectacular mistakes, such as attaching Fry’s severed arm onto the shoulder of his other arm. In Parasites Lost, it is shown that Zoidberg has gleaned more information on anatomy through television commercials than through academic study. He is only directly questioned about his medical expertise in A Clone Of My Own, in which he claims unconvincingly that he lost his medical degree in a volcano. However, he proved the extent of his medical knowledge in Put your Head on my Shoulder, in which he was able to save Fry's life by attaching his head onto Amy's body, and at the end of the episode, reattaching Fry's head to his own.

Despite showing a rather poor knowledge of humans and robots, there are suggestions that he might actually be a good doctor to his own race; he knows the seriousness of the disease fin rot (presumably this is similar to a disease that present day fish can suffer from) and fin fungus, and believes that Leela's problems in dating are "purely medical. Soon she will drop her eggs and they will hatch and all will be well". However, this theory has not been proven in the series as of yet.

Zoidberg loves stand-up comedy, and often tries to become a comedian. However, he is appallingly bad, and his stand-up performances usually end in him being pelted with rubbish or dragged offstage. Many of his jokes are modeled on and parodies of Yakov Smirnoff’s jokes. ("Earth, what a planet! Here, you enjoy eating a tasty clam. On my planet, clams enjoy eating a tasty you!")

In addition to his medical qualifications, Zoidberg claims to have mail-order degrees in “Murderology” and “Murderonomy" (although this was in a "What If?" machine simulation and may not be canon).

Although he is a doctor, Zoidberg lives in crushing poverty. He has no home of his own (instead living at the Planet Express building in the “maternifuge”) and cannot afford shoes, which is probably why he wears sandals.

He is constantly hungry. He can only afford one "meal" a week, roughly the equivalent of a guinea pig. It has been repeatedly shown he has an appetite for anything digestible - he often eats out of trash cans and has been shown eating a boot, a picnic basket, and a bag of Amy Wong's toenail clippings which he believes are potato chips under the claim that "a feast is a feast". He gets excited at the offer of free food and in one episode enters a pet show (pretending to be a "hard-shelled whooping terrier") to try and win a year’s supply of dog food. He starts twitching whenever someone mentions food. It's not clear whether this excitement is caused by his alien metabolism, his poverty, or both. He adds salt to the water cooler in the Planet Express building.

His poverty may spring from his belief that he is a shrewd investor. He regularly spends money on pointless purchases (such as eight copies of the same record) and makes bad business decisions, such as exchanging his (considerable) corporate stock for a sandwich (however, he later claims he would have settled for a hard roll with ketchup inside). It is later revealed that he owned 51% of Planet Express' stock at one point, having been given thousands of supposedly worthless stock certificates by Hermes Conrad, the bureaucrat of Planet Express, to use as toilet paper. Doctor Zoidberg complains of being denied credit in several episodes, including one Season 2 What-If Machine simulation, in which he grows into a giant Zoidberg the size of a skyscraper and goes on a rampage against the buildings of institutions that have wronged him in the past, including "Mr." Chase Manhattan Bank, ("Deny my credit application, will you?").

Doctor Zoidberg harbors the incorrect belief that all medical professionals are as poor as he is. He also hates other medical professionals, and the very presence of another doctor will provoke him into picking a fight.

Zoidberg seems to get along with his co-workers most of the time, though he is often treated like an annoying pet. He is frequently found in Professor Farnsworth’s laboratory and subsequently shooed away with a broom, etc. Hermes hates him in particular, and is straight forward: calling him names, scapegoating him, ordering him to do menial jobs around the office, cutting his salary for various reasons, and eliminating his creature comforts such as the salt-water dispenser (Zoidberg's reaction: "This is a witch hunt!") Zoidberg’s unpopularity - one which even caused his overacting to be held personally responsible for causing Humanity to be deprived of an Omicronian recipe for Immortality - in the office may be due to his being overshadowed by Fry, Leela, and Bender: when they are fired from Planet Express in the episode The Cryonic Woman, he becomes the most well-liked office worker. Zoidberg is the only character to be judged "good" by MomCorp's Robot Santa who gives him a pogo stick, despite the fact that the Robot Santa labels everyone "naughty" (and then tries to kill them). Farnsworth considers him strange due to the fact he wears sandals, not because he is an alien.

