drop dead fred
polly: no, i don' t remember drop dead fred at all .
we revisit drop dead fred, starring the late, great rik mayall ...
that time drop dead fred made a shaved pussy joke ten minutes into a kids’ film .
if you want to answer the questions ,
who starred in the movie drop dead fred ?
and
what is the full cast list of drop dead fred ?
then this page has got you covered .
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing drop dead fred near you .
drop dead fred is a 1991 comedy film directed by ate de jong, starring phoebe cates and rik mayall .
character title: drop dead fred is lizzie' s imaginary friend, and arguably the deuteragonist of the film .
this cast list of who was in drop dead fred includes both lead and minor roles. (11 items )
the' 90s were full of weird and wonderful things, but nothing quite compares to the cult hit, drop dead fred .
drop dead fred cast list, listed alphabetically with photos when available. this list of drop dead fred actors includes any drop dead fred actresses and all other actors from the film. you can view additional information about each drop dead fred actor on this list, such as when and where they were born. to find out more about a particular actor or actress, click on their name and you' ll be taken to page with even more details about their acting career. the cast members of drop dead fred have been in many other movies, so use this list as a starting point to find actors or actresses that you may not be familiar with .
marsha mason played lizzie' s overbearing mother, polly cronin, in drop dead fred, though her nickname, according to fred was
mega b - - -
.
drop dead fred is a movie for people who like the sound of fingernails on blackboards and the feel of a drill bearing into a bicuspid .
mayall - - who starred in the cult 90s comedy
drop dead fred
- - passed away on monday at the age of 56 .
the first rule of fred club is we do not talk about fred club .
drop dead fred is an erratic stab at making madness sensible, a slapstick nightmare that goes too sane, that tries too hard to be both good and rotten .
drop dead fred (1991) follows the life of elizabeth cronin (phoebe cates) who catches her husband in bed with another woman and has to move in with her mother, when she moves back into her childhood room she awakens her old imaginary friend, drop dead fred (rik mayall) and her life is turned upside down .
when elizabeth cronin (phoebe cates) comes to stay with her overbearing mother (after her husband leaves her for a younger woman), she rediscovers her wacky imaginary childhood friend, drop dead fred (rik mayall). drop dead fred and elizabeth have a number of mischievous, sometimes malicious, adventures as elizabeth struggles to regain her sense of self and independence .
drop dead fred is a therapeutic fable for people who believe that by becoming an adult, one inevitably loses the capacity to have fun. but the alternative it suggests is nothing short of horrifying .
ashley peldon played the young elizabeth
lizzie
cronin and was seven at the time of drop dead fred' s release. she was cute, curious, and loved her imaginary friend, fred, unconditionally... . until she grew up !
phoebe cates, who played the fragile and vulnerable lizzie (or
snotface
according to fred), was a screen queen in the' 80s and early' 90s. prior to drop dead fred, she stole hearts in fast time at ridgemont high and gremlins .
on 11th october 1991 drop dead fred opened in uk cinemas. this footage is from a channel 4 morning programme called box office. it features a short interview with rik, clips and a review of the film .
in response to exxon’s statement oil change international issued a press release, entitled “ exxon to world: drop dead ”, which sums up the oil company’s attitude .
“i should never have let my mother know how much she could hurt me, once she knew how, she knew that she could do it all the time. and she did. ” – elizabeth cronin, drop dead fred
so we have cobbled together a quick snapshot of the company’s 25 year “drop dead” denial campaign, where the oil company has deliberately obfuscated the debate, exaggerating the scientific uncertainties .
released november 22, 2011 lyrics: nobull; drop dead fred; efeks; stic. man; cyclonious; rick fury; akala production: mr. blazey; bertie buster; joonipah; truescribe; steady rock; shangxi productions; professor ojo
when lizzie (elizabeth) cronin (cates) manages to lose her purse, her car, her job and her husband all in one day, her domineering mother forces her to move back home where she starts reorganizing her life. elizabeth then finds the box that contains her imaginary childhood friend drop dead fred who used to create great mischief - throwing paint at people, shaving cats, making mud pies and the like. reopening the box, she causes drop dead fred to emerge and start causing chaos afresh .
starring phoebe cates, rik mayall, bridget fonda and carrie fisher, drop dead fred is a hilarious comedy about a young woman who suddenly finds herself reunited with an old
friend .
when elizabeth (phoebe cates) returns to her mother' s home after her marriage breaks up, she recreates her imaginary childhood friend, fred (rik mayall), to escape from the trauma of losing her husband and her job. in between the chaos and mayhem that fred creates, elizabeth desperately attempts to win back her husband and return to normality, with comical results. (original title - drop dead fred) - 1991 universal studios. all rights reserved .
