So, if you've been on the shoutbox recently or seen me on twitter you may have noticed me shouting quite a lot about someone called 'Homepride Fred' and his increasing creepiness, but I've never really explained anything about him. Hopefully this blog post should show you what all the fuss is about.

50 years ago, Homepride started using 'Homepride Fred', a small animated character in a suit who starred in all of their ads, and was unbelievably successful (Seriously, the amount of merchandise they made for him is huge, and there are apparently still people who collect it). Since his first appearance, Fred has been in every single advert for Homepride, even after the business split in half in the early 2000s (Kerry Group got the flour, and Dalgety plc got the cooking sauces). If you want to see some of his charming ads, I've put some in the spoiler below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLdwwaRfjQg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xENRSuIM_y8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBXNunoVoGQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--AlXY3CIxk#t=142

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6atUu0c8sI

Homepride's last advert was about 10 years ago now, and since then they've haven't been doing really that well sales-wise. To try and get people buying their sauces again, they decided to bring Fred back out of retirement for a new advert. But somehow, they failed badly with this slightly creepy ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBfzqk5EsWE

This advert is just wrong in every way, but there are several things that stick out as very wrong:

1) HIS SIZE.

In all of his other adverts Fred has been a tiny character about the size of the jars which he's trying to flog off to us. WHY is he suddenly human-size? It makes him seem way more sinister as a character than his usual tiny self, so why did they even do this?

2) HIS FACE.

Well, just LOOK AT IT. That disturbing permanent smile, always there. How was that a good idea at all?

3) THE BATHROOM SCENE.

If you haven't watched the video (I don't blame you, it's terrifying), here's a GIF of the scene in question:

I shouldn't have to even EXPLAIN what is wrong with this scene, but if I had to, I'd use one word: EVERYTHING. The creepy lighting, the way Fred's head turns around to look at the camera, his unrelenting smile (again), the fact he's EVEN IN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE, the slightly overexcited voiceover ("Everyone LOVES Fred!"), EVERYTHING. Not one thing about this scene makes you think "I should buy cooking sauces now!". Instead, it makes you think "Jeez, that thing is SCARY! It looks like a constantly smiling Slenderman wearing a bowler hat!", which overall doesn't sell products. After watching this, I thought that this campaign couldn't really get any worse that it currently is.

But then it DID get worse. Much worse, in fact.

I retreated back to Twitter to try and forget about the whole incident, but then I found a horrible sight. I found him STALKING people and (in a couple of cases) asking constantly for them to draw him. It was terrifying, and he also posted pictures of him staring at the woman from the advert while doing her ironing. So I tweeted last night:

"Also, I was going to make my next Mr Phoenix comic about something else, but I may have to do one about creepy @Homepride_Fred..."

9 minutes later, I was completely surprised to find that FRED HIMSELF had replied with:

"@AyliffeMakit Fred's a great cook & an awesome body popper. So he'd make a super comic #LoveFred #MultiTalented"

Attached to this tweet was a Vine of Fred 'dancing', or as most would put it, 'taking part in a solitary mexican wave'. Now, how is being 'an awesome body popper' got anything to do with selling COOKING SAUCES to people? How? And that creepy inanimate face is ESPECIALLY deterring to people who may actually buy this stuff. Also, the last thing I need to see is Fred stalking me on Twitter with Vines of him dancing badly, and the bath scene from the ad doesn't really help at all either...

So, there you go, my first ever ranty blogpost. Anyway, my next Mr Phoenix comic, which will be about creepy ol' Fred should be up later in the week. Try to Enjoy! :P