Difference between revisions of "Planet Express"

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|leader=[[Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth|Professor Farnsworth]]
|leader=[[Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth|Professor Farnsworth]]
|business      = Delivery company
|business      = Delivery company
|first appear  = {{elink|1ACV01|Space Pilot 3000}}
|first appear  = {{e|1ACV01}}
|slogan        = Our crew is replaceable.  Your package isn't.
|slogan        = Our crew is replaceable.  Your package isn't.
}}
}}

Revision as of 20:00, 17 July 2010

Planet Express, inc.
Planet Express Logo.svg
SloganOur crew is replaceable. Your package isn't.
LocationWest 57th Street & (most likely) Henry Hudson Parkway, Manhattan, New New York, Earth
See Planet Express headquarters for details.
BusinessDelivery company
CEOProfessor Farnsworth
First appearance"Space Pilot 3000" (1ACV01)
Episode
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Planet Express, inc. is an intergalactic delivery company started by Professor Farnsworth to fund his research. Its primary location is located in New New York.

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.

During its existence, the company has at times changed owner: Cubert and Dwight took over the business when they inherited it due to the Professor having at one time been declared dead. During their reign it was renamed "Awesome Express". Later Steve Castle was elected CEO and ran the business as "PlanEx". Later the Scammer Aliens, lead by Nudar, took over. In all cases, the company had been returned to Professor Farnsworth, either due to death or realisation of being unfit for business.

History

Creation

Planet Express was founded by Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth as method of funding his research. 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.

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

PlanEx logo

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.

Personnel

The old, slightly different, logo shown on a ship

Employees

Former Employees

These are the known former employees of Planet Express. Crew members used to die regularly, and are mostly unknown.

Company

The location of Planet Express in the centre area of Manhattan.

Assets

Shares

After it was revealed that Zoidberg owned 51% of the company before selling his shares to That Guy, That Guy died of boneitis, which gave Fry control of his shares. So out of Planet Express' 204 084 shares;

  • 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

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.

Additional Info

Images

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.