fred 2: night of the living fred (5 / 10) movie clip - mr. devlin is a vampire (2011) hd
drop dead fred was critically panned upon release. leonard maltin stated that
phoebe cates' appealing performance can' t salvage this putrid mess... recommended only for people who think nose - picking is funny .
rotten tomatoes gave it a score of 9% based on 34 reviews. gene siskel named drop dead fred as the worst film of 1991. writing for entertainment weekly, margaret lyons asked ,
is it supposed to be hilarious, or a really, really depressing story about the long - term effects of emotional abuse ?
hey, snotfaces, what do you get when you mix mary poppins and beetlejuice? look no further than 1991' s drop dead fred, a fantasy comedy about an imaginary friend, which turns out to be about a woman' s mental breakdown after years and years of emotional abuse .
besides a few moments where the writers stumbled upon a lucky line that happened to work ,
drop dead fred
is easily the most brainless film i have ever seen in my entire life. as a childhood imaginary friend comes back to haunt her and her new job, along with her relationship, everything goes to hell as she seems to be insane. this film is just one annoying scene after another and it is solely the most painful experience i have ever had, trying to get through a movie .
drop dead fred
is easily the worst movie i have ever seen, hands down !
cates is so natural at playing the straight man to mayall’s unhinged drop dead fred that it’s easy to forget how great she is at it. she may not have the dramatic chops to land all of the script’s references to childhood loneliness, but when it comes to physical comedy, the lady has skillz .
i’m glad that it offered up serious subjects in a silly way. i’m glad that it has inspired late - night conversations in my sister’s kitchen about our strange childhood obsessions. i’m glad that my five - year - old self got to hang out with her friends lizzie and drop dead fred every friday night .
despite my sibling’s gruff (and in hindsight reasonable) protests that watching it again and again was a “waste of money” and that she didn’t want to sit through it one more friggin’ time, i stood firm in the knowledge that farts were funny and she was wrong. drop dead fred was a genius children’s movie .
lizzie finally finds happiness in her life, but she can no longer see fred .
rik mayall plays drop dead fred who' s elizabeth (phoebe cates) imaginary friend from childhood. drop dead fred comes back when she loses who husband and job all in one day. she moves back in with her mum and finds the jack in the box toy that fred is in, she opens it and out pops fred. you have flashbacks on when elizabeth was a child and the stuff she got up to with fred you also see what her mother was like to her and why the dad left. fred is only back because she' s lonely so he helps her try win back her husband (tim matheson) who is good at playing a cheating rat. a childhood friend called mickey is attractive to her but she doesn' t notice she just wants her cheating husband back. mickey thinks she' s funny the things she does. take the restaurant scene when mickey joins in which is funny. carrie fisher plays elizabeth best friend she doesn' t have a lot of scenes but she is funny in the film. i couldn' t see any actor other than rik mayall playing drop dead fred. it' s a shame that he never was a hit in america. this is a very funny film. if you want a good laugh then this is the film for you .
a remake of the 1991
drop dead fred .
the original starred phoebe cates as a wallflower who loses her job and husband during the course of a lunch hour. forced to live back home, she' s reunited with her childhood imaginary friend (rik mayall), who promises to help but causes more havoc .
the film' s popularity with the audience that found it on vhs was clearly evident enough for short - lived talk of a remake starring russell brand, who relished the prospect of playing a nastier “more victorian” fred in interviews while doing press rounds for his version of arthur. the revamp was briefly dredged up again when drop dead fred trended on twitter on the sad day of mayall' s passing, right alongside the young ones and blackadder, but it seems safe to declare that remake dead (spelled “duh - eh - duh! ”) .
drop dead fred is a side - splittingly hilarious film, with rik mayall as the fantastic lead role - drop dead fred. after breaking up with her boyfriend and losing her job, elizabeth returns to her mother' s house. after discovering a taped up jack - in - the - box in the cupboard, drop dead fred escapes from his prison, and bursts out into freedom... only chaos can ensue now! phoebe cates, who plays elizabeth, now has a whole new load of trouble on her hands. fred is her childhood imaginary friend - and only she can see him! there are so many funny parts in this film, it' s impossible to name them all, but rik mayall never fails to bring up the laughs in any scene, as he gives a highly energetic, enthusiastic performance. the ending is really touching and i can never forget how when i was younger i always got upset by it. it beautifully concludes the movie, and will make you feel warm inside. watch it and try not to laugh. it' s near impossible .
the starlet took a break from the spotlight to start a family with her oscar - winning husband, kevin kline. in 1991, the same year drop dead fred was released, the couple welcomed a son, owen. three years later, they welcomed a daughter, greta. and kevin and phoebe are still together today. cute !
toilet humour: in one scene, fred smears dog poop on polly' s carpet .
