Professor Farnsworth's interstellar delivery company in the
Futurama universe. The professor started the business as a means to finance his own
inventions and to pay for the assorted lengths of wire he needs for those inventions. He has a number of people under his employee:
- Turanga Leela, captain of the Planet Express Delivery Ship. She flies the ship, gives orders, and is in charge of missions.
- Philip J. Fry, executive delivery boy. His main duty is actually delivering cargo and packages, but he's also been known to man the weapons and occassionally fly the ship.
- Bender Bending Rodriguez, ship's cook. While his primary function is to prepare meals for the crew, he also assists with deliveries.
- Hermes Conrad, bureaucrat grade 37. He's in charge of maintaining all the needed licences, papers, and permits needed for the company to run. His job is somewhat redundant. At the end of the day all of his daily output is put into a paper shredder, then a wood pulper, and then comes out of the printer as tomorrow's inbox.
- Dr. John Zoidberg, staff doctor. He is, simply, the staff doctor. He is supposedly an expert on humans.
- Amy Wong, engineering intern. She performs little odd jobs around the office, but the professor keeps her on hand primarily because they share the same blood type.
- Scruffy, the office janitor. Seldom seen.
Over the years the professor has been known to hire several temporary staff members. They include...
The running gag in the series is that all of the former spaceship crew members met a horrible demise. In the pilot episode of the series, the professor gets career chips from the former crew out of an envelope labeled "contents of space wasp's stomach". Only one former crew member is still alive: Captain Muskey, and he's paralyzed, unable to speak, and gets around in a wheelchair.
Planet Express has fallen under different leadership at times. In 3002 Hermes Conrad's son Dwight and the professor's son Cubert managed to wrestle control of the company away from their parents. Renaming it "Awesome Express", they had quite a run as delivery kings until they got in over their heads. Control returned to the adults soon after. In 3003 that guy*, a smooth talking 1980s yuppie, was voted the new CEO of the company. He nearly sold the company to MomCorp, but died of boneitis during the final voting and Fry, becoming the new CEO, voted to keep control of the company. The CEO position then reverted back to the professor. He continues to run the company as of the end of Season 4.
* That guy was never mentioned by name; he was only referred to as "that guy".