- 5/22/2025
Step back to the wild early internet with Fredryk Phox, the OG viral star! From 1999–2004, Matthew Gafford’s bizarre LiveJournal videos—think strobe-lit rants, puppet chaos, and “Ebaum’s dad” skits—lit up eBaum’s World and AlbinoBlackSheep. Before YouTube, his crude humor and editing tricks made him a legend. We dive into his rise, fall, and Star Fox animated series, plus rumors of his furry fandom ties. What’s your favorite Phox moment? Share below! #FredrykPhox #ViralStar #EarlyInternet #2000sNostalgia #eBaumsWorld #AlbinoBlackSheep #InternetCulture #StarFox #FurryFandom #RetroInternet #PopCulture #Throwback #2000s #ViralVideos #InternetHistory #Nostalgia #WeirdVideos #LiveJournal #MySpaceEra #CultClassic #Viral #Humor #InternetLegend #AnimatedSeries #2000sVibes #LostMedia #OGViral
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FunTranscript
00:00:00Hi, I'm Frederick Fox.
00:00:02Why don't I make a video of myself where I'm acting really, really stupid and crazy and retarded?
00:00:20It's 2003. You've just gotten home from school, and you got the family computer all to yourself.
00:00:26You remember the family computer, right?
00:00:28It's the one that you begged your parents to get because the guy on TV said,
00:00:31Dude, you're getting a Dell.
00:00:33Yeah, I'm getting a Dell. Or in my case, the E-Machine.
00:00:37Because my dad knows that this computer is just going to get ruined when I download LimeWire.
00:00:41But, you got some free time.
00:00:43So what do you do?
00:00:44Well, you can play Snood.
00:00:45Maybe download one of them LimeWire songs.
00:00:48Or go see an edgy cartoon on newgrounds.com.
00:00:52Or maybe you go to one of those websites where they host the latest viral videos.
00:00:56In compressed, really crappy quality.
00:00:59Before YouTube came into existence, there were a lot of websites that specialized in hosting the latest viral video.
00:01:06And one of these websites was ebombsworld.com.
00:01:10ebombsworld.com was created by Eric Bauman and his father, Neil.
00:01:15You see, on ebombsworld.com, you'd find the latest viral video...
00:01:19Much more accurately than...
00:01:22Oh, shit.
00:01:24The best in flash animation.
00:01:26Maybe your school allowed you a little extra time and you wanted to play a flash-based game.
00:01:31Or you just wanted to prank your friend with a Judge Judy soundboard.
00:01:35I don't know.
00:01:36You gotta be charged something for stupidity.
00:01:38You do.
00:01:39Correct?
00:01:40Perfect.
00:01:41And then what happens?
00:01:42Or the classic Arnold Schwarzenegger soundboard.
00:01:45Could I speak to the drug dealer of the house, please?
00:01:48You again?
00:01:49Yeah.
00:01:50Listen, man, you got the wrong number.
00:01:52This is... I'm a plumber. Did you reach Murphy's Plumbing?
00:01:54No.
00:01:55What can I do for you?
00:01:56You give me the names of your drug suppliers and distributors,
00:01:59and I'll tell the judge what a nice, cooperative killer you are.
00:02:02And, uh...
00:02:03Hey, wasn't there a Napoleon Dynamite one?
00:02:05Hey, wait a minute.
00:02:06That name kinda looks familiar, doesn't it?
00:02:08That's the guy who did the funny videos.
00:02:10That was Frederick Fox.
00:02:12A name that you would recognize if you were traveling to ebombsworld.com back in the day.
00:02:18I'm going to record myself.
00:02:20In late 2003, a video was uploaded to the website entitled frederickfox.wmv.
00:02:27A simple little video by today's standards.
00:02:30It was just a guy being funny for ten minutes in front of his webcam.
00:02:35Do you get the joke?
00:02:37Do you get what I'm doing?
00:02:38Alone?
00:02:39In my room?
00:02:40While this all looks very mundane by today's standards,
00:02:44you gotta take yourself back to 2003.
00:02:50When creating and putting content online was a much more involved process,
00:02:56Frederick Fox's videos had a very DIY, punk rock kind of aesthetic.
00:03:15I'm fighting for money.
00:03:17He was just taking his normal, everyday recording equipment,
00:03:20the stuff that you and I probably had,
00:03:26and making his own content.
00:03:28We have to keep moving.
00:03:30You can't give in.
00:03:31You must continue.
00:03:33If Frederick Fox could make this type of stuff, what's stopping me?
00:03:37Frederick Fox was creating viral content before creating viral content was really a thing.
00:03:43He was pulling pranks and recording them,
00:03:45basically a prank channel,
00:03:47before prank channels existed.
00:03:49I want that new thing on TV, the Feliz Navidad special.
00:03:55Are you talking about a rant?
00:03:57No, it's the thing on TV, the Feliz Navidad.
00:04:00I just saw the thing on TV.
00:04:04I'm going to continue with it. Go!
00:04:14And he was vlogging before vlogging became a thing.
00:04:18Yeah.
00:04:20It's Furious George.
00:04:24I'm a role model for America.
00:04:27Wait, what is this?
00:04:28I still have this.
00:04:30You know, I always wondered what this part of a pin cushion was for.
00:04:35You ever wonder that at all?
00:04:40And then with his friends, he'd make comedy sketches and put them out online.
00:04:45Hey, I'm Fred and I have friends and stuff.
00:04:50I feel weird.
00:04:52We're going to Walmart after all.
00:04:57What do you do with this? Where do you put it?
00:05:00I'm sure if I brought this home to my dog, it would look up to me and be like,
00:05:04Fred, what the shit is that?
00:05:08And this was before Smosh, Derrick Comedy, Mail Order Comedy.
00:05:12In fact, it was in the same time period as guys like Lonely Island and The Whitest Kids You Know.
00:05:19The first time I saw Frederick Fox, it was on E-Bombs World.
00:05:22He was doing YouTube-style content really 10, 15 years before there was an idea of a YouTuber.
00:05:28Just recording himself in his room on what appeared to be a VHS camcorder.
00:05:33You even see the little timestamps and whatnot in the corner of the videos.
00:05:37I can't help but feel that if he had come out 10 years later than he did,
00:05:42that even though he's well known, people who were around in those days, they remember him fondly.
00:05:46But if he had come out like 10 years later, he's one of those dudes that probably would have been a household name.
00:05:53I can't help but think.
00:05:54And one of the things Frederick Fox was popular for was his lip syncs.
00:05:59This is my recital.
00:06:01I think it's very vital.
00:06:03To rock around.
00:06:04That's right.
00:06:05It's tricky.
00:06:06Here we go!
00:06:17Now he would take a popular song of the time period, or a funny song, and he'd do it the old-fashioned way.
00:06:23He'd put the song on in his room.
00:06:25He'd add the effects and the lip syncing later through a program like Dazzle Video Editor.
00:06:37He'd go through his mini DV camera.
00:06:43Edit it.
00:06:44And then put the video out.
00:06:46Yeah, there was no app back then to automatically sync up your mouth and the song.
00:06:57And Fox would go above and beyond.
00:06:59He'd get his own costumes.
00:07:01Add his own special effects.
00:07:03Try some interesting camera angles.
00:07:06I have fillings in my teeth.
00:07:12If he wanted effects, he had to go to a creative cow forum.
00:07:16How's it going?
00:07:17Hey, what's up?
00:07:19What you doing?
00:07:20Nothing, just...
00:07:23And he really had a sweet spot for impersonating a mid-2000s rapper.
00:07:27My buddy, my buddy, wherever I go, he go.
00:07:32My buddy, my buddy...
00:07:34From my research, Frederick Fox comes across as a guy with a bigger vision.
00:07:38He didn't just want to make simple web videos.
00:07:41He wasn't just talking to his camera.
00:07:43He actually wanted to create something.
00:07:45And it wasn't easy back then.
00:07:47There were so many extra steps that you had to take to get the content off your mini DV camera,
00:07:54to then put it on your computer,
00:07:57I guess we got everything on the list with the creamers and...
00:08:01your firewire cable.
00:08:05and then also edit that from your computer,
00:08:08and then figure out how to distribute it online.
00:08:11Has been distributed.
