“Fred Figglehorn,” or just “Fred” as he’s known to his fans is making the leap from computer to TV screens this year. The popular YouTube star is going to star in his own feature length movie in the near future and it won’t be on the big screen, it’ll be on Nickelodeon. We see a ratings sensation.
Fred, for those not familiar with the popular YouTube clips, is a 6 fictional six year old with a deeply dysfunctional family and “anger management issues.” He is the creation of Lucas Cruikshank, a 17 year old boy from Columbus, Nebraska.
The character of Fred Figglehorn is a six year old who posts videos to his YouTube channel despite the fact that he’s not supposed to use his mother’s video camera, or post videos or even have an account on YouTube. He lives with his drug and alcohol addicted mother, whose voice is often heard in episodes. He has little contact with his father. A variety of other characters are mentioned, including Judy, the girl at school he has a crush on, or spoken to off screen, but Fred almost never shares his camera time. Cruikshank achieves Fred’s high pitched vocals and jumpy, hyperactive movements by speeding up the video.
Cruikshank describes the JKL Productions YouTube Channel he started with his cousins, Jon and Kate Smet as “programming for kids by kids” and clearly, he knows what other kids want. Cruikshank started posting the Fred Figglehorn character’s videos in 2008. By April 2009 the channel had over 1,000,000 subscribers. It was the first YouTube channel to hit the million subscriber mark, and, at the time, the most subscribed to channel of all time (currently, that honor goes to Ryan Higa and Sean Fujiyoshi and their Nigahiga channel. These days, Fred has his very own Web site.
This won’t be Cruikshank’s first TV appearance – in fact he guest stared on the popular show “iCarly” last year – an episode that drew large numbers of views and cemented Nickelodeon’s conviction that “Fred: The Movie” belonged on their channel. In his big TV debut, Fred will be on a mission to track his secret love Judy, who has moved away. The movie is directed by Clay Weiner and written by “The Family Guy”’s David A. Goodman