fred’s return into elizabeth’s adult life starts by her ripping tape off a jack - in - the - box, which is later explained in a flash back. elizabeth’s mother did this after one play time with fred got out of hand, so she taped up the box in which fred was hiding. in an almost horror movie scene, later that night, now the tape was all off, the box starts playing by itself like a demonic force waking elizabeth up, then a glowing green ball springs forth and rolls under the bed, it’s pretty scary. one way to look at this scene is that drop dead fred was trapped in the box by elizabeth’s mother because she was being naughty all the time, so in desperation she pretended to ‘lock’ fred away .
this family tradition dictated that each sibling could choose one weekly video — no new releases, nothing ma, nothing starring animal from the muppets. so while my teenage sister widened her world with the likes of point break and my girl, i cherished regular screenings of drop dead fred — the not so critically acclaimed tale of a girl and her flame - haired imaginary friend .
this crass and crazy comedy was loathed by critics. but for many who were kids in the early & apos; 90s, & apos; drop dead fred & apos; is a beloved—though definitely bizarre—part of our childhood. now that we & apos; re all grown up, we & apos; ve taken a look back to catch up with the cast, then and now .
we' re not trying to pin drop dead fred' s meaning down or paint it as a great misunderstood film, because there are definitely a couple of missteps that almost overturn the whole thing. for instance, to end on fred befriending mickey' s daughter, also a child of divorce, has much darker implications than we can countenance in an intended happy ending. we' re meant to take away that lizzie is with mickey, fred has a new pal and all is well, but in his own words, if that kid is happy, then why is he there ?
lizzie had forgotten all about fred and their adventures they had together when she was young. fred is happy to be out of the box, but dismayed to see lizzie all grown up, and unhappy. fred sees it as his misson to make lizzie happy again. fred thinks with the mind of a child, using tactics such as mud pies, dog poo, and boogers to get lizzie what she whats .
drop dead fred is a therapeutic fable for people who believe that by becoming an adult, one inevitably loses the capacity to have fun. but the alternative it suggests is nothing short of horrifying. elizabeth cronin' s (phoebe cates) life is a shambles. her philandering husband charles (tim matheson) has left her to move in with a blond bombshell, her car... read more
it isn' t much of a stretch to imagine lizzie as severely schizophrenic (especially when her interactions with fred cause her to act in extremely erratic and destructive ways). when you look at lizzie' s childhood, she lives with a mean mother and rebels against her - except with fred doing the rebelling for her. when she takes drugs as an adult to make her stop imagining fred, fred becomes lethargic. if you think of fred as lizzie' s subconscious, it becomes a very depressing and disturbing film .
very bizarre film in the most wonderful way. rick mayall steals the show. my son loves this and drop dead fred' s personality is very infectious. definitely worth watching. i think the 12 rating is a bit excessive though, there' s a bit of swearing and mild sexual references but it' s no worse than the original ghostbusters for that sort of content and that' s pg .
drop dead fred is a film i haven’t seen since the 90’s. back then i found the film hard to get into and just weird. i only watched it because it had the beautiful phoebe cates in it from fast times at ridgemont high and gremlins. i believe this was one of the last films phoebe cates did before leaving the spotlight of hollywood. i think i’m going to watch it again .
( 1988), which geffen distributed 3 years earlier. finally they showed the film to new line cinema. new line ceo robert shaye and executive michael deluca bashed and hated the movie with shaye allegedly calling the movie
horseshit
. but fellow executive sara risher was the only one who liked the movie. she felt that the character of drop dead fred was a comedic reversal of freddy krueger in their
it was never going to get a great score on the imdb parents' guide, but if we go by the old platitude that every film eventually finds its audience, it seems drop dead fred' s audience was actually kids all along. reflecting upon the film in an interview with time out, mayall said: “mums complained that i had corrupted their sons and taught them to wipe bogeys on the furniture. ”
most friday nights in 1992, if you were looking to high - five a slightly rotund kid with a blonde bowl - cut, all you had to do was head on down to the children’s section of civic video. there you would have found me nursing a copy of drop dead fred on vhs while my teenage sister whipped around the aisles seeing which m - rated movie she could convince mum was actually quite pg .
it' s definitely a film about overcoming emotional abuse, but neither the film nor its subtext could ever be called subtle. the subtext is dressed in garish green and yellow, demanding that you take it at face value. while drop dead fred is a figurative manifestation of lizzie' s repressed rebellious side, imaginary friends have to have some literal tangibility within the world of the film in order for it to work .
this off - the - walls comedy from 1991 followed lizzie cronin, a grown woman who & apos; d failed to blossom after her parents locked away her fantastical bff. but when her life hits a serious low point (no husband, no job, no money or car), she comes across a taped - up jack - in - the - box and rediscovers her moxie as well as drop dead fred .