00:08:18Online.
00:08:21There was more to Fox than his offensive statements.
00:08:27I'm so happy. You make me laugh.
00:08:30His outrageous content.
00:08:34I'm getting all flustered in here.
00:08:36And his lip-syncs.
00:08:42So how did Frederick Fox get his internet fame?
00:08:45Well, enter in Eric Bauman.
00:08:47Hey, Eric.
00:08:49Yeah?
00:08:50The owner and creator of ebaumsworld.com.
00:08:53ebaumsworld was the go-to place to find anything that was worth talking about on the internet.
00:08:59Have you ever thought of just making this website full of funny videos?
00:09:05No.
00:09:07But Eric Bauman and his father Neil were also notorious for their shady business practices.
00:09:13Who made it?
00:09:14I don't know. It doesn't say on the guy's back.
00:09:17But I could look it up if you really want to.
00:09:19Just go ahead and put it up.
00:09:21A lot of content creators would find their work stolen,
00:09:24and then placed on Eric's website.
00:09:27So, you do the hard work,
00:09:29and Eric Bauman gets to have all the notoriety and the money from it.
00:09:34And I know that this is true,
00:09:36because I made a mashup of Saved by the Bell on Shark Tank,
00:09:39and, well, ebaumsworld stole it,
00:09:42zoomed in,
00:09:43and cut off my watermark,
00:09:45which they were notorious for doing.
00:09:47So, this G4 article where Michael Parker of ebaumsworld states that they don't steal?
00:09:53Yeah. B.S.
00:09:55ebaumsworld was constantly getting sued by the people that had their content stolen.
00:10:00But ebaumsworld's position was,
00:10:03hey, we sell ads on our page.
00:10:05We make our money off ads.
00:10:07Not your videos.
00:10:09And one of these content creators who had their work put on ebaumsworld.com
00:10:13was Frederick Fox.
00:10:15Some guy named ebaum187 instant messaged on your laptop.
00:10:21I mean, do you know this guy or anything like that?
00:10:23Frederick Fox even created a three-part series about his dealings with Eric Bauman.
00:10:28Your video is up on number one humor site of internet.
00:10:32Uh, cool. Thanks, I guess.
00:10:36If this series is to be believed,
00:10:38Eric reached out to Frederick Fox
00:10:41and told him that his videos would be put on the website.
00:10:44You seriously never heard of my site?
00:10:47Not until you mentioned it to me.
00:10:49Sorry. I don't really surf the net much.
00:10:52I just kinda swim around in it.
00:10:54Eric Bauman and Frederick Fox reached an agreement that,
00:10:57sure, you can put these videos on your website.
00:11:00They're not anything that I care about now.
00:11:03At the time, Frederick Fox was more into his Flash animation.
00:11:07Yo-dee-do-dee-do.
00:11:09Oh-dee-do-dee-do-dee-do.
00:11:12Hey, Fred. The animation's done.
00:11:16Let's see.
00:11:19Wait, you want me to play it again?
00:11:21Yeah.
00:11:22Alright.
00:11:23And he wasn't even making this style of video anymore.
00:11:26You know when you're filming all that stupid crap from IRC
00:11:30in front of your computer a long, long time ago?
00:11:33Oh, yeah, when my hair was bald and I was all like,
00:11:35it rhymes with dick and you're a faggot and bouncing up and down.
00:11:39Yeah.
00:11:40I thought those were dead,
00:11:41but he keeps saying he wants to put them on his site or something.
00:11:43Oh, hell. It won't hurt to talk to him.
00:11:45I haven't heard of the bastard, but shit.
00:11:48These videos were actually two years old by this point,
00:11:51and these videos were honestly just created
00:11:53to entertain Frederick Fox's LiveJournal friends.
00:11:56I had an LJ back in the day,
00:11:59and that's the only place I ever posted him.
00:12:02They were never intended to be seen by anyone outside of that circle.
00:12:06Hello, boys and girls.
00:12:08This is your old pal Stinky Weasel Teeth.
00:12:12This is a song about a whale.
00:12:14No!
00:12:16This is a song about being happy.
00:12:19That's right.
00:12:21It kind of reminds me of the Angry Video Game Nerd story,
00:12:24where the very first few episodes were just for James' friends,
00:12:28and then suddenly Mike goes and shares them on this new site called YouTube,
00:12:32and it becomes a big hit series.
00:12:34When Frederick Fox's videos got posted to ebombsworld.com,
00:12:37they took off.
00:12:39Lol.
00:12:40Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you.
00:12:42You're going to be famous.
00:12:46All right. I'll talk to you later.
00:12:49People were very interested in this eccentric weirdo,
00:12:53and Frederick was quick to capitalize on this.
00:12:55See, the interesting thing is I make a few of these every day out of boredom,
00:13:00and I put them together, and people seem to think they're funny.
00:13:04I was known as Frederick Fox from, like, 2003 to, you know, whenever now, apparently.
00:13:11And I made all these funny videos back in 2003 before YouTube,
00:13:15and I got kind of famous to where, you know, I'd go to the mall,
00:13:17and people would be like, oh, I saw your ebombsworld albino black sheep video.
00:13:23Back then, it was just a lot easier to impress people.
00:13:26Being able to create and edit and put out your own content,
00:13:30that was mind-blowing.
00:13:32People just didn't do that.
00:13:34It got to where there were just so many people that knew who I was and everything.
00:13:39Like, I couldn't go out in public without someone coming up and being like,
00:13:42oh, hey, you're the ebombs Frederick Fox guy. Your stuff's really funny.
00:13:46Why are you wearing only one sock, Jonathan?
00:13:53I don't know.
00:13:54I think you do know, Jonathan.
00:13:57I think we all know.
00:14:00Dirty, wicked little boy.
00:14:02And Frederick would spend the years of 2003 and 2004 posting as often as he could,
00:14:07which is crazy because 2003-2004 is still three years away from the first boom of YouTubers.
00:14:15Frederick Fox seems like the kind of guy who would have crushed it on early YouTube,
00:14:19but he missed out.
00:14:21And through my research, that might have been a good thing for him.
00:14:24And now I see everybody on YouTube, they put out a new video,
00:14:28and they get like 30 million views in the first couple days.
00:14:31I can't imagine what that would be like.
00:14:34He was never going to be the face of YouTube when you look at his content.
00:14:39Ooh!
00:14:40I like playing with the children.
00:14:45It's...
00:14:49something I like to do.
00:14:50And the man himself doesn't seem like the type of guy
00:14:53who would even have wanted to be the face of YouTube.
00:14:56The lowest common denominator YouTube channels,
00:14:58the ones that have like 30 million viewers,
00:15:00and they always start out with,
00:15:02What's up, YouTube?
00:15:03This is monkeybuttfinger69.
00:15:06Hit that like and subscribe and ring that mother...
00:15:11bell.
00:15:12You know, every single video that you go on YouTube,
00:15:15and they've got the colorful fake plants and everything behind them.
00:15:17What's up?
00:15:18What's up?
00:15:19Okay, so yesterday, I saw this video,
00:15:21and you know, I just...
00:15:24I can't.
00:15:25It's like...
00:15:28like a marionette doll.
00:15:30And there's many, many reasons
00:15:32he would never be the face of a YouTube-like company.
00:15:39In the early days of the Internet,
00:15:41it seemed like people were taking a lot of the content creators
00:15:45at face value.
00:15:47This guy who yells at video games?
00:15:49Well, that's probably how he acts about everything.
00:15:52There's no way that these people
00:15:54were just playing a character
00:15:56or exaggerating their personalities.
00:15:58Welcome to my first video
00:16:00where I actually have decent lighting.
00:16:03I'm walking through my living room.
00:16:05I'm out of my room. Look at that.
00:16:07With the fires of hell, I invoke thee.
00:16:12Sorry.
00:16:13Oh, snap. I think the ceiling's on fire.
00:16:16Wow, Frederick Fox outside.
00:16:18Let alone outside of his room.
00:16:20Oh, I can tell this guy is nuts.
00:16:25Oh, shit!
00:16:29And people would take this video
00:16:31that they see on eBaum's World,
00:16:33and they'd post it to their forum,
00:16:35where some people would think,
00:16:37this is the funniest thing I've ever seen,
00:16:39and then others would be like,
00:16:41yeah, I had to turn it off like two minutes in.
