Fred Figglehorn

Lucas Cruikshank introduced the Fred character in a video on JKL Productions, a channel he started on YouTube with his cousins, Jon and Katie Smet. He and his cousins set up the JKL Productions channel on June 11, 2006, and Cruikshank uploaded several videos testing out different characters. His first Fred video was uploaded on October 30, 2006, and when this character started to become popular, Cruikshank made more videos featuring Fred.[4] On April 30, 2008, these videos were removed from JKL Productions, and added to the Fred channel. On May 1 the first official video of the series, titled "Fred on May Day" was released, explaining that Cruikshank asked YouTube for the Fred channel. Someone else previously owned the channel, which was later turned into one of Fred's enemies in the Fred series. By April 2009, the channel had over one million subscribers, making it the first YouTube channel to do so, and the most subscribed channel at the time.[5] However, in August 2009, YouTube celebrities Ryan Higa's and Sean Fujiyoshi's channel, Nigahiga, overtook Fred as the most subscribed channel. It was the third to reach 2 million, in September 2010, shortly after falling to third. As of February 2020, the videos have received over 1.3 billion views, and over 2.9 million are subscribed to the channel, although the channel has been inactive since July 16, 2015.[6]

In December 2009, Cruikshank filmed Fred: The Movie, which aired on Nickelodeon on September 18, 2010. Nickelodeon created a franchise surrounding the character,[7][8][9] with the sequel, Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred, airing on October 22, 2011. In 2012, Fred: The Show aired, consisting of 24 11-minute episodes; a third movie, Fred 3: Camp Fred, premiered the same year.

Fred
The Fred title card
Genre	Children's, Comedy
Created by	Lucas Cruikshank
Written by	Lucas Cruikshank
Starring	Lucas Cruikshank
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	4 (plus two unofficial)
No. of episodes	48 (plus numerous unofficial)
Production
Production location(s)	Columbus, Nebraska
Editor(s)	Lucas Cruikshank
Production company(s)	The Collective Varsity Pictures (2007-2011)
Release
Original network	JKL Productions (pre-series) Fred (seasons 1-5)
Original release	October 30, 2006 (2006-10-30) – February 23, 2011 (2011-02-23)
Chronology
Followed by	Figgle Chat It's Fred
Related shows	Fred: The Movie Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred Fred: The Show Fred 3: Camp Fred
External links
Website
Production website

Fred lives with his grandmother and his mother who is a recovering drug-addicted and alcoholic prostitute. The mother's deep voice is often heard. It is implied that Fred has been the victim of child abuse (for example being locked in a dog cage for three days), however he frequently speaks of his love for his mother, particularly after her stay at rehab. Fred's father is mentioned several times as being a former rock musician, and currently on death row in the state penitentiary. Fred has not met his father, as he left Mrs. Figglehorn while she was still pregnant with Fred. In seasons one through three, Fred communicates with all characters off-screen.

On screen characters are seen for the first time in a dream sequence, in "Fred: A Star In His Own Mind", Fred dreams of being a famous actor, meeting fan girls and other famous actors. Season four, as it was filmed after Fred: The Movie, marked a change in production style, it is filmed in a higher video quality, and shows other on-screen characters. The original production style was revived for a few episodes in 2010, introducing the Claudio character, after the movie was released in the UK, and ended when Cruikshank returned to movie filming. Leading up to the second movie's release, a new series, called Figgle Chat was produced and features Internet and television stars. Following that, an animated series, It's Fred!, named after Fred's catchphrase, began being uploaded to the channel.

Cruikshank has described the channel as "programming for kids by kids".[3] The series is intended as a parody of people who, in Cruikshank's words, "think that everyone is so interested in them." Cruikshank believes that viewers either "automatically love Fred or automatically hate Fred, there is no in between".[10] The videos primarily consist of the character speaking to the audience about what is happening in his life. Fred has a high-pitched "chipmunk" voice, making him sound more like a 6-year-old. According to Cruikshank, this effect, and the hyperactive appearance of the character, are achieved by speeding up the audio.[4]

The first season follows Fred attempting to perform a number of activities during the summer, until his mother attends rehab for cocaine abuse. "Fred Goes Swimming" is the second most watched video on the Fred channel, with over 68 million views.[11] The second season explores Fred's infatuation with Judy, a girl in his class, and attending school. There Fred decides to run against class bully Kevin Cen, for class president. The song "Watch How I Do This", by Kev Blaze, is featured in a number of the season 2 videos. Season three again follows the daily adventures of Fred, in school, and with classmates, and shows Fred's interest in singing. The fourth season, now with on-screen characters, shows Fred traveling around town trying out different occupations. Following this, Fred holds contests surrounding his first two movies, gets a visit from a creeping character named Claudio, gets invited to host a talk show, dispels rumours of being owned by Nickelodeon, becomes animated, and is kidnapped by a Korean corporation. In the few Fred videos on Lucas' personal channel, Fred lives in the house of a middle aged man named Jeffrey, who lets Fred live there for free as long has he cleans the house once a week in nothing but his underwear. His mom currently is watching over various children, none of which are related to her, that she has tried to leave to be kidnapped multiple times. However, nobody will kidnap them.

The series uses a floating timeline, meaning it is always taking place in the current year, and Fred is perpetually six years old and in kindergarten.

Zipit Wireless Messenger (Z2) sponsored the first season of "Fred", which had several cameos in various videos posted to the Fred channel. Although the collaboration had originally been kept low-key, Fred has a separate website promoting the Zipit.[27] Walden Media hired Cruikshank to promote the film City of Ember, along with the sci-fi novel it was based on, and cameos from the film's star Tim Robbins in Fred episodes and a mock movie trailer.[28]

Cruikshank made a cameo appearance as both "Fred" and himself on Nickelodeon's iCarly in "iMeet Fred", which originally aired on February 16, 2009[29]. The episode has iCarly facing a huge loss of popularity after Freddie Benson criticizes Fred while on-air, resulting in Cruikshank pretending to cancel his own show (obviously a marketing operation), it ends up with the guys organizing a crossover episode between the two web shows in order to regain popularity. Also in 2009, in the episode "Fred Gets Dissed at Bible School", the comedy film Year One is quoted several times.

Cruikshank has launched a website to promote the Fred series, and sell Fred T-shirts and other merchandise. The merchandise is also available at Hot Topic, Justice, and Five Below stores. Fred has appeared at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards as well as the 2010 Kids' Choice Awards presenting awards to winners off-stage.

In October and November 2011, videos were uploaded to the Fred channel, as well as Cruikshank's personal channel, with Ari Gold as his character Power, from the film Adventures of Power.[30]

Cruikshank was originally a part of JKL Productions, a group comprising twins Jon and Katie Smet and Lucas Cruikshank, their cousin. Although Cruikshank formally left the group, JKL prefers to keep Lucas' "L" in its name. Cruikshank deleted all of his individual videos when he left JKL Productions, but he can still be seen in a few of their videos. In January 2009 he set up his own channel, called "lucas", in which he appears as himself. In the June 25, 2010, Annoying Orange episode, Cruikshank made a cameo as Fred, the first time Fred has officially appeared on a different YouTube channel. In a video released August 29, 2013, on "lucas", Cruikshank reprised the Fred role, while his friend Jennifer Veal played Judy,[31] and on August 19, 2014, a video was uploaded as part of the New Fred Saga.[32] Since then Cruikshank has reprised the role of Fred a number of times on his personal channel.[33][34][35]

• Fred on IMDb
• FRED's channel on YouTube
• Fred's official website
• jklproduction's channel on YouTube