fred warmbier praised the trump administration' s efforts :
they have our thanks for bringing otto home .
drop dead fred is a 1991 british - american black comedy fantasy film directed by ate de jong, produced by polygram filmed entertainment and working title films and released and distributed by new line cinema. the film was promoted as a lighthearted children' s film, but there are notable adult themes and gags, and some elements of black comedy, emotional abuse, mental illness, bizarre visual and make - up effects, and profanity .
drop dead fred is a 1991 british - american black comedy fantasy film directed by ate de jong, produced by polygram filmed entertainment and working title films and released and distributed by new line cinema. the film was promoted as a lighthearted children' s film, but there are notable adult themes and gags, and some elements of black comedy, emotional abuse, mental illness, bizarre visual and make - up effects, and profanity .
fred hasn' t gone far as he is now the imaginary friend of mickey' s (lizzie' s childhood friend) daughter and lizzie realizes this when she notices the little pinkie sign she used to do with fred .
when i recently re - watched this childhood fave, i assumed i’d bear witness to 90 minutes of rik mayall embodying anarchy in a bottle; a sanitised reworking of his obnoxious character in the young ones. i remembered drop dead fred calling his young charge lizzie “snot - face”, mud pies being made on the dining room table and lizzie’s beautiful yellow jumper being unravelled by one stray thread (and being really, really upset about that) .
elizabeth cronin is an unassertive and repressed woman, domineered by her controlling mother, polly. while taking her lunch break from work, she visits her husband, charles, from whom she is separated, hoping to sort out their problems. he reasserts his desire for a divorce and says that he is in love with another woman named annabella. while she is at the public phone, a man walking down the street breaks into her car to steal her purse. then her car is stolen as well. forced to run back to work (at the courthouse), she arrives late and loses her job. while leaving the courthouse she runs into an old friend, mickey, who brings up childhood memories they shared, which includes memories of elizabeth' s childhood imaginary friend, drop dead fred. mickey explains how only elizabeth could see drop dead fred, and everybody else thought she was crazy .
hey presto, we have a solid foundation to conclude that perhaps drop dead fred isn’t as light hearted as we though. (the hair cutting clip literally lasts minutes, again, welcome to psychoanalysis of film). the page also suggests the following behavioural characteristics are forms of self harm: staying in abusive or unsatisfactory relationships, excessive risk taking or putting oneself at risk and criminal behaviour. on paper, elizabeth cronin is quite the troubled young woman .
then: at the time of & apos; drop dead fred & apos; s & apos; release, peldon was a child actress with two years experience, having made her film debut in the 1989 diane keaton dramedy & apos; the lemon sisters. & apos; notably, she also starred on the soap opera & apos; guiding light, & apos; and at age four was the youngest performer to be put under contract for the series .
percussive maintenance: fred thinks lizzie wants him to do this to janie' s houseboat. he winds up sinking it .
now: since & apos; drop dead fred, & apos; cates has largely stepped out of the spotlight, appearing in just three features, the most noteworthy of which was the earnest biopic & apos; princess caraboo. & apos; she owns the blue tree boutique in nyc and has two children - - owen and greta - - with actor kevin kline. (owen made his acting debut in & apos; the squid and the whale. & apos; )
fanservice extra: a male example. a really hot waiter wearing only a toga accidentally gets stripped by fred at one point .
imaginary friend: fred of course. although some of his behavior makes him look more like an imaginary enemy in some sequences .
redhead in green: fred has an outfit for every occasion, but definitely doesn' t believe in branching out, chromatically .
elizabeth (cates) is going through a crisis. her husband has left her and she was just fired from her job. she goes to live with her overbearing mother. then something unusual happens. she picks up an old toy and suddenly a green spark escapes from it and grows. it' s elizabeth' s childhood imaginary friend drop dead fred (mayall)! he was locked in the jack - in - the - box by elizabeth' s mother when elizabeth was a kid. now, fred can' t leave until elizabeth is happy, and that means getting elizabeth back together with her husband, charles. along the way, fred is causing a lot of trouble for elizabeth, just like in the old days. can elizabeth get charles back? does she really want him? will fred' s antics be the end of elizabeth? find out in this hilarious movie !
both tim burton and robin williams were offered the role of director and fred respectively. they turned the project down. [ 2 ]
he first re - emerges after lizzie has lost the three major totems of adulthood - her marriage, her job and her car - within the space of one lunch hour, and she is forced to move back into her childhood home with her domineering mother polly (marsha mason). opening up a jack - in - a - box wrapped up in tape, she releases her long - forgotten imaginary friend drop dead fred, who immediately starts trying to cheer her up by making a massive mess of her already shattered life .
