"Have you got an extra GOTO 10 line? I said 'get lost'!" - Calculon to Bender, "That's Lobstertainment!"
Calculon (voiced by
Maurice LaMarche) is the oft-featured
robot actor in the
Futurama universe. Large and golden in color, he is the star of the TV
soap opera All My Circuits. While he was originally only seen on television on
Futurama, eventually the main characters began to interact with him in person. He has quite a large ego and considers himself to be quite an actor, and although he credits the
Robot Devil for giving him his "unholy acting talent", it's quite obvious that he got screwed in the deal; his acting is atrocious. There's really no excuse for that, however, because he has existed in some form since the twentieth century (although his official bio claims he's in his twenties) and avoids suspicion of being so long-lived by upgrading his appearance every few decades. Calculon was all of history's greatest acting robots - Thespomat, Actingbot 1.0, and
David Duchovny - although he began life as an automated robot arm working in an assembly plant as a part of
Project Satan, a scheme to use various parts of the world's most evil cars to create a single very evil car. It was during this period that Calculon was attacked by the
Project Satan automobile, a
werecar, which put upon him the horrible curse in which every full moon at midnight his internal clock resets to zero and transforms him into a killer automobile until morning. It wasn't until 3001 that the curse was lifted thanks to
three employees of Planet Express.
Calculon began work on All My Circuits prior to the year 3000, working with co-stars Monique, Boxy, Antonio, and a nameless token human character. His television success eventually led to movies such as All My Circuits: The Movie and The Magnificent Three, the latter of which was directed by the legendary Decopoidian silent film actor Harold Zoid. Calculon also financed the film, although he only agreed to do so after the film's producer, Bender, promised him an Academy Award for his performance. Zoid and his nephew, Dr. John Zoidberg, hijacked the awards presentation in order to present the statuette to Calculon, but in the end the acting robot relented. His movie career stalled, Calculon returned to All My Circuits where he later worked with Bender once again, this time as a co-star. Oddly enough, Calculon had no memory of his previous encounters with Bender during this period.
It was during an appearance on late night talk show Late Night with Humorbot 3.0 that Calculon met Coilette, the grand duchy of Robonia and winner of five gold medals at the 3004 Olympiad. He fell head over heels in love with the spunky young robot and the two began dating exclusively. In reality, however, Coilette was actually Bender who had gone through a sex change operation in a ploy to win five Olympic gold medals. He, er, she had not meant to fall in love with Calculon, but the Femmzoil flowing through her circuits caused her to accept Calculon's marriage proposal. Once again the Planet Express crew stepped in to help out, springing Coilette/Bender from the wedding ceremony by faking her/his death. Calculon later went on to write and star in a movie about Coilette's amazing life entitled Calculon: The Coilette Story.
Calculon was last seen in the episode "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings" in which the Robot Devil "borrowed" his ears to give to a temporarily deafened Leela.
References:
Futurama Season One and Two DVDs