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| characters introduced in 1999 | |
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General Zapp Brannigan is a Fictional Character in the television series '' Futurama ''. He is also referred to (mainly by himself) as '''"The Zapper"''', '''"The Velour Fog"''', or '''"Big Z"'''. Brannigan is a 25 star General and Spaceship Captain in the Democratic Order of Planets (the '''DOOP'''). Kif Kroker is his beleaguered lieutenant and personal assistant, whose many duties include keeping Zapp's schedule stored on an Etch-a-sketch . Captain of the (DOOP) starship ''Nimbus'', Capt. Brannigan is arrogant, incompetent and cocky. He envisions himself a "ladies' Man" yet comes off as Captain Kirk doing an impersonation of William Shatner . He constantly mispronounces words, like Champagne (Brannigan pronounces it "Sham-pa-gen" or "sham-pag-nee"). In short, he is an insufferable idiot and seems to be obsessed with velour. He takes great pleasure in giving his faithful sidekick, Kif , the most humiliating orders possible. Captain Brannigan claims to be in love with Leela , who hates the ground he walks on. Upon their first meeting, she did wind up having Sex with him, more out of Pity than anything else; since then he has refused to stop chasing her. Despite his apparent love for Leela, he is constantly hitting on other women, even in her presence. CHARACTER Zapp is an arrogant, idiotic, ineffectual, and fat space captain and political officer with a disturbing fetish for Velour . He claims to suffer from a sexy Learning Disability , which he calls "sexlexia". His pretensions of being suave are belied by his ignorance of how to properly pronounce words such as " Champagne ", " Bravo ", " Encore ", and " Guacamole ." Despite his obvious stupidity, Brannigan has risen to a very high level in the DOOP military force, holding the titles of starship Captain (the most highly-decorated captain in the DOOP), and Twenty-Five Star General. Brannigan himself seems to have designed the DOOP Navy 's uniform which, unfortunately, directly reflects Zapp's questionable personal taste. Although Zapp is always seen in a naval uniform, he is occasionally seen in command of units of the Earth Army . His battle tactics are always daring, generally stupid, and almost always unnecessary. Brannigan also seems to take delight in sending his men to die in ridiculous, easily avoidable altercations. Notable examples include an (unseen) battle with "Killbots", a battle which Zapp's forces won by sending wave after wave of his own men at the killbots until they reached their pre-programmed limit and in using excessive force to subdue lesser opponents, such as Carpet-bombing a peaceful world known as Eden 7. Brannigan's successful military victories include defeating the Pacifist s of the Gandhi Nebula , conquering the Retiree People of the Assisted Living Galaxy, and leading the Earth Army to victory over the Spiderians of Tarantulon 6. However, Brannigan's military tactics have also failed at times - when Zapp led a military force to storm the Embassy of Dr Zoidberg 's home planet Decapod 10, a Decapodian battle fleet invaded Earth. Brannigan's idiocy resulted in the Decapodians acquiring the codes for the Global Defence Network, allowing the Decapodians to conquer Earth. In all battle situations, Brannigan keeps himself safely out of harm's way. During the invasion of Spheron 1, he is seen riding his horse Felicity whilst brandishing a Sword - the horse, though, simply stands on a hovering disc and does not go near the battlefield. Brannigan's personal hobbies include adjusting his blonde toupee, humiliating himself, grossly hitting on any lifeform that loosely resembles the female form, ordering his first officer to remove his body hair in the bath, taking humanity to the brink of destruction, humiliating his crew, blowing kisses to himself in the mirror, humiliating humanity, karaoke, and self preservation at ''any'' cost. Brannigan briefly took leave from the DOOP to serve as captain of the luxury space cruise ship ''Titanic'', which ended up being destroyed in a Black Hole after Zapp altered the simplistic tour route. Brannigan was once dismissed from the DOOP along with Kif for his role in destroying DOOP's new $300 billion headquarters. In order to show off, Brannigan used his ship's tactical laser, set on Hyperdeath™, to cut the ribbon to inaugurate the new station, but instead managed to destroy the station by cutting it right down the middle. This dismissal forced Brannigan and Kif to temporarily enter the world of "male escorting". He served briefly with the crew of Planet Express and led a mutiny against Leela. He ordered the crew to set a crash course against the Neutral Planet (setting off a beige alert) where they would all die horribly, except for Zapp, who would escape in the only space suit onboard, and Kif Kroaker, who would use a brightly coloured child's spacesuit. Leela was reinstated as captain after this, and lied about Zapp's role in the attack on the Neutral Planet so he would be reinstated in DOOP and stay away from her ship. Brannigan later would lead the defense of Earth during the invasion of the aliens of Omicron Persei 8. Zapp's battle plan was to send all of his ships on a head-on charge on the gun-turrets of the alien mothership, until "You will line up and fly directly at the enemy death cannons, clogging them with wreckage!". His fleet managed to destroy the Hubble Space Telescope (while suffering heavy losses), but was mightless against the ''real'' alien mothership. He later attempted to end the war by sacrificing the President Of Earth to the Omicron leaders; the President was killed, but this did not stop the invasion. Another career high point is when he conquered Spheron 1, home planet of a race of sentient ball-like creatures. Spheron 1 had no strategic value of any kind and no natural resources to speak of; further, first contact had never been made with the Sphereons. Nonetheless, Brannigan boldly conquered the planet, evicting its native inhabitants, and suffering high attrition rates among his men. Zapp later very nearly died when he was captured on Amazonia. Zapp also doesn't understand that firing a weapon within a starship can easily rupture the hull and lead to fatal decompression, a fact he learned the hard way, despite being warned by Attila the Hun. Brannigan managed to sleep with Turanga Leela in the fourth episode, "Love's Labor's Lost in Space", a fact he will not let her (or the rest of the universe) forget, even describing the encounter on his website and using it as the basis of his defence during his trial at DOOP headquarters. He is consistently attracted to Leela, like Philip J. Fry , but is a Womanizer and pursues just about everything that moves. Like Fry, Zapp's advances rarely get him anywhere. ORIGINS Brannigan is based on the '' Star Trek '' captain James T. Kirk , played by William Shatner (the two actually meet face-to-face in the episode " Where No Fan Has Gone Before "). The creators of the series envision Brannigan as being similar to what Shatner himself would be like as a starship captain. On the DVD commentary of Zapp's first appearance, the creators describe him as being "40% Kirk, 60% Shatner", and that the initial premise for the character was "What if the real William Shatner was the captain of the ''Enterprise'' instead of Kirk." Brannigan can also be seen as a loose parody of a multitude of other "dashing space commanders", from Buck Rogers to Bel Riose . The word brannigan is an archaic term meaning either a noisy or confused quarrel or a drinking spree. Some people believe he may also be at least partly influenced by Zaphod Beeblebrox , the President of the Galaxy from '' The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy ''. The two characters share the same initials (ZB), the same first 3 letters (Zap), the same nickname ("Big Z"), and are both arrogant, irresponsible and supposed womanisers. PRODUCTION Zapp Brannigan is voiced by Billy West , who also voices Professor Hubert Farnsworth , Dr. Zoidberg and Philip J. Fry . He was originally intended to be voiced by Phil Hartman . Hartman auditioned for the role and "of course, just nailed it" according to creator Matt Groening . However, due to Hartman's murder, West was given the role. On the '' Futurama '' DVD commentary, Groening reveals that Zapp's character and mannerisms were established in Billy West 's original audition for the character, and any similarity to Phil Hartman or his other well known cartoon characters ( Lionel Hutz and Troy McClure ), is simply coincidence. EXTERNAL LINKS
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