he first re - emerges after lizzie has lost the three major totems of adulthood — her marriage, her job and her car — within the space of one lunch hour, and she is forced to move back into her childhood home with her domineering mother polly (marsha mason). opening up a jack - in - a - box wrapped up in tape, she releases her long - forgotten imaginary friend drop dead fred, who immediately starts trying to cheer her up by making a massive mess of her already shattered life .
bunny - ears lawyer: janie. she' s apparently a professional woman with a high - paying job, but she is also a complete flake who is very much into new age type thinking and is uncommonly accepting of the very strange. when lizzie tells her about fred she simply accepts it, and when fred sinks her houseboat she gets mad at fred (not lizzie) and tries to beat him up .
traumatic haircut: fred does this to lizzie' s new' do while she' s sleeping. and also once when she was younger .
after a pep talk from her friend janie, elizabeth moves back into her mother' s home, having nowhere else to go. while rummaging through past belongings in her childhood bedroom closet, elizabeth finds a taped - shut jack - in - the - box, which polly supposedly trapped drop dead fred in years ago. she places the box by the window and gets into bed. through a series of flashbacks, it is revealed that while he caused havoc for her, he also gave her happiness and a release from her oppressive mother. elizabeth wakes up to find the jack - in - the - box slowly playing music. she removes the tape and the box continues to play itself, faster and faster, until drop dead fred flies out of the box, finally freed after all these years. he agrees to help her become happy again, which she believes will only happen when she wins back charles. however, his childish antics do more harm than good. he sinks janie' s houseboat, causes havoc at a restaurant, and even makes elizabeth attack a person playing a violin in a shopping mall .
unfortunaly, lizzie is no longer a child, and while appreciating fred' s help, she most work to undue any damage he has done. also, lizzie must deal with the fact that while the damage fred causes is very visible, no one can see or hear him but her .
it' s a good thing too, because drop dead fred is a real curate' s egg - too weird and complex to simply tear apart and make better. it' s a post punk comedy in every sense and even if it' s not as universally well regarded as some films of its era that have already been remade, it has the same untouchable status for those who love it. as with so many true cult classics, it was utterly unmarketable, but that is not to say that it is unremarkable - not by any stretch of the imagination .
poltergeist: fred can interact with people and things, even give the illusion that he can appear as another person (the violinist in the mall) .
elizabeth' lizzie' cronin is a very mild, meek young woman who is controlled and stepped over by all, espically her mother and husband. lizzie is a dutiful, loving wife to her husband charles, who barely notices her and has affairs. she listens to everything her overbearing, divorced mother says. while visiting her mother in her childhood home, lizie finds an old jack - in - the - box toy she had forgotten about. she winds up the box and out pops
drop dead fred
, an imaginary childhood friend who only lizzie could see as a child .
in - series nickname: fred has a few nicknames for polly. his most common is the megabitch / megabeast. and for lizzie, more affectionately, snotface .
great analysis! if i may elaborate: fred represents the part of lizzy that she had to always repress around her mother (the part of her that was a child, curious, fun, alive). fred became more and more destructive because she used fred as a way to act out the anger she felt inside for being afraid all of the time. when he reappears and smacks her on the head it’s not because he is cruel. it is because lizzy has been living as a quiet doormat and she has finally had a mental breakdown from recent circumstances. she calls on fred for help and that part of her brain reactivates to come to her rescue. she does in fact smear dog feces on her mother’s carpet because she is weak and can’t stand up to her (passive aggressive). when she cuts her hair it is an act of rebellion towards her controlling mother. if you remember her mother takes her to get a makeover earlier that day and has lizzy’s hair cut just like hers. lizzy is trying desperately to get away from her mom but doesn’t know how because she has been mentally beaten down into pulp by her all of her life. fred isn’t a bad guy (metaphorically speaking), he’s trying to wake her up and get her to stand up for herself, but he is a angry child so he comes off as destructive. i love drop dead fred, he is the part of me that is me that she can never reach .
polygram and working title films did not have us distribution divisions at the time. they often relied on other distributors to handle us distribution for their movies. they were both struggling to find a us distributor to sell the film to. they showed the final cut of drop dead fred to various distributors including orion pictures, miramax films, the samuel goldwyn company, vestron pictures, tristar pictures, mgm / ua, and 20th century fox. all of them called the film
a depressing children' s movie on drugs
and turned the movie down. they even brought it to the geffen film company. but they turned it down because they felt the movie was a rip off of
unwanted assistance: lizzie in understandably displeased by fred' s attempts to make her lighten up. it isn' t until the climax that she realizes why she needed him all along .
on top of this, there’s the opening credits sequence with cartoon toys being mutilated, fred looking up lizzie’s mother’s dress and shouting “cobwebs! ”, and him generally being a serious creeper .
