Fred Jones (Scooby-Doo)

Scooby-Doo character


name = Frederick Herman Jones
gender = Male
species = Human

Frederick Herman Jones, known to his friends by the nickname "Freddie", is a fictional character in the long running American television animated series "Scooby-Doo", about a quartet of teenage mystery solvers and their Great Dane cohort, Scooby-Doo.

Character biography

Fred would often be shown constructing various Rube Goldberg traps for villains, which Scooby-Doo and/or Shaggy would often set off by mistake, only for the villain to wind up captured by the trap anyway. During the first season of "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?", Fred would sometimes refer to his cohort Daphne Blake as "Danger-Prone Daphne" due to her penchant for getting into trouble. Fred is bossy and will force Shaggy and Scooby to stick around until the mystery is solved. He also, along with Velma, is the leader of the gang.

Fred leads the group in solving mysteries and often orders the gang to split up to search for clues. Fred usually takes the female members of the gang, Daphne and Velma, with him while Shaggy and Scooby go off by themselves although he would sometimes send Velma along with Shaggy and Scooby; Fred's main catchphrase is related to this divide-and-conquer clue search method: "Okay, Gang, Let's Split up and search for clues!". His catchphrase is made fun of in "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" when he often prematurely tells the group to split up before they even know their purpose in doing so, and in Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase where after saying his catchphrase, Shaggy and Scooby immediately begin to walk away. They are paired together in so many situations that they just presume the two of them are teamed together again.

Some fans have posited that Fred and Daphne share an attraction to each other, but this has yet to be truly declared as such in the series itself (though Cartoon Network, in its various promotional bumpers, has had fun with this notion). They do kiss in Scooby-Doo and The Cyber Chase, and openly make comments, in every film that has made viewers expect that they share mutual romantic feelings. Their relationship was parodied in a crossover episode of Johnny Bravo, most notably when he and Daphne go off to 'investigate' the basement together, and his various winks to the viewer whenever Daphne lands in his hands.

In the 1990s direct-to-video movies and in the 2000s series "What's New, Scooby Doo?", Fred's outfit was given an update, with the removal of his orange ascot, the most noticeable change (Though he is seen dallying with the idea of wearing a neckerchief in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island when changing his clothes before rejecting it). He also is shown as slightly less intelligent (Though he has tricked out the Mystery Machine, of which he is deeply possessive, with a near infinite number of modifications), and more clueless to his surroundings (Convinced that he can speak foreign languages when the best he can do is mangle words from a phrasebook), similar to how he was depicted in "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo". However, in "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" Fred was as smart as Velma and he would help solve the mysteries the gang found themselves in. The removal of his ascot was poked fun at during one of the first promotional advertisements for "What's New, Scooby Doo?", when the ascot is found on the ground, puzzling everyone but Fred, who seems to be uncomfortable around the discovery. Fred also has a mission set before him. Get Shaggy and Scooby to be brave.

Childhood

Fred's childhood was depicted in the cartoon "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo". Fred had a very odd childhood, noteworthy as being slightly hyperactive, danger-prone (of which now he calls Daphne), and superstitious. He was frequently picked on by Red Herring, the neighborhood bully whom he often accused of being the monster. He subscribed to a magazine, the "National Exaggerator", that "reported" real aliens and monsters (his favorites being the mole people and the mud monsters). This is later hinted at in "What's New, Scooby Doo?" shown from his eccentric actions. Fred also almost always gets something wrong at the end of "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo", as he always accuses Red Herring as being the villain (the lone time he didn't accuse Red, he WAS the villain); this is almost a similarity in the movie "" when he hesitated and tried to accuse the camera man as being another villain. It is shown that Fred has worn his orange ascot since childhood.

Performers

* Frank Welker (1969-present)
* Carl Stevens ("A Pup Named Scooby-Doo", 1988-1991)
* Freddie Prinze Jr. (live-action films)

In the original cartoon series and all of its spinoffs (save for "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo"), Fred is voiced by Frank Welker. The version of Fred featured in "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo", in which Fred is still a child, is voiced by Carl Stevens (Welker voiced Fred's uncle, Eddie, in one episode). In Warner Bros.' two live-action "Scooby-Doo" feature films and the "Robot Chicken" sketch (which they encounter Jason Voorhees), he is played by Freddie Prinze Jr.. When the Scooby-Doo gang was parodied on "Family Guy", Welker would voice Fred for added authenticity.

Relatives

Relatives of Fred's shown or mentioned during the series include ( [http://www.scoobydooweloveyou.com/familytree.html] ):
* Skip and Peggy Jones: Fred's parents. Skip often gets lost on his way to the bathroom
* Eddie Jones: Fred's uncle. The publisher of the tabloid newspaper "The National Exaggerator".
* The Count von Jones: Fred's uncle. Lives in a castle near a factory that makes specialized coffins, and runs a museum.
* Uncle Karl: Fred's uncle who runs a cheese shop near Lake Michigan in Wisconsin.
* An uncle in the U.S. Air Force and works for a space agency.
* An uncle who is first cymbalist in the U.S. Marine Corps band.
* A 3 year-old nephew. Mentioned in The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode that guest-starred Davy Jones, 'The Haunted Horseman of Hagglethorn Hall'.

Other Media

Freddie Prinze, Jr. reprises Fred Jones in the "Robot Chicken" episode "Operation: Rich in Spirit."

Trivia

* In the Italian dubbing of the series he was renamed (for no apparent reason) "Alan". However, this could be a mix-up with the cartoon "Josie and the Pussycats," which has a character named Alan (or Allen) who looks almost identical to Fred, though larger and more muscular.
* The second-season episode of "The Venture Bros." entitled ¡Viva los Muertos! features the entire Scooby-Doo cast re-imagined as famous serial killers and radicals. Fred's analogue, "Ted", is charismatic and abusive, à la Ted Bundy, and bullies his companions into driving around in a van and solving nonexistent mysteries. He is also a sadist, as evidenced by his line, "Patty (Daphne), being out of your box isn't a right. It's a privilege. Baby, you don't want to go back in your box, do you?"
* Hank Venture of the Venture Bros. is also often seen with hair color (blonde) and clothing matching that of Fred's in the early days of the cartoon (white button-down shirt with a blue collar and orange ascot).
* A character from "The School of Rock" is also named Freddie Jones.