Freaky Fred
Freaky Fred is Muriel's nephew and a barber that visits the farmhouse in Nowhere. His appearance is eerie; his hair is yellow (possibly symbolic of illness) and messy, his smile is wide, crooked, and disturbing, his body is slender and lanky, and his eyes are droopy, green (another symbol of possible sickness) and haunting. Freaky Fred has an odd obsession with shaving hair as he forcefully shoves a terrified Courage into the bathroom and shaves his fur. This scene can be synonymous with rape, and Freaky Fred may be suffering from pedophilia, a psychiatric disorder. Throughout the episode, Freaky Fred is narrating a children's song that is turned into a dark, creepy chant. Freaky Fred enjoys speaking in rhymes that tend to end with the word "naughty"- a word that can have sexual connotations. A memorable rhyme of Freaky Fred's that associates him with pedophilia is as follows: "This dripping here, this droopy curl, unfold sweet memories of a girl, whose tresses, oh they'd twist and twirl, and tempt me to be...naughty." This rhyme alludes to a past trauma that Freaky Fred endured. In his younger years, Freaky Fred fell in love with a girl named Barbara who had "a mane untamed." They held a steady relationship, until one night he shaved her head, causing her to break up with him. After that, he vowed to control his addiction. However, the arrival of a long-bearded man into his barber shop was an irresistible temptation for him, and he too was shaven. Fred was then committed at the Home for Freaky Barbers mental institution. During his stay with Eustace and Muriel, Freaky Fred had another relapse as stated earlier; this time with Courage. Freaky Fred locked himself in the bathroom with Courage and slowly trimmed his hair until nothing but a patch on his tail remained. The asylum police arrived and took him away, and Fred looked back with a freaky smile reminiscing over his day with Courage, shaving fur sadistically. More literally, Freaky Fred may have a mental condition called, Trichotemnomania; an obsessive-compulsive habit of cutting or shaving hair. Clearly, the writers of the show interpreted Freaky Fred's odd habit has a mental disorder as he is continuously taken away to mental asylums. After all, his name is "Freaky" Fred.
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