designated hero: fred. he acts like an absolute psychopath and damn near ruins elizabeth' s life but is supposedly doing it for a good purpose, which makes him a good guy .
her marriage on the rocks, lizzie cronin (phoebe cates) is forced to return to her domineering mother. in desperation, lizzie calls upon fred (rik mayall), the imaginary friend of her childhood, to help her through this difficult period. but fred proves to be more hindrance than help - the effects of his actions are far from imaginary and lizzie must take the blame .
fred warmbier appeared critical of the obama administration' s handling of otto' s detention, saying the family heeded the us government' s initial advice to take a low profile
without result .
elizabeth
lizzie
cronin (cates) has had a horrible day, her entire life falling apart within a single lunch hour. first, while trying to reconcile with her husband over his affair, he dumps her. her purse and then car are stolen as she tries to figure out what to do about her life, and finally she loses her job. lizzie' s controlling mother polly (marsha mason) arrives on the scene and shanghais lizzie into staying with her. upon returning to her childhood home and exploring her old room, lizzie discovers an old, taped up jack - in - the - box. when she opens it, lizzie ends up releasing her childhood imaginary friend drop dead fred (mayall), whom her mother had trapped inside the toy many years ago .
worried by elizabeth' s recent strange behavior, polly brings her to a (children' s) psychologist. in the waiting room, fred is seen meeting up with the imaginary friends of other patients, who are all children. the doctor prescribes medication to rid her of him, whom he and polly believe is a figment of her imagination. she also changes her appearance and wardrobe. charles now wants her back and she is overjoyed, until fred discovers he is still cheating on her with annabella. heartbroken, she tells fred that she cannot leave charles, because she is scared of being alone. they escape to a dream sequence in which she is finally able to reject him, stand up to polly, and declare she is no longer afraid of her. she frees her imprisoned childhood self. fred tells her that she no longer needs him, so they kiss and he disappears into her eternal subconscious .
in another flashback of her childhood, elizabeth and fred pretend to burgle their own house, resulting in her father getting arrested. the more i watch this film, the more i think fred is a really unhealthy manifestation in her childhood, and perhaps, resulted in the parent’s divorce. this also shows the first evidence of clear mental abuse and neglect from the mother, elizabeth tries to make amends for her actions and she downheartedly says: “maybe mommy’s right, i never do anything right. ” that phrase shouldn’t ever leave a child’s mouth, regardless of their behaviour and from this point; the film takes a dark turn. fred consoles her by saying: “she’s always fighting with your dad; she’s always calling you horrible things. ” – that’s also not right. regardless of whether fred is a ‘real’ imaginary friend (you get what i’m saying), elizabeth felt this way as a child, which is textbook abuse .
elizabeth' s [ phoebe cates ] world has been turned upside down. her marriage to charles [ tim matheson ] appears to be over following her discovery that he has cheated on her; but she simply can' t stop loving him. despite the support of her friend janey [ carrie fisher ] she is unhappy. in her misery, her imaginary childhood friend fred [ rik mayall ] reappears, having being previously locked away from her. his sole purpose to cheer elizabeth up, although things do not go to plan. elizabeth stays with her mother [ marsha mason ]; quite cold to elizabeth, who intends to put elizabeth back with charles but in the meantime makes her into a younger double of herself. elizabeth works to get charles back into her life, even turning up at a party (with fred) despite part of elizabeth being overjoyed at seeing fred again and remembering their fun care - free times together, all he ever seems to do for elizabeth is cause trouble. after a certain number of unforgiveable actions, elizabeths mother takes her to' get help' and rid her of fred forever... elizabeth returns to charles and starts taking' mediacation' to rid herself of fred. it is only when taking the last pill that she realises charles hasn' t changed at all and that fred is really the only person she can trust. when she follows him into a dream like world, she gets the chance to overcome her greatest fears: her mother, charles' infidelity and the little girl inside dealing with loneliness. unfortunately, the only way she can truly rid herself of the fears is to lose fred for good by realising she doesn' t need him any longer .
if you' re of a certain age and, much like phoebe cates' protagonist elizabeth at the beginning of the movie, you haven' t seen fred since you were a child, you may remember it as a childhood staple that you were probably a bit young to be watching and for many, it might have been your introduction to mayall' s comic stylings. however, also like lizzie, fred' s anarchic behaviour has different implications when you meet him again in adulthood .
if you' re of a certain age and, much like phoebe cates' protagonist elizabeth at the beginning of the movie, you haven' t seen fred since you were a child, you may remember it as a childhood staple that you were probably a bit young to be watching. for many, it might have been your introduction to mayall' s comic stylings. however, also like lizzie, fred' s anarchic behavior has different implications when you meet him again in adulthood .