Zoidberg has been known to squirt ink in someone's face as a defense mechanism, much like a squid. The ink always comes from off screen, so we never know exactly how it's ejected. When frightened, he is known to scream "Woo woo woo!" just like Curly Howard of the Three Stooges.He also has a gland that emits a foul odor when he is bored.

Zoidberg longs for attention and friendship and rejoices when these desires are fulfilled even slightly (He remarked in one episode, when asked to open a can of soup, "Hooray, I'm useful! I'm having a wonderful time!"). He is always disappointed when people pay no attention to him. On many occasions where something misfortunate happens to the Planet Express crew, it's workers most of the time blame it on Zoidberg or punish him for it (on one occasion, when Leela is blinded and cannot take off the Planet Express ship properly, she crashes through the roof of the ship venue. Hermes, shocked at this, demands that the payment to have it mended will come out of Zoidberg's paycheck. Zoidberg then breaks down and bursts into tears). Apart from his colleagues at work, he has very few friends and can't make new ones because he smells like garbage and has no personality (the only friends he is shown to have is possibly a Nautilus basketball player, who he played basketball in the gym, two Hungry Hobos, a lobster he saw in a restaurant tank and later took out on a date, and his "pet" Slinky, which Bender straightened). The staff of Planet Express makes jokes at his expense and criticize him even when he is in the room. Zoidberg, however, never realizes that he is being ridiculed and even interprets insults as compliments. He considers Fry to be his best friend in the world, proclaiming in the Futurama feature film that he was the only member of the crew who never struck him. He also considers Bender a really good friend even though Bender treats him very badly.

There are other ethnic references in Dr. Zoidberg's character. These allusions combine to suggest the culture of Ashkenazi Jewish people. His surname sounds as if it could be of German extraction, because berg is German for mountain and is a common suffix for German surnames, including those of German Jews. Zoidberg is a crustacean, and crustaceans are not kosher according to Judaism, which adds an extra layer of humor to Dr. Zoidberg’s character. On one occasion he is refused entry to a "Bot" Mitzvah reception (“No shellfish!”). On the other hand, humans, including Jews, are not kosher (to eat), so in a sense this is not so remarkable.

The other Decapodians seen on the show, such as Zoidberg’s Uncle Harold (voiced by the Simpsons' Hank Azaria) and the staff at the Decapodian embassy in Washington D.C. speak with very heavy Yiddish accents. The staff at the Decapodian embassy also use Yiddish words like "schlep," and the secretary is an example of a caring Jewish mother. His great uncle was a great Hollywood actor who changed his name to Harold Zoid, a reference to actors changing their names to make them sound less Jewish. In the episode "The Deep South" Fry tells Zoidberg they couldn't be seen together as Fry is "trying to join the country club" (although this could just be due to Zoidberg's extreme poverty and other severe deficiencies).

In Fry and the Slurm Factory, Zoidberg is shown in the gift-shop of the Slurm soft drink factory wearing a t-shirt featuring the word "שׂלוּרם", which could be pronounced as "Slurm" in Hebrew. This parodies the Hebrew Coca-Cola t-shirts sold as souvenirs in the Jewish state of Israel. A more standard transliteration of "Slurm" into Hebrew would be "סלרם". The DVD commentary to the episode makes clear that the creators were unaware of this, as they lament the unavoidable similarity of their spelling to that of the Hebrew word for peace, "שׁלוֹם".

Also, in the first Futurama full-length movie, Bender's Big Score, Dr. Zoidberg congratulates Lars and Leela using the phrase Mazel Tov, when they announce their sudden engagement, and makes reference to his "tuchus".

