History WebVideo / Fred

->'''Fred:''' You didn't tell him about me, did you?\\
'''Fred's mother:''' No, I lied and told him you're sane.
-->--''Fred 2: Night of the Living Fred''

* DependingOnTheWriter: On just how dark it gets. The original Website/YouTube videos depend on a lot of BlackComedy, the animated series is dark as well, and manages to be even crueler to the characters then the videos. The films are relatively clean, with some things from the original hinted at and some dark humor by Nickelodeon standards. The TV series is squeaky clean, with maybe a couple adult jokes scattered throughout.

[[caption-width-right:211:[[CatchPhrase HEY IT'S FRED!]]]]

* AscendedExtra: Cruikshank has come closer than probably any other non-musician to creating "real" stardom from [=YouTube=] stardom.
** Case in point, an entire episode of ''Series/{{iCarly}}'' dedicated to him and a walk on role as himself in ''Series/HannahMontana''.
** He had a deal that made ''It's FRED!'', an animated web series.
** A TV series aired for six months on {{Creator/Nickelodeon}} in 2012.

The channel went through some [[DorkAge strange phases]] after Cruikshank sorta retired Fred as his animated equivalent in ''It's Fred!'' took over, culminating in the irreversible changes made after the series of [[ReplacementScrappy universally hated]] ''New Fred'' videos made when the channel was supposedly owned by Yuksung Corporation, a fictional South Korean company. After the channel was "reclaimed" by Cruikshank in a stunt that revealed Fred to be held hostage by Yuksung, the channel started putting out new series of skits that [[InNameOnly weren't even slightly pertinent to Fred]] and only gained a fraction of the original Fred videos' views. The channel has since stopped uploading. The closest thing to real Fred content we have nowadays is Cruikshank's personal channel, which can be found [[https://www.youtube.com/user/lucas here]].

''[[https://www.youtube.com/user/Fred Fred Figglehorn]]'' is six years old. [[AgeLift (Fifteen in the film series.)]] He's a {{cloudcuckoolander}} {{keet}} with a near-lethal case of HeliumSpeech, his mother an alcoholic drug addict who's practically abandoned her son, his father locked in the slammer, slated for capital punishment. [[note]]In the film series, he doesn't know who his father is, so he imagines/hallucinates that it's wrestler John Cena.[[/note]] [[SarcasmMode You know, just like when you were a kid!]]

* DVDCommentary: The first film has one by Cruikshank, director Clay Weiner and writer David Goodman.

'''[[https://www.youtube.com/user/Fred Fred Figglehorn]]''' is six years old. [[AgeLift (Fifteen in the film series.)]] He's a {{cloudcuckoolander}} {{keet}} with a near-lethal case of HeliumSpeech, his mother an alcoholic drug addict who's practically abandoned her son, his father locked in the slammer, slated for capital punishment. [[note]]In the film series, he doesn't know who his father is, so he imagines/hallucinates that it's wrestler John Cena.[[/note]] [[SarcasmMode You know, just like when you were a kid!]]

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: In the first movie, he attempts to tunnel under the fence separating Judy's yard from his, only to somehow dig his way to China. Unless he dug at a very specific angle, he would actually end up in the middle of the Indian Ocean[[note]]and considering the backyard he thinks is in China doesn't look that different from his, not to mention he's shown to dig a tunnel that goes sideways after digging down a bit, it's entirely possible he just dug into the backyard of a Chinese family living in the same neighborhood as Fred[[/note]].

Tropes from Cruikshank's series ''Doug'' has [[WebVideo/DougDerky its own page]].

'''[[https://www.youtube.com/user/Fred Fred]]''' is 6. [[AgeLift (In the film series, he's 15.)]] He's a {{cloudcuckoolander}} {{keet}} with HeliumSpeech, an alcoholic, drug addict mother who likes to go out, and a father on death row in the state pen. [[note]]In the film series, he doesn't know who his father is, so he imagines/hallucinates that it's wrestler John Cena.[[/note]] [[SarcasmMode You know, just like when you were a kid!]]

Fred Figglehorn was created and portrayed by young comedian Lucas Cruikshank, acting hyperactive and [[HeliumSpeech pitching up his voice]]. That alone created one of the biggest Website/YouTube phenomena of its time, spawning merchandise, music, a TV series, and a trilogy of films. ''Fred'' is also one of the oldest phenomena on [=YouTube=], starting around Halloween 2006 (a year after the site's inception), when Cruikshank was only 13 years old. His videos have gained lots of attention, regularly getting tens of millions of views, with his most viral video clocking out at over 70 million views, which is all the more impressive when you consider that this was all back when [=YouTube's=] userbase was so small that you could count the number of channels with more than a million subscribers ''with your fingers''. Oh, and speaking of subscribers, ''Fred'' was also ''the first'' channel on [=YouTube=] to hit 1 million subscribers, so there's that.[[note]][[https://www.google.com.br/amp/variety.com/2009/digital/news/the-first-youtube-channel-to-hit-one-million-subscribers-33382/amp/ source]][[/note]]

Fred Figglehorn was created and portrayed by young comedian Lucas Cruikshank, acting hyperactive and [[HeliumSpeech pitching up his voice]]. That alone created one of the biggest Website/YouTube phenomena of its time, spawning merchandise, music, a TV series, and a trilogy of films. ''Fred'' is also one of the oldest phenomena on [=YouTube=], starting around Halloween 2006 (a year after the site's inception), when Cruikshank was only 9 years old. His videos have gained lots of attention, regularly getting tens of millions of views, with his most viral video clocking out at over 70 million views, which is all the more impressive when you consider that this was all back when [=YouTube's=] userbase was so small that you could count the number of channels with more than a million subscribers ''with your fingers''. Oh, and speaking of subscribers, ''Fred'' was also ''the first'' channel on [=YouTube=] to hit 1 million subscribers, so there's that.[[note]][[https://www.google.com.br/amp/variety.com/2009/digital/news/the-first-youtube-channel-to-hit-one-million-subscribers-33382/amp/ source]][[/note]]

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: The films do this ''a lot''.
** The web videos count too, even though they were on [=YouTube=], the darker jokes are slipped in subtly due to Fred's limited knowledge of the world combined with the fast pace of the videos most people don't catch on as to what Fred is actually talking about.
** Not to mention his hackin' catch phrase.