then: prior to playing the booger - flinging fred, the british comedian was famous in the uk for appearances on such comedy shows as & apos; filthy rich & catflap & apos; and & apos; the young ones. & apos ;
the beloved comedy classic - released on april 19, 1991 - centered around lizzie and her childhood imaginary friend fred. it brought us a whole lot of joy, and probably, way too many late blockbuster fees (sorry, mum !) .
the latest confirmed fatality monday came at around noon in porter, a town immediately north of houston in montgomery county. police said a woman in her 60s was napping in her bedroom when a large oak tree landed on top of her mobile home. by the time rescue workers waded through the waist - deep water to rescue the woman, she was dead .
having been imprisoned in the toy for twenty - three years, fred is surprised to find lizzie grown up, depressed and piled under her unhappy life. as her imaginary friend, he tries to help her put things back together and cheer her up like he did when she was little. fred' s sense of humour and disregard for consequences cause some more problems for elizabeth, but he ultimately helps her rediscover her inner child and the strength to live her own life free from her domineering, emotionally abusive mother .
since losing her job elizabeth moves back into her mother' s home. while rummaging through past belongings in her childhood bedroom closet, elizabeth finds a taped - shut jack - in - the - box. she places the box by the window and gets into bed. through a series of flashbacks, it is revealed that while he caused havoc for her, he also gave her happiness and a release from her oppressive mother. elizabeth wakes up to find the jack - in - the - box slowly playing music. she removes the tape and the box continues to play itself, faster and faster, until drop dead fred flies out of the box, finally freed after all these years. he agrees to help her become happy again, which she believes will only happen when she wins back charles. however, his childish antics do more harm than good. he sinks janie' s boat, causes havoc at a restaurant, and even makes lizzie attack a person playing a violin in a shopping mall .
this completely relates to elizabeth’s situation, she hasn’t ever had control over her own life. in childhood her parent’s marital problems were completely out of her control, it was an event that she could not change. her mother makes it clear that she believes elizabeth’s behaviour as a child resulted in her father leaving, and i feel that in the flashbacks, she constantly regrets her actions, which she also had no control over because of, fred. her marriage failing was because she was unable to control charles, which her mother also blames her for. at one point she describes fred as being ‘out of control’ but if we are looking at this as fred being a part of her psyche that she invented to express herself, she is talking about herself and her behaviour – that’s some deep shit .
the film makes no secret of elizabeth having a bad childhood. there are constant hints to her mother (marsha mason) being a tough parent, and even in the opening scenes, elizabeth’s childhood friend, mickey (ron eldard), admits: “we were all a little afraid of your mother”. mickey reminds elizabeth that she had an imaginary friend who ‘made her’ shave his cat and throw yellow paint over his grandmother, all of which she had completely forgotten about. the film deals with the issues surrounding elizabeth’s parents and their divorce, which were all cushioned by drop dead fred. he was there to serve a purpose and that was to help elizabeth cope with these traumatic events of childhood through fun and mischief, and she eventually repressed these memories, which does allude to a deeper, darker pain that she associates with this time in her life. these playful gags can be seen as comedy, or as cries for attention, for help, or, a desperate longing to be accepted by her parents – it can easily be viewed in two different ways .
an aesop: elizabeth' s greatest fear is being alone. after defending herself and freeing her younger self in her dream, fred tells her that all she had to learn was that as long as she had herself and stood up for herself, she was never really alone .
prior to playing fred, comedian rik myall already had a legion of fans from his role as the charismatic lord flashheart in blackadder. he went on to do a bunch of a different projects - from merlin to voicing lord reginald on spongebob squarepants (who knew? !) .
it' s capped by the introduction of the green pills prescribed by the psychologist, whose purpose we first hear of in the waiting room, in the only scene of the movie in which fred is alone. you can still argue for the reading that fred is purely in lizzie' s mind, which is supported by the immediate negative effect of the medication on him, but this scene first upholds the intention that he is' real' enough in the world of the film, even though only she can see him and he is bound to her emotionally .
lizzie' s / fred' s actions include rubbing dog shit on the carpet and asymmetrically cutting her own hair after a makeover designed to make her look just like polly, but also sabotaging lizzie' s healthy relationships by sinking janie' s houseboat and causing a small riot during dinner with a besotted mickey. as in childhood, she' s left blaming fred for each of these seemingly inexplicable aberrations, but before she can get better, she must eventually own up - to herself, if no one else - that she' s scared of winding up alone .
in the movie elizabeth loses her husband and her job, than lizzie' s mother forces elizabeth to live with her again and than begins to start reorganizing elizabeth' s life. while staying in her old room she finds a jack - in - the - box that contains her childhood imaginary friend. she remembers that her mother had locked him in there when she was a child. now, fred cannot leave elizabeth until she is happy again which means getting her husband back and putting her life in order. while doing this though fred is still his old self always causing mischief in lizzie' s life .