00:16:44You're gonna get people that are gonna get on here
00:16:46and say, you suck, you're ugly, you're stupid,
00:16:48you need to hang yourself and die
00:16:50and get in a car wreck and burn in a fire.
00:16:52All these people just assume that they're all 13
00:16:55and they're on YouTube.
00:16:57That's literally what they are.
00:16:59They're usually 13-year-olds or they're 20-something
00:17:01and they have serious issues.
00:17:03Never let that get you down.
00:17:05Even before YouTube existed,
00:17:07when I did all my funny videos and stuff,
00:17:09people would find my mom's cell phone number
00:17:11and call my mom and tell her
00:17:13horrible, disgusting, awful things.
00:17:15It's unreal.
00:17:17Doxxing and stuff back then
00:17:19probably wasn't as bad as it is now,
00:17:21but yeah, you will get people like that.
00:17:23But with a little perspective
00:17:25and looking back at the actual videos themselves,
00:17:27how did people not see that
00:17:29Frederick Fox was just a character?
00:17:31He knows deep down inside
00:17:33that no one likes him or thinks he's funny
00:17:35or thinks he's skilled at art
00:17:37or flash or funny videos at all.
00:17:39This isn't funny.
00:17:41These dudes are gay.
00:17:43We're from the internet.
00:17:45There's so many times in his videos
00:17:47where he winks at the camera.
00:17:55I just can't believe it.
00:17:57This is just stupid.
00:17:59It's retarded.
00:18:09What the fuck are you waiting for?
00:18:11I'm not looking for anything.
00:18:29He makes a reference like,
00:18:31what am I even filming?
00:18:39No.
00:18:41I didn't do that.
00:18:43I swear to...
00:18:45Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
00:18:47Oh.
00:18:49Oh.
00:18:51Oh.
00:18:53He leaves in a blooper.
00:18:55You got a bunch of holes,
00:18:57but you ain't got any nails to fill them with.
00:18:59Get some nail hole filler
00:19:01and, uh, shit.
00:19:05Don't.
00:19:07Please.
00:19:13I really stuck my finger up my nose
00:19:15and put it in my mouth.
00:19:19That's disgusting.
00:19:21He has disclaimers.
00:19:23And that early content gives off the vibe
00:19:25that, yeah, you actually weren't meant to see this.
00:19:27This was an in-joke between
00:19:29him and his friend.
00:19:31Let us now search the internet
00:19:33for pornography.
00:19:35Hmm. Where to start?
00:19:37Hmm.
00:19:41Yes.
00:19:43www.
00:19:45filthy midget
00:19:47suck whores dot com
00:19:49Hmm.
00:19:51Oh, yes.
00:19:53It's an intimate
00:19:55type of comedy.
00:19:57Fuck you!
00:19:59I'm gonna break you off
00:20:01and eat you and shit you out.
00:20:03This is the type of thing
00:20:05that you'd share between you and your friends.
00:20:07Hi, I'm Frederick Fox
00:20:09and this is my impersonation of a retarded
00:20:11child trying to do a call-out
00:20:13to G-Unit.
00:20:15G-Unit.
00:20:17G-Unit.
00:20:23So when I'm watching this comedy,
00:20:25I'm like, well, it's a funny thing
00:20:27that he makes that I know about.
00:20:29Now I gotta let my friends know about it.
00:20:31And only cool people
00:20:33know about Frederick Fox.
00:20:35So you'll quote him with your friends.
00:20:37Kurt Cobain will never die.
00:20:39Word.
00:20:41But the adults
00:20:43in the room don't know what we're talking about
00:20:45when I say, pick.
00:20:47Rhymes with dick.
00:20:49Well, you can finish the joke.
00:20:51And you're a faggot.
00:20:53But the teacher over there? They don't know.
00:20:55He's retarded.
00:20:57Retard.
00:20:59Retard.
00:21:01You're a retard.
00:21:03Since these videos
00:21:05were made for Frederick Fox's LiveJournal
00:21:07friends, he was gonna be as
00:21:09edgy in his comedy as he wanted to be.
00:21:11The people who were gonna watch this
00:21:13weren't gonna be offended by anything that Fox was doing.
00:21:15They already knew Fox.
00:21:17We're here today at the 12x12
00:21:19Backwoods Nightclub
00:21:21known as the Molestation
00:21:23Chamber to express
00:21:25our interest in the new deals
00:21:27they have running on Capri Sun and other
00:21:29candies known to children as their
00:21:31favorites.
00:21:33If he said or did anything
00:21:35edgy with his comedy?
00:21:37It's like a monsoon!
00:21:39Monsoon!
00:21:41Only four or five people are gonna see it
00:21:43so, what's the big deal?
00:21:45You think the current creators
00:21:47on YouTube today are edgy?
00:21:49They have nothing on Frederick Fox.
00:21:53He's snorting coke
00:21:55in his room.
00:21:59Hello.
00:22:01Pussy.
00:22:03Pretty pussy.
00:22:05Pretty pussy likes to be
00:22:07spanked.
00:22:09But this was the wild west of
00:22:11internet comedy.
00:22:13Everything was worth an attempt.
00:22:15It's what made a Newgrounds cartoon
00:22:17funnier than a TV cartoon.
00:22:19Throw her against the ropes, get her attention
00:22:21and when she comes back
00:22:23Wham! Hit her with the kick and she'll
00:22:25hit the floor. After that
00:22:27she'll be yours. Nothing was getting
00:22:29filtered. If you wanted to shock your
00:22:31friend, all you'd have to do is go to their computer
00:22:33and, ha ha, hey, have you seen
00:22:35Frederick Fox?
00:22:37I teach you how to stunt.
00:22:39My wrist stay rocked up, my TV is
00:22:41propped up in the MiBay bins. I teach
00:22:43you how to stunt. And then like a minute
00:22:45in, your friend would be like,
00:22:47Whoa, you can make this kind
00:22:49of stuff? Baby, I love you
00:22:51How many tits you got in your ass?
00:22:53Oh, puppy, you're the
00:22:55best dog in the world.
00:22:57Yes, she is. And as I
00:22:59found out through an interview years later,
00:23:01it wasn't like this content was being created
00:23:03just to offend. Uh, don't
00:23:05be triggered. Don't be triggered.
00:23:07The man behind Frederick Fox has
00:23:09an attitude of, you need
00:23:11to lighten up. Everything was done
00:23:13for a joke. I'm a little
00:23:15rough around the edges. I am,
00:23:17I'm slightly offensive.
00:23:19I will never go out of my way to directly
00:23:21hurt anyone's feelings. I do ask
00:23:23that people have just a little tiny
00:23:25bit of a backbone and a little bit
00:23:27of an extra layer of skin.
00:23:29If you're offended, he didn't
00:23:31mean to offend you. In fact,
00:23:33he's the kind of guy who wants
00:23:35to make everyone happy.
00:23:37And, uh, yes, Nettie is a little
00:23:39person. Is that the right? Yep.
00:23:41But you also have to meet him
00:23:43halfway, and that way we
00:23:45can all get along,
00:23:47and all have a laugh. No racism
00:23:49or homophobia
00:23:51or, like, any edgy
00:23:53crap like that. I kind of took
00:23:55the man behind Frederick Fox as a
00:23:57bit of a centrist. He sees both
00:23:59sides of the argument from both
00:24:01sides of the aisle. I mean, if you've seen this stuff
00:24:03on YouTube, there's so many YouTube
00:24:05channels of people, you know, the
00:24:07pro-SJW, anti-SJW,
00:24:09and all that political
00:24:11garbage, and, like,
00:24:13the comics gate, or gamer gate,
00:24:15or whatever gate stuff that people talk about.
00:24:17Like, I have no horse in that race,
00:24:19so I can't really make a bet one way or
00:24:21another. From many
00:24:23types of viewpoints, and he just
00:24:25wants to figure out where the truth
00:24:27lies. And I'm sure there
00:24:29are important issues in there that do need
00:24:31to be discussed one way or another. It's just
00:24:33I've never been
00:24:35in that environment, just like with
00:24:37the gamer gate thing. And I think
00:24:39it's because the content he created
00:24:41was during a more simple
00:24:43time on the internet, where
00:24:45creators weren't afraid to tackle
00:24:47taboo subjects. A guy
00:24:49like Frederick Fox would tackle
00:24:51rap culture.
