Futurama's Bender as a Belligerent Smart Speaker Is What We All Need Right Now

One Futurama fan turned Bender into a belligerent smart speaker and it's exactly what we need right now. Reddit user Ken Zong posted the video of his impressive custom creation and the Internet stood up and applauded. The entire project is based off of a DIY smart speaker and a 3D-printed model of Bender's head. Zong also made use of some Pocketsphinx speech recognition software to make it so that the famous character could respond to queries from him. The entire set up is achievable at home, but also a ton of legwork to set up and get everything working. But, it is probably all worth it when you hear those iconic Bender catchphrases and the lights flashing.

The Bender head came from a modular Thingverse project by xbost. He summarized the components as, "A Bender head. Planned to house a Raspberry Pi (or other SoC) inside. No mounts for the board yet. Please note, it's a work-in-progress, and only been test-printed at 50% scale (about 100mm height without antenna, shown in the photo), parts' fit might be off in places at different sizes. Supports needed for head shell and eyes."

If you're looking to stream some Futurama during all this time at home, you can hit up Hulu for the episodes. All you need is your login with a subscription and you can catch all of Fry, Leela, and Bender's adventures there without looking through TV listings.

When creating Futurama, Groening told the New York Times that his pitch to Fox was very simple.

''The way I sold the show was by saying, 'This is the Simpsons in the future,' and dollar signs danced in front of their eyes,'' he explained. ''When they finally saw it, they said, 'This isn't anything like the Simpsons.' And I said: 'Yes it is. It's new and original.' ''

''There are certain things you find work comedically in these shows,'' he said. ''A big thing is, impulsiveness is very funny in animation," Groening continued. "Leaping before looking or instantly changing directions when something interesting suddenly comes along. So I don't always know what they will land on when they leap. That's part of the way things change.''

Comedy Central describes Futurama:

"Hatched from Matt Groening's brain, Futurama follows pizza guy Philip J. Fry, who reawakens in 31st century New New York after a cryonics lab accident. Now part of the Planet Express delivery crew, Fry travels to the farthest reaches of the universe with his robot buddy Bender and cyclopsian love interest Leela, discovering freaky mutants, intergalactic conspiracies and other strange stuff."

Futurama stars Billy West, Katey Sagal, John DiMaggio, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr, Maurice LaMarche, Tress MacNellie and Frank Welker.

Would you love to build this Bender for yourself? What's your favorite episode of Futurama? Let us know in the comments!