“fred' s imaginary, so he can be anything, ” mayall told film 91 during a set visit that was previewed ahead of the film' s uk release date. “he can be over - the - top and loud and stupid and childish... so that means i can be me. ”
another way to look at it is that, the box is symbolic of her childhood, and the removal of the tape was a ritual unlocking of repressed memories, such as abuse and her parents’ divorce – which would have undoubtedly caused some trauma. this theory would also explain why elizabeth was shown at the beginning of this scene crying in her sleep, and then it fades to a flashback of her crying as a child, then fred’s hand comes out from under the pillow and slaps her in the head. that scene in itself is pretty rich in potential meanings, maybe fred hit her because he wanted to toughen her up and help her develop a thick skin so she could cope with her parent’s separation, or maybe fred is the abuser and was asserting his dominance, or maybe, he was just hitting her because he’s being a cheeky shit, and there are no hidden meanings? i dunno, welcome to film psychoanalysis .
while i can’t say that fred is attractive in his cringe - worthy up - skirt gags or certain casually misogynistic sentiments, it’s quite a surprise to discover how tender he is during the film’s quieter final third. like the time he comforts five - year - old lizzie as she berates herself for never doing anything right…
visible to believers: fred is an imaginary friend who was sealed in a jack - in - the - box for many years, until his creator accidentally releases him. presumably if he hadn' t been sealed up he' d have been out in the world even if he had no longer been believed in .
1992: exxon is a prominent member of the global climate coalition (gcc), the most active fossil fuel front group questioning the science of climate change. in 1992 the gcc begins using well - known climate skeptics like patrick michaels, robert balling and fred singer (all partly funded by exxon) as “experts” .
while he spends most of the movie ricocheting around at full volume, he' s not without nuance, especially in the latter parts of the film. fred' s goodbye to lizzie, which takes place in the tim burton - esque home ground of her subconscious, is as touching as the film gets and mayall' s warmth is only more pronounced by virtue of him having been such a shit for the rest of the movie. just a few years later, in 1994, many of the critics who drubbed fred embraced jim carrey for acting just as silly in a trio of more commercial movies, (including the mask) that weren' t about as much.
drop dead fred is a 1991 british-american black comedy fantasy film directed by ate de jong , produced by polygram filmed entertainment and working title films and released and distributed by new line cinema . the film was promoted as a lighthearted children 's film , but there are notable adult themes and gags , and some elements of black comedy , emotional abuse , mental illness , bizarre visual and make-up effects , and profanity . rik mayall starred as the title character : a happy , anarchic , and mischievous imaginary friend of a young girl named elizabeth ( phoebe cates ) and nemesis of her overbearing mother , polly ( marsha mason ) . he causes chaos around the home and neighborhood , but nobody can see him except her . when she grows up and has an emotional crisis , he returns to " cheer her up " in his own unique way , causing more chaos than ever before . the supporting cast included carrie fisher , ron eldard , tim matheson , and bridget fonda . 
drop dead fred is a 1991 british-american black comedy fantasy film directed by ate de jong, produced by polygram filmed entertainment and working title films and released and distributed by new line cinema. the film was promoted as a lighthearted children's film, but there are notable adult themes and gags, and some elements of black comedy, emotional abuse, mental illness, bizarre visual and make-up effects, and profanity. rik mayall starred as the title character: a happy, anarchic, and mischievous imaginary friend of a young girl named elizabeth (phoebe cates) and nemesis of her overbearing mother, polly (marsha mason). he causes chaos around the home and neighborhood, but nobody can see him except her. when she grows up and has an emotional crisis, he returns to " cheer her up " in his own unique way, causing more chaos than ever before. the supporting cast included carrie fisher, ron eldard, tim matheson, and bridget fonda.
drop dead fred is a 1991 british-american black comedy fantasy film directed by ate de jong, produced by polygram filmed entertainment and working title films and released and distributed by new line cinema. the film was promoted as a lighthearted children's film, but there are notable adult themes and gags, and some elements of black comedy, emotional abuse, mental illness, bizarre visual and make-up effects, and profanity. rik mayall starred as the title character: a happy, anarchic, and mischievous imaginary friend of a young girl named elizabeth (phoebe cates) and nemesis of her overbearing mother, polly (marsha mason). he causes chaos around the home and neighborhood, but nobody can see him except her. when she grows up and has an emotional crisis, he returns to " cheer her up " in his own unique way, causing more chaos than ever before. the supporting cast included carrie fisher, ron eldard, tim matheson, and bridget fonda.