00:24:53You fuck with me, I ain't
00:24:55get my AK, my Tech-9,
00:24:57Mac-10, all that glock slinging
00:24:59talk, man. I ain't gonna deal
00:25:01with that on your ass. I get
00:25:03out my little pussy gun for whooping
00:25:05your pussy ass. And the
00:25:07certain types of dialect.
00:25:09Yo, dawg, what's going on?
00:25:11Yeah, we gonna get us some white girls
00:25:13tonight. And slang.
00:25:15See on the corner of Bream Street and
00:25:17Marbles Avenue, we are intellectual
00:25:19thugs. That means we fight
00:25:21intellectually for our brothers
00:25:23and our sisters. And then
00:25:25he'd go about parodying a
00:25:2750 Cent. And where you
00:25:29would parody Little John at the time period,
00:25:31Fox was actually
00:25:33filming it, and putting it out there for
00:25:35the world to see.
00:25:37You got a pocket full of money, nigga, I don't
00:25:39give a fuck. You're drinking up with your mom,
00:25:41bitch, I don't give a fuck. And nobody
00:25:43back then was thinking, oh, this is hateful.
00:25:45Get the wig, dawg.
00:25:47Oh,
00:25:49look at my crack lighter.
00:25:51We gonna rock it up like
00:25:53Mike, Mike, what's his name?
00:25:55No, they just saw this guy and said,
00:25:57heh, he's an entertainer.
00:25:59And this is funny.
00:26:01I don't want your weed.
00:26:03Too
00:26:05many stems and seeds.
00:26:07Take it back,
00:26:09and give me my money
00:26:11before I recognize
00:26:13on your ass.
00:26:15But then again, content like this,
00:26:17Man, I'm gonna fuck you up,
00:26:19man, fuck you up.
00:26:21You don't say shit.
00:26:23You better step off, you're about to get blasted, nigga.
00:26:25Lose the mask,
00:26:27bitch. Hell
00:26:29no, nigga. Makes me wanna
00:26:31kill a brother, right out
00:26:33of a good book like Cain and Abel.
00:26:35You know what all blacks invented?
00:26:37Fucking rock and roll.
00:26:39I don't think black people ever invented peanut butter
00:26:41and street lights, and I hate both of them.
00:26:43That hasn't aged as well.
00:26:45In the other part of
00:26:47Frederick Fox's comedy,
00:26:53was a heavy amount
00:26:55of gay jokes.
00:26:57See, outside of the camera,
00:26:59I may be a zombie, but I'm also
00:27:01a person.
00:27:03This guy loved to end half his
00:27:05punchlines with some sort of
00:27:07You're gay. Liberace
00:27:09eats your gay out.
00:27:11This is gay.
00:27:13Try not to smear anymore gay on this video.
00:27:17That was gay.
00:27:19Yes, it's a beautiful day here today at the
00:27:21Garrison Estate, where hundreds of middle-aged
00:27:23homosexual men from around the world
00:27:25have gathered to hear the notorious
00:27:27gay Garrison himself
00:27:29speak on behalf of the gay political party
00:27:31known as the Homocrats.
00:27:33I believe this is him
00:27:35here now. And when using
00:27:37this term, he said it in
00:27:39the context that we would back in the day
00:27:41where it actually meant
00:27:43lame or stupid.
00:27:45Gays will still
00:27:47say this
00:27:49with their gayest
00:27:51hours.
00:27:53Gay.
00:27:55It could be better explained in this
00:27:57South Park episode, but
00:27:59that wasn't the only term he used.
00:28:01I am an angel descended from
00:28:03the heavens above.
00:28:05And you
00:28:07are a faggot.
00:28:09With a
00:28:11faggot.
00:28:13It appears your film
00:28:15has been interrupted
00:28:17because you're a faggot.
00:28:19And he used it.
00:28:21Fuck you, Pinky! Why can't you move
00:28:23one inch to the left?
00:28:25You faggot finger!
00:28:27You get joey the faggot duck.
00:28:29It takes a lot of guts to talk
00:28:31to your friends about their problems being a
00:28:33furry faggot, but it could mean
00:28:35all the difference. A lot.
00:28:37I am alone.
00:28:39And you are a faggot. Like a lot
00:28:41a lot. Special delivery.
00:28:43Faggot.
00:28:51Okay, he can stop.
00:28:53You called him a faggot.
00:28:55Oh, you messaged me.
00:28:57Okay, he used it a lot.
00:28:59We're
00:29:01coming to you live from...
00:29:05Actually, I
00:29:07have no idea where I could go with this one.
00:29:09I look
00:29:11like such a fag. Look at this. It's like...
00:29:13But
00:29:15here's the M. Night Shyamalan
00:29:17type twist.
00:29:19Why don't I have all the chicks?
00:29:21The reason Fox used that term a lot
00:29:23was he himself
00:29:25was gay.
00:29:27I'm gay. I don't
00:29:29really, my opinion on it,
00:29:31I'm a very conservative
00:29:33gay person. I don't want people to look
00:29:35at me and go, oh, he must be gay.
00:29:37Or, oh, he must be this or that.
00:29:39I don't make it anybody's business.
00:29:41I know some people, even if
00:29:43they're supportive of it, some
00:29:45extended discussion of it might make them feel
00:29:47uncomfortable. There's a million other subjects
00:29:49in the world that fit that same
00:29:51descriptor, and I just
00:29:53don't force anything on anybody. I don't like
00:29:55to talk about it. It's not that
00:29:57I don't want to talk about it. It's just I don't care
00:29:59about talking about it. It's not an issue
00:30:01for me. And I don't think he was out at
00:30:03the time. Thou shalt
00:30:05not suck dick. Take
00:30:07that ass, bitch, and let me
00:30:09see what you... Oh, it's a guy.
00:30:11I talk an awful lot about
00:30:13penis lately. In fact, this one
00:30:15interview I found seems to make
00:30:17mention that he used to date girls,
00:30:19but he knew that he
00:30:21was a gay man. Like, for
00:30:23real, late teens. Late teens.
00:30:25Before that, I was like,
00:30:27sex? What? Is that like...
00:30:29What? Ew. I was...
00:30:31I wasn't really sexually
00:30:33active. So it's interesting
00:30:35that, while feeling that way,
00:30:37he was making this type of joke.
00:30:39I'm from Vincent!
00:30:41Oh, this is big! This is
00:30:43a display of gay, faggot, queer
00:30:45cock!
00:30:47Wait, I need to
00:30:49pick my nose. You too, huh?
00:30:51You're such a queer!
00:30:53The real
00:30:55Frederick Fox is a man named
00:30:57Matthew Gafford. Oh, it's like when I went back
00:30:59to my hometown. Everyone's like, oh, man!
00:31:01I haven't seen you forever! You remember when we used
00:31:03to make fun of you and call you Matt
00:31:05Gayford? Man, I
00:31:07remember that! We made fun of you all the time,
00:31:09didn't we, bro? Man! And I'm just standing there
00:31:11like, this is a
00:31:13topic of conversation I really didn't
00:31:15expect you guys to dwell on for five
00:31:17minutes. As of present day,
00:31:19he's engaged to a man.
00:31:21That man is a comic book store owner
00:31:23named Greg. And he met Greg
00:31:25through my cartoon, actually. He was on one of my
00:31:27livestreams. He joined my Discord.
00:31:29I have a Discord. So you have to wonder
00:31:31how Matthew Gafford feels today
00:31:33looking back at the stuff he was posting
00:31:35back then, knowing how his life
00:31:37is currently. Greg and I can
00:31:39eat at a restaurant,
00:31:41and if he wants to put his hand on mine,
00:31:43or we can, you know, hold hands
00:31:45in a store or
00:31:47something and not be worried about it.
00:31:49And if you were a viewer, you couldn't
00:31:51tell what his sexual preference was.
00:31:53Titties, ass, titties,
00:31:55ass, ass, titties, titties.
00:31:57Rap music kind of makes me want to have
00:31:59anal sex with a girl. Tell her
00:32:01you want to suck her dick.
