Despite being two characters in a raunchy animated series, Leela and Fry were one of the best couples on television. They were part of the crew of main protagonists in Futurama, a series about a pizza delivery boy (Fry) who gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the 31st century. He joins the Planet Express team, performing interplanetary delivers on a space shuttle (piloted by Leela) all across space and time.
When Leela first encounters Fry, she writes him off as a “stupid guy from the past”. Compared to Leela, with her ninja skills and assertive nature, Fry’s slacker attitude and naivete seem polar opposites. But over the course of the series they went on many intergalactic adventures, the perils of which brought them closer together. And though they had their ups and downs, they always managed to find a way to stay true to one another. Here are five times when their relationship was the best, and four other times when it was the worst.
9. BEST: WHEN LEELA AND FRY HAD THEIR FIRST KISS
While it’s unlikely anyone can honestly resist the magnetic charm of Zapp Brannigan, Leela was not only able to, she took drastic measures to make sure that the threat of Zapp’s advances was completely neutralized. During the Titanic cruise, when Zapp appears to spoil Leela’s carefree fun, she devises a plan with Fry to keep him away from her.
Fry has no issue pretending to be engaged to Leela in order to thwart Zapp’s unwanted attention - after all, it gets them to kiss for the first time! Even in the early stages of their relationship, Fry never failed to tell Leela he thought she was beautiful just the way she was. Unlike Zapp, he loved her for her eccentricities, not in spite of them.
8. WORST: WHEN FRY ACTED LIKE AN IDIOT
On the surface, Fry and Leela couldn’t be more different. He’s often a lovable albeit dim-witted public exhibitionist, and Leela is a more reserved, collected person who doesn’t like drawing more attention to herself than her purple hair and single eye already do.
In the episode Fun on the Run, they attend Oktoberfest and Leela is forced to break up with Fry when he gets hopelessly drunk and embarrasses her by doing the Chicken Dance. After thinking she ingested him in a sausage after his antics cause him to almost fall into a meat grinder, she goes to have her memory wiped. But try as they might, they can’t forget each other, and end up falling for each other again when they reunite with no memories of one another.
7. BEST: WHEN FRY TRIED TO WOO LEELA WITH THE HOLOPHONOR
Wouldn’t you do anything to impress the person you love? When Fry becomes super smart after being infected by some parasites, he’s able to take up the holophonor, an instrument with the ability to make stunning holograms if played correctly. Although this greatly impresses Leela, Fry wonders if she loves him or the version of him the parasites have created.
Distraught, he encourages the parasites to abandon his body, taking his newfound intelligence and holophonor skills with them. Unable to be the suave musician for Leela, every attempt he makes at flirting with Leela goes disastrously wrong. Alone in the shower, he tries to play the holophonor one more time, and manages to create a single hologram; Leela’s face.
6. WORST: WHEN FRY MESSED WITH TIME BEFORE HE PROPOSED
While many Futurama fans consider the series finale Meanwhile to be one of the best episodes of its run, there are aspects of it that are frustrating due to the time-altering repercussions of Fry’s behavior. Fry prepares to propose to Leela over a romantic dinner, but becomes aggravated when she runs late.
He becomes so despondent he jumps from the roof of the building. As he’s plummeting to his doom, he notices Leela arriving. He realizes that, utilizing the Time Button, his watch had been running faster than the rest of the universe. The episode eventually has a happy ending after the time glitch is fixed, but the fact that he was going to throw it all away was pretty significant.
5. BEST: WHEN THEY BOOST EACH OTHER'S CONFIDENCE
The moment when Nibbler turned out to actually be a highly intelligent being from a people whose way of life might be wiped out by a race of sentient brains was one of the most surprising aspects of early Futurama. Another came when Fry was the only person Nibbler determined who could save the universe.
Nibbler was forced to erase Fry’s memory of having done the amazing feat, and Leela had no idea that Fry had done anything so extraordinary. She proclaims, “I don’t care if you’re not the most important person in the universe. It really makes me happy to see you right now”, to which Fry responds, “Then I am the most important person in the universe”. Awwwww!
4. WORST: WHEN FRY CHOSE A SOCIOPATH OVER LEELA
Though Morgan Proctor was only a minor character on Futurama, she left a lasting impression. She became the managing bureaucrat of Planet Express, and though she was a responsible businesswoman, she was also a raging sociopath. She took notice of Fry at once because his messy lifestyle fed her arousal by disorganization.
Morgan never made any apologies for her vile methods - she knew what she wanted and knew how to get it. However, she was willing to cripple Fry’s free will, confidence, and self-esteem just to make him dependent on her. She was willing to torment his friends, kill Bender, and reduced Leela to serving under the autopilot. She was fine with ruining Planet Express, and Fry still had a fling with her.
3. BEST: WHEN THEIR LOVE LASTED 1 BILLION YEARS
There’s a long-running trend of Fry being late to meet up with Leela in Futurama. When it happens after Fry and Bender get stuck helping the Professor test his new time machine, he tries to make amends by sending Leela a message apologizing for being late.
The Professor goes too far forward in time and the message is lost, forcing he, Fry, and Bender to continue traveling in time until they get to a point when they can travel backwards. Meanwhile, although hurt, Leela continues her life until she finds the birthday message from Fry and decides to respond with, “Our time together was short, but it was the best time of my life” that Fry finds 1 billion years later.
2. WORST: WHEN LEELA HAD TO SAVE FRY FROM HIMSELF
When Fry has to make a delivery to the planet Trisol, through a desert under the blaze of three suns, he barely survives the trek to the Trisolian palace. Thirsty beyond belief, he drinks a bottle of clear liquid sitting on the throne, which turns out to be the planet’s liquid-based emperor.
Rather than getting punished, Fry becomes the new emperor. Leela tries to explain to Fry that the emperors of the planet often get assassinated, only lasting about a week, but he doesn’t listen and revels in his new position. Despite her vowing not to try to help him again, she fights her way into the palace and beats him almost senseless. From his tears, the Trisolians extract their emperor and Fry is allowed to leave.
1. BEST: WHEN LEELA STUCK BY FRY'S SIDE
Fry makes a deal with the Robot Devil for his hands, which he then uses to play the holophonor in an effort to impress Leela. Except after Bender trades his crotch plate for an airhorn, he makes Leela deaf, so in order to hear Fry’s music, she has to make a deal with the Robot Devil to get robot ears in exchange for her hand... in marriage.
The only way the Robot Devil will let Leela out of the bargain is if Fry gives him back his hands, which will mean Fry loses his holophonor skills once again. When he can no longer play worthwhile music at his performance, Leela is the only remaining concertgoer, urging him to continue so she can “hear how it ends.”