Planet Express

Planet Express, inc. is an intergalactic delivery company owned by Professor Farnsworth to fund his research. Its primary location is located in New New York, and its crew includes many important characters of the series. The current crew recently had their 100th delivery, and to celebrate, Bender threw a 100th Delivery Party.

The company scrapes by, in spite of fierce competition from the leader in package delivery, Mom's Friendly Delivery Company. They stay in business thanks to their complete disregard for safety and minimum wage laws, and the Professor's unscrupulous acceptance of the occasional bribe.

Creation


Planet Express was founded by Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth as method of funding his research. While the year is unknown, we know this was before 2992, when the first employee of the year was then 13-year-old Amy Wong. Amy has supposedly not worked with the company from the beginning, as she does not seem to know any of the multiple previous crews before the current. While little is known about Planet Express' early history, we are to understand that Dr. Zoidberg were one of Farnsworth's employees, as well as one of Farnsworth's oldest friends. We also know that Hermes Conrad has been with the company for as early as 2993.

Besides regular staff, such as Hermes Conrad, bureaucrat, and interns, such as Amy Wong, the company's most important positions are the starship crew, whom are to pilot the Planet Express ship for deliveries, and essentially the business itself. Though, it is not unlikely for the rest of the staff to tag along with the ship for a mission or two.

Planet Express has had a history of security issues, several prior crews to Turanga Leela, Philip J. Fry and Bender Bending Rodríguez have apparently been lost or killed during difficult missions, which Farnsworth relentlessly sent them out on. The current crew can be assumed to be the most successful crew so far, in terms of survival, although the professor assert that they are still not as good as his previous crew.

At least two former crews are known to exists, one lead by Captain Musky and another which was killed by Space wasps/Space bees (alternatively, there might have been two crews entirely, though this is just a continuity error). According to crew just before the current, they too were not as good as the crew prior to them. One may assume that Farnsworth simply tells all his crews this, as a form of motivation. Farnsworth himself though doesn't really seem to think highly of the chances of his crew surviving, as he evidently is looking for a replacement crew even before they are gone.

New crew... what happened to the old crew?
In early 3000, after being unfrozen, Philip J. Fry, along with his new found friends, Turanga Leela and Bender Bending Rodríguez joins Planet Express as its new crew. In the new crew's early beginnings, they start out with simple missions, but Farnsworth also gets himself involved with charity missions, such as saving the animals on Vergon 6.

For not informing the authorities of his vast amount of security issues with the company, the professor thanked his crew by inviting them onto the cruise ship Titanic, which was, most unfortunately, sucked into a black hole.

Changing hands
In 3001, during a nervous breakdown from Hermes, the company's bureaucrat was replaced temporary by Morgan Proctor, whose changes to the company was not entirely pleasing for the crew, except Fry, who Proctor had an eye for. However, in an attempt to get Bender's brain back, Hermes regained his lust for bureaucracy, and during a sorting of the master inpile, Hermes felt upon a form discrediting Proctor's stature as a bureaucrat, and Hermes was hired back at the company – at severely reduced pay of course, and so was the rest, apparently.

The sons of Farnsworth and Hermes, Cubert and Dwight, in an attempt to impress their fathers, created a competing business, Awesome Express, and after some successful paperwork, they took over the business of Planet Express as well. This takeover, much to Farnsworth's and Hermes' dismay, were eventually annulled when Leela discovered that they had not even delivered the newspaper they were hired to.



PlanEx
In 3002 came perhaps the biggest takeover of the Planet Express corporation, by a former 1980s stockbroker, Steve Castle, replaced Farnsworth as the CEO of Planet Express, inc. after suggestion from Fry.

When Steve Castle became CEO of the company, he changed the focus of the company to brand and image rather than actual package delivery. He changed the logo and name of the company as well to "PlanEx", as well as a styled 1980s advertisement for the company.

Steve Castle's foremost for PlanEx was the giant corporation of Mom's Friendly Delivery Company, which controlled most of Earth's planetary and interplanetary deliveries. Despite being ruled as an impossible feat, Fry and Castle assured the board of the company that they would take of the battle.