00:32:03I mean, wait, I said that wrong.
00:32:05And that's because
00:32:07the man behind Frederick Fox, Matthew
00:32:09Gafford, has a policy that
00:32:11he likes to keep his private life
00:32:13private. I don't like to advertise
00:32:15it, but yeah. And he'd even
00:32:17go as far as calling himself a
00:32:19conservative, manly gay.
00:32:21I don't like the pride parade.
00:32:23His terms, not mine.
00:32:25There's one other subject
00:32:27that pops up a lot in the
00:32:29old Frederick Fox videos. Who's going
00:32:31to answer a few of our questions concerning
00:32:33the furry fandom. And that subject is
00:32:35furries. Hi.
00:32:37My name's Bramble Dog, and I'm a
00:32:39furry. Frederick Fox
00:32:41is a self-admitted furry. Well,
00:32:43I got into the whole furry
00:32:45fandom thing. I mean, I was doomed
00:32:47from the beginning. Just one day I woke up
00:32:49and just started drawing, you know, fox
00:32:51people with machine guns shooting
00:32:53aliens and stuff like that when I was
00:32:55eight.
00:32:57And, uh, how did we not know
00:32:59that?
00:33:01Oh, take
00:33:03me home!
00:33:05Hey, you can stop
00:33:07now. The amount of
00:33:09insider references. Have you ever purchased
00:33:11any comic books from rabbitvalley.com?
00:33:13The constant gags that
00:33:15involve the stuffed animal. Yay, buddy!
00:33:17And
00:33:19since his stage name was Fox,
00:33:21his fursona was obviously
00:33:23a fox. So therefore it's
00:33:25unrealistic, and
00:33:27there's no homoeroticism
00:33:29involved in this picture at all, and
00:33:31therefore deems itself
00:33:33unacceptable. And now
00:33:35it's time for America's favorite daytime
00:33:37fun show, Name
00:33:39That Furry Fetish!
00:33:41And am I wrong, but does
00:33:43Frederick Fox sound like Mike Mattei here?
00:33:45I don't know what I'm doing!
00:33:47What am I doing?
00:33:49Oh my goodness!
00:33:51Oh my goodness!
00:33:53Ah!
00:33:59It's a golf club caddy,
00:34:01you pervert. Frederick Fox
00:34:03is going to furry conventions.
00:34:05This con is so awesome.
00:34:07I'm feeling so furry.
00:34:09Tattooing
00:34:11furry art on his leg.
00:34:13And at first, he's kind of trying to play
00:34:15this off ironically.
00:34:17So yeah, we're at the con, and we're trying to make
00:34:19peace with the furries by
00:34:21wearing the ears
00:34:23to let them know that we
00:34:25don't want to be in harm.
00:34:27It's so fit!
00:34:29Guys, guys, what the fuck, man? Come on.
00:34:31Leave that furry dude alone.
00:34:33We got more important shit to do.
00:34:35Alright, let's go.
00:34:37Boy!
00:34:39Like, sure, I draw
00:34:41conservative furry comics where my
00:34:43characters meet Ann Coulter,
00:34:45but I do it as a joke, guys.
00:34:47It has come to my understanding that you
00:34:49are with something awful and have plans
00:34:51to sabotage the furry convention.
00:34:53Now don't make me call the cops.
00:34:55Hey, that's harassment, and that's illegal.
00:34:57Yeah, dude, you gotta understand
00:34:59it's, like, not cool. We're on public property.
00:35:01We know you're with S.A.
00:35:03We're not doing anything wrong.
00:35:05I've heard from several individuals
00:35:07that you are with somethingawful.com
00:35:09and have plans to sabotage
00:35:11the entire convention.
00:35:13No butts at a furry convention.
00:35:15I'm doing my job, alright?
00:35:17I only go to furry conventions to laugh
00:35:19at the people at the event.
00:35:21But, like his sexual preferences,
00:35:23he was a closeted furry
00:35:25since his teens.
00:35:29...
00:35:31...
00:35:33...
00:35:35...
00:35:37I found out that there were other people
00:35:39on the internet that liked animal people.
00:35:41And, uh, take a wild guess where
00:35:43his furry obsession came from.
00:35:45I was really unhealthily obsessed
00:35:47with Sonic the Hedgehog until
00:35:49I got the internet.
00:35:51And, uh,
00:35:53that was about, I was about ten years old.
00:35:55Ten or eleven.
00:35:57...
00:35:59...
00:36:01...
00:36:03...
00:36:05...
00:36:07...
00:36:09...
00:36:11...
00:36:13...
00:36:15...
00:36:17...
00:36:19...
00:36:21...
00:36:23...
00:36:25...
00:36:27...
00:36:29...
00:36:31...
00:36:33...
00:36:35...
00:36:37...
00:36:39...
00:36:41...
00:36:43...
00:36:45...
00:36:47...
00:36:49...
00:36:51...
00:36:53...
00:36:55...
00:36:57Well, he was just a kid
00:36:59obsessed with making art.
00:37:01...
00:37:03...
00:37:05...
00:37:07...
00:37:09...
00:37:11...
00:37:13...
00:37:15...
00:37:17...
00:37:19...
00:37:21...
00:37:23...
00:37:25...
00:37:27...
00:37:29...
00:37:31...
00:37:33...
00:37:35...
00:37:37...
00:37:39...
00:37:41...
00:37:43...
00:37:45...
00:37:47...
00:37:49We're not on bad terms or anything.
00:37:50I just, last time I talked to him, he's just like,
00:37:52oh, what you doing?
00:37:53We just don't have really that much in common.
00:37:56Right, right.
00:37:57That's all, and we met too late in life.
00:37:59So just like, I'm doing my own thing
00:38:01that has nothing to do with anything
00:38:03that you're interested in.
00:38:04Frederick was born in South Florida.
00:38:06I grew up in South Florida, you know,
00:38:08Hillsborough County, Polk County, that whole area.
00:38:11Lived there till I was 20.
00:38:12And raised Southern Baptists.
00:38:14I went to church when I was a little kid,
00:38:15and then we kinda didn't do the church thing.
00:38:18My mother is like,
00:38:21totally conservative Southern Baptist God all the way.
00:38:24Frederick would credit his mom for his creative skills.
00:38:28Yeah, I lived with my mom most of my life.
00:38:30My mom was into quilting and sewing and sculpting.
00:38:34Which he says that his sister also inherited.
00:38:37My sister was the artist, and she's the writer.
00:38:40This is what I would usually call a Fox family moment.
00:38:44I'm here with my lovely sister from Tucson, Arizona,
00:38:49from her little goat farm.
00:38:52When he turned 20, Frederick Fox would move up to Tennessee.
00:38:56Well, once I moved to Tennessee,
00:38:57that's where my family, half of my family's from Tennessee,
00:39:00the other half's from Virginia.
00:39:02This would be the location that you see
00:39:04in his earliest viral videos.
00:39:07That's all ours.
00:39:10It all belongs to us.
00:39:11Girl, sorry, I don't wanna get you
00:39:14in some kind of gender crisis.
00:39:16Hey, you dirty, hey, you dirty.
00:39:18Oh, she's my dog, she's my dog, shut up.
00:39:21And he really was just a Southern boy.
00:39:24His residents would often be out in the sticks.
00:39:27What's really insane, you look up here, check this out.
00:39:30It's coming down out of my woods.
00:39:33Had a conservative upbringing,
00:39:35and what comes across as libertarian beliefs.
00:39:38I keep to myself anyway, I'm extremely conservative,
00:39:41I don't like to start any trouble.
00:39:42He also showed an interest in firearms,
00:39:45which you can see in many of his videos.
00:39:47Hi, my name is Clay, and I'm a pot, and I'm a dog.
00:39:51And was big about protecting the Second Amendment.
00:39:53He was a big fan of the idea of a gun,
00:39:56and he was a big fan of the idea of a gun.
00:39:58And was big about protecting the Second Amendment.
00:40:04The problem with the early days of the internet
00:40:06was you could strike big, you could get all the views,
00:40:09but how do you monetize that?
00:40:11YouTube wasn't around, so Frederick Fox
00:40:13is gonna have a hard time monetizing on all his hard work.
