23 Sci-Fi Characters You Want on Your Buddy List

13. TOM SERVO AND CROW T. ROBOT

FROM Mystery Science Theater 3000 (1996)

VOICED BY Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo) and Trace Beaulieu (Crow)

PROGRAMMING As on the long-running TV series, these wisecracking robots and human custodian Mike Nelson serve as a peanut gallery trapped in space and forced to watch legendarily inept old sci-fi movies ? in this case, 1955's This Island Earth.

SPECIAL FEATURES They can't do much ? Tom appears to be little more than a modified gumball machine, while Crow seems a cross between a bowling pin and a box of takeout food ? but their snark capability goes up to 11.

WHY THEY PUSH OUR BUTTONS Watching delightfully bad cinema, they say what we'd say if only we were clever, witty, and fast enough.

Sidekick to: Fry
Futurama (1999-2013)

Sure, a selfish, larcenous, beer-swilling robot whose catchphrase is ''Bite my shiny metal ass'' might not seem the optimal friend in need. But for Futurama's über-slacker Fry, trapped 1,000 years in the future, Bender provided a timelessly valuable service: indulging all of Fry's dangerously ill-thought-out impulses. But Bender wasn't entirely without an empathty chip: as he touchingly said of his boneheaded buddy, ''Fry, of all the friends I've had...you're the first.'' —Josh Wolk