Fred is the handsome, blond member of a teenage gang that solves mysteries with a cowardly Great Dane in the TV cartoon series Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969) and its long series of follow-ups. These include other TV series, made-for-TV and -video movies and two big-budget live-action theatrical films in which Fred is played by a flesh-and-blood ...
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Fred is the handsome, blond member of a teenage gang that solves mysteries with a cowardly Great Dane in the TV cartoon series Scooby Doo, Where Are You! (1969) and its long series of follow-ups. These include other TV series, made-for-TV and -video movies and two big-budget live-action theatrical films in which Fred is played by a flesh-and-blood actor (Freddie Prinze Jr.) alongside a computer-animated Scooby-Doo.Fred has no personality, no background and almost no distinguishing characteristics. Parodists have inferred that he and Daphne have each other in the bushes every time the two of them split from the other three to look for clues. But sending them away was only a convenience to the writers, who knew that Fred and Daphne were dull. Soon they were joined by Velma whenever the gang split, giving more screen time to the real stars of the show: Scooby-Doo and Shaggy.Later cartoon writers have tried, and failed, to give Fred a personality based on what few attributes they can locate. He's handsome, so he must be arrogant. His monster traps always fail, so he must be dumb. They tell us what his life is like outside his crime solving. But the more they try, the less interesting he becomes. Fred and his friends had a greater hold on children's imaginations when the gang was more mysterious than the mysteries.Fred is always voiced by the prolific Frank Welker, except in A Pup Named Scooby-Doo when Carl Steven plays Fred as a young boy.
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