00:40:17I need the spotlight, but not so bright.
00:40:22Well, what do you do?
00:40:23Well, you could try to get a show on MTV.
00:40:26E-Bomb's World was about to be a show
00:40:28on MTV, but Fox was too raw at one point.
00:40:29Maybe he could use that newfound fame
00:40:31and go out and audition in California.
00:40:33Fox just tried to keep the momentum going.
00:40:36He got new equipment, and he made new sketches.
00:40:39This would lead to the Frederick Fox show
00:40:41that you could buy on DVD.
00:40:43And it's gonna be just as racy
00:40:45and as offensive as you were used to.
00:40:51I got my bitches, my niggas, my guns, my cars,
00:40:54my mansions, my pools, my jet airplanes.
00:40:57Nigga, I will kill you.
00:40:59Nigga, no, you won't.
00:41:00Hell yes, nigga, I'll show you shit.
00:41:02Pull the trigger, nigga, do it.
00:41:03And I got my nugs, and I slug them straight.
00:41:07Fuck that shit.
00:41:08On April 6, 2006, Frederick Fox's LiveJournal
00:41:12would let the fans know that they hit a real snag
00:41:15with this DVD.
00:41:16One of the sketch performers had developed
00:41:18a serious drug problem and now was refusing
00:41:21to allow the others to sell content where he was included.
00:41:24Since this person was so key
00:41:26to the ongoing storyline that was filmed,
00:41:28Frederick Fox couldn't cut him out of the project.
00:41:31The project was scrapped and released online
00:41:34and would become one of the many failed projects
00:41:36that halted the viral momentum that Frederick Fox had.
00:41:39October 2006 would mention a game that Fox was creating,
00:41:43but I couldn't find anything more about this game,
00:41:46so another failed project.
00:41:48And December 2006 would find him looking to sell PS3s
00:41:53preloaded with Fox's original videos.
00:41:55He was struggling to make any profit off his hard work.
00:41:58Now, in this day and age,
00:42:00JonTron can go to a charity event
00:42:02where he sells off props that he used on his show
00:42:06and get thousands of dollars for charity.
00:42:08Well, back then, Frederick Fox was gonna sell off
00:42:10some stuff that he used in his web videos.
00:42:13Yes, this auction is for real.
00:42:15I'm not bullshitting you.
00:42:17And he even offered to make custom songs.
00:42:20You get a song that I write about you.
00:42:23Give me your personal information
00:42:24and whatever else you wanna tell me.
00:42:28♪ You got on eBay to bid on my auction ♪
00:42:35♪ What kind of things were you drinking ♪
00:42:42♪ I can't believe you are the winner ♪
00:42:46John Doe, that'll change.
00:42:49And he was doing this
00:42:49to be able to buy better recording equipment.
00:42:54I'm going to sell this on eBay
00:42:55and I'm going to make a lot of money.
00:42:56Get the Windex bottle.
00:42:59And the pick that's right next to the point.
00:43:02And yet, they still labeled him as an e-beggar.
00:43:05When I emailed Matthew Gafford,
00:43:07he would tell me that he never really attempted
00:43:10to monetize off his success.
00:43:12With this kind of reception, I can see why.
00:43:15Even though E-Bombs World had brought him his viral fame,
00:43:19Frederick Fox had enough of Eric Bowman's shady dealings.
00:43:22I went to 7-Eleven today
00:43:24and the guy behind the counter told me I was funny.
00:43:28I asked him why
00:43:30and he said something about my video on ebombsworld.com.
00:43:35If this web sketch is to be believed,
00:43:38the downfall may have happened
00:43:40when one of Fox's animations were stolen
00:43:42and posted to E-Bombs World.
00:43:45All of 2004, I was doing a couple
00:43:47of Flash animations on the side.
00:43:50Hey Eric, I found this Flash on some guy's live journal.
00:43:53It's really funny.
00:43:56Okay.
00:43:57Well, yeah, I was thinking that we could put it up
00:43:59on the site.
00:44:00Foxy Fluffs are dust on the floor.
00:44:02Foxy Fluffs are phone dialers.
00:44:05Foxy Fluffs are window breakers.
00:44:09Foxy Fluffs are everything.
00:44:12But I'm gonna take this evidence with a grain of salt
00:44:15because the rest of the story of Eric Bowman
00:44:18is about Eric Bowman and his father being kidnapped
00:44:21by ninjas.
00:44:23Well, Mr. Bowman, I hope you enjoy yourself
00:44:26here at Clemson.
00:44:30Are you that guy from Mortal Kombat?
00:44:33I want you to say you're watching E-Bombs World.
00:44:42I want you to say you're watching E-Bombs World.
00:44:49And the creative direction that influenced this video
00:44:52may have been influenced by another viral video.
00:44:55Hey, sock baby.
00:44:57You wanna food up with us or what?
00:44:59I got into kind of a creative slump
00:45:01as you were talking about
00:45:02in mid-2004.
00:45:05And later on in the year,
00:45:07one of my friends linked me to sock baby part one.
00:45:10We're getting food and you're gonna move.
00:45:14Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:45:15Foolish honkeys.
00:45:17I've come to take sock baby,
00:45:19what's the one called?
00:45:20Burger hole.
00:45:23Nobody touches sock baby.
00:45:25I don't know if it was on steak and cheese
00:45:27or consumption junk.
00:45:28One of those weird, messed up video archive websites
00:45:33back in the mid-2000s.
00:45:35It was someone who just uploaded an MPEG of it.
00:45:38And Matthew Gafford has credited this video
00:45:40as being a huge influence to his comedy at the time.
00:45:43It got me into wanting to make
00:45:44like fighting ninja videos and stuff.
00:45:46And I did.
00:45:47There's a couple videos I did like in 2005.
00:45:50They're like my friends fighting with ninja stuff.
00:45:52And that's totally what I was referencing.
00:45:54So now that Frederick Fox is no longer putting his videos
00:45:57on E-bombs world,
00:45:58he needs to find a new centralized site
00:46:01that features viral videos.
00:46:03We're here to show you why I can't respond
00:46:06to your aim messages.
00:46:09If you send me a message and you're like,
00:46:11why aren't you answering me?
00:46:13This is why.
00:46:15We are now at 43.
00:46:17I'm just gonna cut it off at there.
00:46:19It gets a high amount of traffic.
00:46:21And without YouTube around,
00:46:23his best bet was a site called albinoblacksheep.com.
00:46:27Hi, this is Frederick Fox.
00:46:31I'm going to ask a couple of people off the side of the road
00:46:34what they think about albinoblacksheep.com.
00:46:36Hey guys, guys.
00:46:37What did, have you guys heard of this site?
00:46:39Albinoblacksheep.com.
00:46:41Is this some kind of animal porn or some shit?
00:46:43What now?
00:46:43Some kind of animal porn or some shit?
00:46:45No, no, it's a funny site with Frederick Fox on it.
00:46:49That's me, yeah.
00:46:50Okay, uh.
00:46:51Fox.
00:46:52Huh?
00:46:53Who the fuck is that?
00:46:54Fox wouldn't change up the winning formula.
00:46:57Ah!
00:47:00It had the same type of lip sync,
00:47:03crazy sketches that you would come to expect.
00:47:11And I remember people at the time
00:47:13being outraged at this sketch
00:47:15where he drinks out of a Windex bottle.
00:47:20I'm pretty sure some people
00:47:21actually thought he was drinking Windex.
00:47:28But really, come on,
00:47:29that was probably like Blue Powerade or something.
00:47:35After the move to albinoblacksheep.com,
00:47:38Frederick's views would kind of drop off.
00:47:41If you weren't in the know,
00:47:42you weren't aware of the switch.
00:47:44And this was a bit of a downfall for Fox.
00:47:47Fox kind of has a history of moving from platform
00:47:51to platform to website to website.
00:47:54If he made a MySpace,
00:47:55it was just through sheer annoyance of being asked.
00:47:58He was very late to even get on YouTube.
00:48:01And most of the websites that he spent his time on
00:48:04are long gone,
00:48:05which is even happening today
00:48:07because as of recording this,
00:48:08when I tried to click on his Fox and Space links,
00:48:12the Tumblr was dead, the Twitter is dead,
00:48:15YouTube had no featured videos,
00:48:17and the only place I could find him was Twitch.
