Almost Every Aspect Of Futurama's Hermes Was Added In At The Last Minute
On "Futurama," Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) is an unusual character. He's a relaxed, Jamaican limbo champion who enjoys meals with his family and (although never seen on camera) consuming marijuana. Hermes is so good at limboing, in fact, that he can slip underneath the company stove at Planet Express. He once served on the Jamaican Olympic limbo team.
At the same time, Hermes is a high-ranking bureaucrat who is a massive stickler for detail, always careful to file and refile papers, making sure they are each quintuple-stamped. Hermes' filing skills and attention to tiny details have saved the day on more than one occasion. Hermes even had a catchy song in the 2000 episode "How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back," explaining that even as a child, he required friends to fill out the proper paperwork before they were allowed to attend his birthday party. "We didn't choose to be bureaucrats," he sang, "No, that's what almighty Jah made us. We treat people like swine and make them stand in line even if nobody paid us."
Back in 2011, at the MCM Expo — a comic book convention in London — actor LaMarr spoke about Hermes while sitting on a "Futurama" panel. He revealed that Hermes was largely unformed when he took the part back in the late 1990s when "Futurama" was still being developed. Hermes, he said, wasn't even his original name. At the very least, Hermes was always going to serve as the Planet Express accountant. Everything, LaMarr said, wouldn't fall into place until the show's co-creator, Matt Groening, asked LaMarr if he could do a Jamaican accent.
Dexter, the original Hermes
LaMarr recalled how dismayed he was when the showrunners realized that his depiction of Hermes — originally called Dexter — wasn't working out the way they had hoped.
"Originally Hermes was not Jamaican, and not even named Hermes. He was the Planet Express accountant and his name was Dexter, but they realized they had too many characters whose names ended in 'er' — Bender. Dexter. There was somebody else. — But the first three or four episodes, [affecting a bland, flat voice] Hermes sounded like this. He was sort of a nerd and it just wasn't working, which is a horrible thing to hear when you're an actor on a series that's not done yet."
Who can say while Groening imagined this, but it was his idea that "Dexter" become Jamaican. LaMarr, without missing a beat, claimed that he could do a Jamaican accent ... even though he implied that he couldn't. Once that detail was settled on, LaMarr said, the writers suddenly unlocked the character. He said:
"Matt Groening came in and stopped me in the hall and said, 'Can you do a Jamaican accent?' 'Yes, yes I can! Don't go ask anyone else! I can do that!' And so then we changed it to the Jamaican accent, and that sort of spurred something with the writers; they sort of got more of a hook. And then finally, I think maybe seventh episode, David Cohen came up with 'Sweet lion of Zion!' and then it all sort of fell together."
Hermes, of course, was fond of colorful rhyming interjections, usually involving an animal. Sweet llamas of the Bahamas! Sweet gorilla of Manila! Sweet guinea pig of Winnipeg! And of course Sweet Sally in the Alley! With a catchphrase, no one can die.