Lord Nibbler

Lord Nibbler is a member of a proud and ancient race, the Nibblonians. Born 274 AD, he is old and wise, and with a high status in the Nibblonian world, yet he prefers to be Turanga Leela's pet, and a member of the Planet Express crew.

Synopsis
Lord Nibbler was responsible for pushing Fry into the cryogenic tube and sending him to the year 3000. Nibbler was stationed on Vergon 6 until Leela discovered him there and instantly fell for his cuteness. He is the Nibblonian Ambassador on Earth and has recently become a member of the Planet Express crew.

Stationed on Vergon 6


Lord Nibbler was born on Planet Eternium in 274 AD, making him almost 3300 years old, one of the oldest characters in the series. Not much is known of Nibbler's biography before New Years' Eve, 1999, at which time he was stationed at the planet Vergon 6 alongside a great number of his species. At this time, the Nibblonians had learned that Philip J. Fry was "the Mighty One", the only being in the universe capable of stopping the Brain Spawn over a thousand years later. However, because Fry lived in the 20th century, Nibbler got the mission to make sure that he fell into the cryogenic tube at Applied Cryogenics, frozen until the year 3000.

Nibbler continued to be stationed on Vergon 6 for the next thousand years, but due to Dark Matter being the excrement of the Nibblonians, the planet's core was slowly filled with the valuable Dark Matter. As a result, a DOOP mining operation started, and as the core was mined out, the planet was left hollow and as a consequence dangerously sensitive for a coming implosion. The Nibblonians soon fled the planet, but Nibbler was pooping at the time, and was thus left behind.

Hiding his intelligence
On 13 April, 3000, the Planet Express crew - Leela, Bender and Fry - landed on Vergon 6 to rescue the animals left from the coming implosion of the planet. They encountered Nibbler (who ate the rest of the animals), and fled moments before the planet's doom. Nibbler hid his real identity and intelligence from the crew, and indeed from all non-Nibblonians he would encounter, and pretended to just be a dumb pet. Leela took Nibbler in, in the belief that he was dog-like in intelligence, and made him her pet.



Lord Nibbler hid his intelligence until the day the Earth stood stupid, when he told Leela the truth about his orgins. This eventually helped Fry defeat the Brain Spawn, an enemy to the Nibblonians. After this, he erased Leela's memory in order to keep everything in secret. While Fry's memories were not erased, no-one believed his story, and with time he forgot it. Later, Nibbler got Fry into the game, as he led him through time to destroy the Infosphere. He then deleted Fry's memory as well, so that he could fulfil his purpose undetected.

Revealed to the Crew
In 3007, he finally revealed his true nature to the whole crew during a failed attempt to avert disaster and on seeing the formation of a dangerous tear in the time-space continuum. Nibbler escaped the universe by swallowing himself, forgetting to blank everyone's memories. He returned in 3008, after Yivo was gone. It is unknown how he managed to get back to our universe. Nibbler was kidnapped by Mom's sons and imprisoned in a dark matter farm with hundreds of other Nibblonians. After this, he once again didn't wipe their memories. Despite everybody knowing that he was sentient, the Planet Express crew continued to treat him like a pet... until August of 3010, when he was granted the status of crew member.

Appearance and clothing
Nibbler has (like other Nibblonians) three eyes, one of which is on an "eye stalk", a single nostril, and fang-like teeth. He is knee-tall compared to humans, and mostly covered in fur.

While at the headquarters, he always wears a red cape, small yellow shoes and baby diapers. When accompanied by other Nibblonians and on missions, however, he is much more formally dressed. He also has a naval uniform which he dresses up in on occasion, and in which his best friend for some reason died.

Name
As Nibbler remarks in "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid", his true name is not really Nibbler - that was just the name that Leela gave him when first finding him. The other Nibblonians uses this name as well, however, when speaking in English, because his true name would take too long to pronounce properly, or so he claims.

Age


As shown in "The Why of Fry", Nibbler was already an adult with no apparent physical changes in 1999 as compared to the 31st century. In the same episode, he tells Fry that his species "live long". As a bonus to the Volume Two DVD, Nibbler's birth year was revealed to be 274 AD, making him over 3 000 years old.

When Nibbler's right fang broke in "I Second that Emotion", the veterinarian told Leela that the rings on his tooth could indicate his age ("if he's anything like the common tree"). Taking his word for granted, this had Leela assume that Nibbler was five years for a while.

Family
Nibbler has no known direct family, although Leela could be seen as his adoptive mother, or owner.

Personality
While on the surface pretending to be a cuddly pet - long even disguising his intelligence entirely - Nibbler is highly intelligent and sophisticated. He enjoys being Leela's "schnuchoms", but sometimes long for intelligent conversation and approval in the human world.

Production
The character of Nibbler was planned before the pilot, including that he would really be a talking, intelligent alien, and that he would hold the truth of the greater conspiracy that had Fry frozen. While everything wasn't planned out from the beginning, the writers included Nibbler's shadow for a short second as Fry falls into the tube in "Space Pilot 3000", in spite of Nibbler's first real appearance being several episodes later, and in spite of the bigger conspiracy starting to unveil several seasons later.

His original appearance was hard to pin-point. Matt Groening insisted that he was supposed to be extremely cute, but that when looking at his separate components - his eye stock, his one nostril, his fangs - he seems really ugly. In one original design of Nibbler, he would have drool constantly hanging from his nostril, but without ever dripping.

Trivia

 * When Nibbler's right fang broke in "I Second that Emotion" (when he chewed at Bender's butt), it was replaced by a tooth of belonging to a veterinarian.
 * If you look closely, you can see Nibbler's shadow under the chair when Fry falls into the tube in "Space Pilot 3000".
 * In "Anthology of Interest I", when Fry misses the freezer by an inch in the alternate future the What-If Machine shows, Nibbler's shadow is gone, though this may be why Fry doesn't go to the future in that separate version of the timeline.
 * However, in "The Why of Fry", when Fry tries to cross Nibbler and eventually decides to let himself be sent to the future after all, there are two shadows under the desk - those of Nibbler and Fry (seen earlier in "Jurassic Bark").
 * Nibbler's spaceship, parked inside a container near the Planet Express headquarters, is just big enough to accept him and an adult human - if Nibbler scootches up his seat, that is.
 * The dark matter he excretes was used to fuel the Planet Express ship, before the events of "Bender's Big Score".
 * He comes in the Toynami action figure line as an one of the Professor's accessories.
 * It is unknown if Nibbler was present in Universe Gamma during the events of The second movie, as he fled it by the end of the first one.

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