00:48:20When I wanted to look at the old Frederick Fox videos,
00:48:23Archive.com had them and YouTube has them,
00:48:25but they're all hosted by somebody else.
00:48:28As we started getting further away
00:48:30from the initial E-Bombs World video
00:48:32that got him his big burst of internet fame,
00:48:35the toll of video making had started to show.
00:48:38And as YouTube came out,
00:48:41I had already just finished working on my own stuff.
00:48:45It got old.
00:48:46I made like a hundred something little skits
00:48:48and whatnot with my friends.
00:48:50And I just wanted to get back into animation.
00:48:54Matthew would admit many years later
00:48:56that this led to real creative burnout.
00:48:59I finally figured it out.
00:49:01Living by myself for this long
00:49:03had driven me far past the point of insanity.
00:49:05You make me sick.
00:49:07You make me sick.
00:49:09You make me, no!
00:49:10You make me sick.
00:49:112007 LiveJournal posts seemed to indicate
00:49:14that his life situation wasn't the happiest.
00:49:18As far as the New Year's resolution,
00:49:21I guess I'd like to put together some more videos
00:49:23and cartoons and stuff, you know,
00:49:25actually get something done
00:49:26to make some ends financial-wise.
00:49:28School's boring,
00:49:29and I only want a degree as a fallback
00:49:32when slash if my music, cartoon, movie, art,
00:49:36album things fall through.
00:49:38So, hey, who knows?
00:49:40I may start getting productive again sometime soon.
00:49:42I sure want to.
00:49:43I've been lying to you all for the bigger part of 2006.
00:49:47Life's been shitty for most of it, to be honest.
00:49:49And no, it's going to get better,
00:49:51and I'm not asking for sympathy or some whiny horseshit,
00:49:55but hey, we all have those days, weeks, years,
00:49:57and sometimes you want to tell somebody about them
00:50:00instead of giving update after unexciting update
00:50:02of a bunch of tedious project crap
00:50:04you don't ever really see yourself finishing anytime soon.
00:50:07It seems like it's going to be hard
00:50:09to make something that's actually funny again
00:50:11without accidentally ripping off
00:50:14someone else's funny video that I hadn't seen.
00:50:16School starts again in a few months.
00:50:18Who knows what I'll be taking?
00:50:20I can get my master's in Soldier Boy,
00:50:22but no one cranks that Soldier Boy anymore.
00:50:25I'm so lost.
00:50:27He was just trying to make ends meet.
00:50:29If he had to take a commission,
00:50:31he had to take a commission.
00:50:32This ended up being a real dark period
00:50:35in Frederick Fox's history.
00:50:37He got addicted to heroin.
00:50:38I was addicted to heroin for almost two years.
00:50:41That was when I moved out in the mid-late 2000s
00:50:45in my whole, you know, screw you, mom,
00:50:47I can move out and do drugs if I want to phase.
00:50:49But yeah, it was that for about a year and a half.
00:50:52And then at the end of it,
00:50:54when I started getting off of it going through the worst,
00:50:57I was like, who's a hero of mine?
00:50:58Like, who's somebody that I look up to
00:51:01or a cartoon character or something I can make up
00:51:03that I could really, like, I was neurotic at this point
00:51:06and I thought of Fox McCloud.
00:51:08And it's also hard for him to go back
00:51:10and look at this older content.
00:51:12In his correspondence to me,
00:51:14he indicates that the people he created this stuff with
00:51:17died from their addiction.
00:51:19And this would leave his projects like Drug War unfinished.
00:51:23You know, kids your age, they really,
00:51:26they really don't have problems
00:51:27finding money to support their habits.
00:51:30And then,
00:51:32because you still live with mom and dad,
00:51:36you get out on your own when they kick you out.
00:51:41You ever given a man a rusty trombone for an eight ball?
00:51:45I didn't think so.
00:51:47Fox was just a man who wanted to create
00:51:50more than a simple viral video.
00:51:52And unfortunately for him,
00:51:54when he wanted to make something different,
00:51:56his fan base only wanted the albino black sheep,
00:52:00E-bombs world type stuff that they were familiar with.
00:52:03So back then, most E-celebrities had to have real jobs.
00:52:07So Fox had to make his content
00:52:10while working as a bail bondsman for his biological dad.
00:52:13Well, we're heading to the co-signer.
00:52:17Don't know what we're going to get out of him.
00:52:18Tell him we'll take him to fucking jail.
00:52:21See, she got out on bond for 250.
00:52:25So she paid 25 plus 37.
00:52:28What was that, 62?
00:52:29Yeah, so,
00:52:31she jumps bond, skips court and disappears.
00:52:34Goes back into the filth she raised
00:52:37four foot three inches out of
00:52:40for a fucking PI.
00:52:43Drunk female midget with head lice and a tail.
00:52:47Yeah.
00:52:48And as Matthew Gafford would state to me
00:52:49in our correspondence,
00:52:51this crushed his creative spirit.
00:52:53When we moved up to Tennessee, when I was 19, 20,
00:52:58I went to go work for my father.
00:52:59He divorced my mom when I was little
00:53:01and he moved to Tennessee and we moved up there.
00:53:03And it's like, oh, hey dad,
00:53:04I haven't seen you since I was a kid.
00:53:06And, you know, we were five hours away.
00:53:08Let me come see you.
00:53:09And he convinced me to come work for him
00:53:11as a bail bondsman for a couple of years on and off.
00:53:15That was an interesting job.
00:53:16I didn't dodge any bullets
00:53:17or jump out of any moving vehicles or anything.
00:53:20He's getting hydrocodones again.
00:53:23Well, she fucking moved to Dover.
00:53:27She took off right after she got out of court.
00:53:29Right after she got out of court.
00:53:31They don't goddamn tell her where she is.
00:53:33Fucking shit.
00:53:34She could have moved to Idaho for all we know.
00:53:36His live journals were telling the fans
00:53:38that the videos were gonna have to stop for a while
00:53:40while he adjusts to the new job.
00:53:42Always getting up at crazy hours in the morning
00:53:45and going out and doing stuff.
00:53:47And your sleep schedule's weird a lot of the time.
00:53:51A lot of it was a lot of sitting in court.
00:53:55That's the one thing,
00:53:55whenever I tell people that I used to be a bail bondsman,
00:53:58it wasn't like what, you know, Dog Bounty Hunter did.
00:54:01He was a bail bondsman,
00:54:02but he was also a licensed, you know, recovery agent
00:54:05is what the actual term of a bounty hunter is.
00:54:09I just did the court stuff
00:54:11and went out and arrested people that skipped court.
00:54:14But Fox actually wanted to show us what he did for a living,
00:54:17even filming a day in the life.
00:54:20This is a typical day in this business.
00:54:22Bunch of driving and finding jack shit.
00:54:25So now content is coming out slower.
00:54:27Hey, girl.
00:54:31Getting a little bit long in the tooth.
00:54:33My idea is today we're gonna be making cocaine.
00:54:42He doesn't have the time for it.
00:54:44Eternity, Calvin Klein.
00:54:47I look like I'm shot on a ransom video.
00:54:50Please give them their money.
00:54:52They mean business.
00:54:53Why?
00:54:53Oh, you're insane, sister fucker.
00:54:58What the fuck was that?
00:55:00And his heart, it's not even into making the stuff anymore.
00:55:04I was at this really gay-ass party this weekend.
00:55:06It was fucked up.
00:55:07Man, it's this dude was sitting there
00:55:08like trying to be all Miles Davis and shit
00:55:11and playing on his guitar
00:55:12and bragging about his size zero pants.
00:55:14And he was all playing this song going on.
00:55:16Oh, oh, oh, oh.
00:55:18And man, it was fucked up.
00:55:20Fox was struggling personally,
00:55:22professionally, and creatively.
00:55:26It's not your Game Boy.
00:55:27It is my Game Boy.
00:55:28I told you bastards a thousand times, it belonged to me.
00:55:31Give me that.
00:55:32Game Boy.
00:55:33Why not?
00:55:34Because I-
00:55:35You gotta just let me look for it, you got-
00:55:40But guess who helped him kick drugs?
00:55:43Slippy.
00:55:44Oh my God.