Doctor Zoidberg’s race, the Decapodians, are aliens from the beachlike mud planet Decapod 10. This name is a reference to the scientific nomenclature of lobsters and crayfish as decapods, that is, creatures with ten legs. The actual physiology of Decapodians combines that of several different sea creatures. Dr. Zoidberg’s anatomy is similar to that of crustaceans, as he has chelae (pinchers) and a hard exoskeleton, hard enough to prevent it being punctured by a samurai sword in a seppuku attempt. The shell is also removeable, and Zoiberg often removes it when it gets too cramped. Unfortunately his fleshy, boneless inner body is considered by many to be quite disgusting. He also has many attributes of cephalopod mollusks, such as the tentacle-like protrusions covering his mouth (reminiscent of those of cuttlefish) and his ink gland, through which he occasionally expels ink when threatened (as do all Coleoidea). He also coughs up blue pearls after ingesting “too much dirt.” He has also been shown to propel water from several unseen holes on his head. Throughout the series, Zoidberg usually refers to himself, and is referred to by others, as a lobster. In an early episode, Zoidberg falls in love with an actual lobster in a nightclub aquarium. In the episode When Aliens Attack, he finds himself trapped in a lobster cage, but is rescued by Bender. He refers to himself self-deprecatingly as a squid (Three Hundred Big Boys) commenting, "Oh, what a foolish squid I've been."

The Decapodian race is originally from the planet Decapod 10 (a member planet of the Democratic Order of Planets), but many Decapodians also live on Earth. The Decapodians seem to have been one of the first alien races to make contact with humans, and Decapodians arrived on Earth soon afterward (proceeding to accidentally wipe out the anchovy population by overfishing). The Decapodians themselves have many comical traits, including the traditional "apology dance" used to ask forgiveness, and the recent (but good) tradition of "Clawplach", in which Decapodians fight to the death over matters of honor and whether or not abbreviations are acceptable in Scrabble (Zoidberg maintains that they are not). The Decapodians' national anthem is the music composed by Alexander Courage played during fight scenes in the original series of Star Trek.

The Decapodians appear to have a mating season (which is similar to pon farr in Vulcans), and as soon as the parents have passed on their genes, they die. However, in Where the Buggalo Roam, Dr. Zoidberg announces that he has taken the liberty of fertilizing the caviar that was being served at the barbecue; despite passing on his DNA into the caviar, he does not die. Decapodians also have courtship display and arena battle practices which are closely analogous to the lek of some Earth species. The male reproductive organ appears to be called the "wazoo"; Fry, making a pitch for Zoidberg to a Decapodian woman, states that Zoidberg has "male jelly coming out the wazoo", she replies "well that is where it comes out". There is one allusion to asexual reproduction or regeneration: at Fry's housewarming party, Hermes eats some small pincers and comments that they are "mighty tasty", to which Zoidberg replies "Thank you, I made them myself"

Biologically, fin rot is a serious disease that can afflict Decapodians. Decapodians have incredible strength, mostly in their claws, Zoidberg was able to cut through Fry's arm without difficulty. In a parallel universe explored by the Planet Express crew ("The Farnsworth Parabox"), Dr. Zoidberg's outer shell is blue; according to the DVD commentary this is because one in every two million lobsters is blue. Decapod 10 maintains an embassy, resembling a giant sandcastle, in Washington D.C. under Ambassador Moivin. In A Taste Of Freedom the Decapodian military invades and conquers Earth, but after their occupation warships are dismissed, Zoidberg himself destroys the Mobile Oppression Palace (a motorized sand castle on top of a crab-like robot) and liberates Earth. The Decapodians also walk in a fashion which causes them to walk with their "toes" pointed out.

• Dr. Zoidberg's page in the Futurama Encyclopedia
• Crustacean Notes - a Dr. Zoidberg website

v • d • e Futurama
Media	Episodes (by Broadcast Order) · Comic books · Video game · DVD movies
Main characters	Philip J. Fry · Turanga Leela · Bender B. Rodríguez · Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth · Doctor John Zoidberg · Hermes Conrad · Amy Wong
Recurring characters	Zapp Brannigan · Kif Kroker · Nibbler · Cubert Farnsworth · Calculon · Mom · Recurring human characters · Recurring robot characters · Recurring alien characters
Politics and religion	United States of Earth  · Religion in Futurama
Technology	Cryonics · Nimbus · Planet Express Ship · Robots in Futurama  · Suicide booth
Other	Planet Express Corporation · Chroniton · List of guest stars on Futurama · List of Futurama crew