Castle and Mom met at Elzar's Fine Cuisine, which they negotiated about the future of both companies, and eventually Castle decided to sell Planet Express to Mom, so "she can gut us as competitors".

The sale of PlanEx were held at the Intergalactic Stock Exchange, where it turned out that Dr. Zoidberg owned 51% of the company up until that point, which Steve Castle had purchased, resulting in him being able to cast the vote required to sell the company. However, despite the employees' discontent with the sale, they soon discovered that their stocks were worth over 100 a piece, at which point they wanted Mom to buy the company regardless.

Unfortunately, just as the purchase of the stocks were to go ahead, Steve Castle's fatal disease of boneitis kicked in, and died upon the stage. And after telling his story, Fry eventually made the stock price fall to 3 cents, apparently "worth less than when they were worthless" according to Hermes.



Previous universe
When Fry, Bender, and the Professor started testing the forward time machine and were accidentally sent 7000 years into the future in "The Late Philip J. Fry", the remaining Planet Express crew thought they had died, so Leela seized control of the company. She laid off Zoidberg and there were tough times. Leela, Hermes, Amy, and possibly Cubert pulled together, and 20 years later the delivery service had become incredibly successful.

In 3050, Planet Express had achieved even more, and kept growing and growing, despite Hermes becoming a head in a jar and Amy getting a robot body. Unfortunately for everyone, the guys would return 2 universes later to maintain the poor management the company was used to in the first universe. Futurama is now set in the third universe, where all is back to normal.

Crew
While having changed crew on several occasions, it has stayed fairly steady since the year 3000, when the majority of the current crew joined. Amy Wong has stayed with the company since 2998, Scruffy has stayed since 2995, and Dr. John A. Zoidberg has stayed since 2992.

CEO
Although Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth founded the company, and still runs it in 3011, it has at times changed owner for minor periods of time.

Cubert and Dwight took over the business when they inherited it due to the Professor having at one time been declared dead, during which reign it was renamed "Awesome Express".

In 3002, Steve Castle was elected CEO and ran the business as "PlanEx", with Fry being the vice president. After Castle's death due to boneitis, Fry gained control of the company and sold it back to the Professor.

In 3007, the Scammer Aliens, lead by Nudar, took over.

In an alternative timeline, in which the Professor disappeared in 3010, Leela took over the company, and managed much better than the Professor ever did.

Assets

 * Planet Express headquarters
 * Planet Express Ship, Intergalactic delivery ship
 * Robot 1-X, servant robot

Shares
After it was revealed that Zoidberg owned 51% of the company before selling his shares to Steve Castle, That Guy died of boneitis, which gave Fry control of his shares. So out of Planet Express' 204 084 shares (as of 3003; Therefore, Fry owns 55.9% of Planet Express (overall majority control of company), Scruffy owns 19.6%, Leela, Bender, The Professor, Hermes and Amy each own 4.9% of the company and Hattie owns 0.00049% of the company. It is unknown whether this remains the situation as Hermes seemed quite happy to keep selling shares to anyone since they were worthless, e.g. he sold 51% of the company to Zoidberg for toilet paper. However, Zoidberg would be least affected if Planet Express was to go into financial ruin as he doesn't have any money to lose in the first place and also that he has no shares and therefore no say in the financial running of the company.
 * Fry has 114 083 shares (104 083 from Zoidberg's and then That Guy's former shares, and 10 000 that Fry had before)
 * Scruffy has 40 000 shares
 * Leela has 10 000 shares
 * Bender has 10 000 shares
 * The Professor has 10 000 shares
 * Hermes has 10 000 shares
 * Amy has 10 000 shares
 * Hattie has 1 share
 * Zoidberg although previously owning 51% of the company, now has 0 shares

Appearances
Since the company of Planet Express appears in every episode, comic or film, this list includes episodes important about the company itself, and revelations about the company as well.