Silicon Red

Silicon Red turns up as one of the stranger faces in Futurama's crowded universe, a name that promises circuitry and trouble in equal measure. Little is spelled out about motive or history; the character exists in the margins of an episode, present rather than explained, and reveals itself mostly through how it talks and moves.

Phil LaMarr is one of animation's great utility voices, able to make even a sketch of a character sound fully inhabited, and that's the pleasure here: a small role given texture through vocal control rather than exposition. Futurama trusts its background players to be funny in passing, and this is one more proof of that instinct.