00:55:45Why does Slippy have a beard?
00:55:49Slippy has a beard.
00:55:51Frogs with facial hair is so weird.
00:55:54Well, I mean, Star Fox.
00:55:56But it's like, what would Fox McCloud do in this situation?
00:55:59He would not be a little whiny bitch.
00:56:01He would get through the stuff
00:56:03and put his life back together and get a job
00:56:04and start doing what he wanted to do.
00:56:05And that was when the whole thing started.
00:56:09A series that Matthew Gafford
00:56:10had always been a massive fan of.
00:56:13I got the first game like the week it came out.
00:56:16Always loved it.
00:56:17Always liked foxes and animal people in space
00:56:21and stuff like that.
00:56:22The idea of creating and animating his own Star Fox cartoon
00:56:26was enough for him to want to pull his life back together.
00:56:29Become the next Mike Judge.
00:56:31Mike Judge, Ralph Bakshi, and gosh.
00:56:36Don Bluth?
00:56:37Yeah, thank you.
00:56:39Yeah, that's, yeah, Don Bluth, obviously.
00:56:42If live videos weren't gonna be his thing anymore,
00:56:44well, let's go back to our first love of animation.
00:56:47Something he had been doing since Newgrounds.
00:56:51Started animating when I was in about third grade,
00:56:54second, third grade.
00:56:55I saw it was either Mr. Rogers
00:56:57or Sesame Street or something.
00:56:59Somebody had a guest on there
00:57:00that showed everybody on video
00:57:02how to make a flip book out of little notepads
00:57:05or the corner of an old book.
00:57:08And I started making flip books.
00:57:10This was 1992 or 93.
00:57:13Never let it be said
00:57:14that Slippy isn't part of the road to recovery.
00:57:17And I'm currently working
00:57:18on my own non-commercial fan project
00:57:21called Star Fox the Animated Series.
00:57:24It's patreon.com slash Star Fox the Animated Series.
00:57:30Those are the two main websites where I post anything.
00:57:33If there's anything to do with an update on my cartoon,
00:57:36for sure, I'm going to post it on the Tumblr.
00:57:38But since Nintendo can be very litigious,
00:57:41Star Fox the Animated Series became a fox in space.
00:57:45And then that went on for three or four years
00:57:50until I finally got the Patreon and took it seriously
00:57:53and eventually had to change the name
00:57:55because of Nintendo.
00:57:57And that's what I've been doing ever since.
00:58:00Much like Frederick Fox's older videos,
00:58:02a fox in space is a one-man labor of love.
00:58:06Well, I have been animating
00:58:09for about 15 or 16 hours today
00:58:13on stream as I always do.
00:58:15Matthew Gafford goes back to a time
00:58:17when he first saw the Star Fox characters
00:58:20on that SNES box.
00:58:22Just, I loved the dark atmosphere of the game
00:58:25and everything.
00:58:25I fell in love with it.
00:58:26I wanted there to be a Star Fox TV series
00:58:29or a movie in the style of the Dark Crystal,
00:58:33like with Jim Henson-style animatronic puppets
00:58:36and stuff like that,
00:58:37because that's what the characters looked like
00:58:39on the box art for the video game.
00:58:41And Gafford was going to make this a serious venture.
00:58:44I just got out of a bad situation.
00:58:46I'm in a good situation.
00:58:48What kind of stuff do I want to do?
00:58:51I've got to make myself do something
00:58:52for the rest of my life,
00:58:53or I'm going to get back into a bad situation
00:58:56and possibly not make it out again.
00:58:58And that's what got me out of it was,
00:59:00I want to make that Star Fox cartoon
00:59:02because I'm good enough now.
00:59:03You can catch him on Twitch animating for hours at a time.
00:59:07Back to my work ethic and stuff,
00:59:08I streamed for the past three years,
00:59:11eight to 10 hours a day, five, six days a week animation,
00:59:14just so I can prove to people on Patreon.
00:59:16He writes the scripts.
00:59:17He voices some of the characters.
00:59:19I was talking to that short little fuzzy man.
00:59:22His name was Fox McCloud
00:59:24and he was flying all up in them lilac systems.
00:59:30He makes his own puppet.
00:59:31One more fucking time.
00:59:33I swear to God.
00:59:36Oh my God.
00:59:37This man just drives me nuts.
00:59:39And he animates.
00:59:41That's the show.
00:59:43Yeah, we're going to duel.
00:59:45What are you having a duel for?
00:59:47To win the virtue of Billy Joe's Firefly action figure.
00:59:56Oh, that action figure has no virtue left.
01:00:00Trust me.
01:00:02When the first episode of Fox in Space was created,
01:00:05people were raving about the quality
01:00:07and asking Nintendo, why couldn't this be a real series?
01:00:11They were like, oh my God,
01:00:13one man just created his own Star Fox cartoon
01:00:16and it's actually pretty good?
01:00:18And then they took a step back and realized.
01:00:20Do I know you from somewhere?
01:00:23Wait, was that the weird guy
01:00:24who used to post videos on E-Bombs World?
01:00:26Of course, I wrote in the dim sum.
01:00:28It's the perfect transition for the sex scene.
01:00:34No way.
01:00:35Unfortunately, not all the attention
01:00:37for Fox in Space was well-received.
01:00:40Because this was a Nintendo property,
01:00:42YouTube let Matthew Gafford know,
01:00:45you can't make any money off this.
01:00:48Because YouTube has already told me straight up,
01:00:50literally, that I cannot monetize
01:00:53my current 100,000 subscribers
01:00:54because my entire channel is about Star Fox.
01:00:57So this was becoming another case
01:00:59where the guy who created something awesome can't monetize.
01:01:03He just can't get a win on the internet
01:01:05no matter how many times he puts out great content.
01:01:08Well, this is where it gets freaking inspirational.
01:01:11The guy who'd been making content for years,
01:01:14he finally got a win.
01:01:16On a whim, his friends convinced him to join Patreon.
01:01:18Maybe somebody will pay him to create a Fox in Space.
01:01:23Maybe this is where the revenue will come from.
01:01:25And I was like, and a couple of friends were like,
01:01:27come on, no, he's right.
01:01:28You need to do it.
01:01:29Just give it a try.
01:01:30What's the worst?
01:01:31You get 50 bucks a month and then go,
01:01:33okay, this isn't worth it.
01:01:34Nevermind, thanks anyway.
01:01:36I was like, I've been drinking a little bit of wine.
01:01:39I was just like, you know what?
01:01:40Screw it.
01:01:41And then I started putting all this stuff together for it.
01:01:44And by this point, I made a lot of silly,
01:01:46funny webcam videos when I was a teenager
01:01:49that I got known for in the early 2000s.
01:01:51So I'd already built up a fan base
01:01:53of people who knew who I was.
01:01:55So I buckled down for a couple of weeks,
01:01:57made 60 seconds of a Fox in Space sample animation,
01:02:01put it through post with all of the effects
01:02:04and stuff in Vegas, and then made the Patreon,
01:02:08made a video of me saying, hey, this is me.
01:02:11This is what I'm trying to do.
01:02:12You know me from this, and here's this and this,
01:02:16and this is what I want to do with it,
01:02:17and this is what I'm asking for.
01:02:19And then at the end of it is the 60 seconds
01:02:21of animation demo.
01:02:24And guess what?
01:02:26It did.
01:02:27He could finally quit the daily grind
01:02:30and focus on this work.
01:02:32By the end of the night, it got up to like $800,
01:02:35and it was like 1100 something the next morning.
01:02:38So yeah, I was like, yep, screw you guys, I'm out of here.
01:02:41I didn't literally say that, but it was nice
01:02:44to not have to scrub toilets anymore
01:02:46or do a call center job.
01:02:48I'd been doing call center jobs
01:02:50and gas station jobs back and forth.
01:02:51I worked at my mom's restaurant.
01:02:53I worked at Checkers or Rally's,
01:02:55depending on where you are.
01:02:57Fast food, Joanne Fabrics.
01:03:01It took me most of my adult life to get here
01:03:05before the first episode got worked on
01:03:09before I, basically up to the literal day
01:03:12I started the Patreon, 17 years or so back.
01:03:17I've just been flipping burgers
01:03:19and scrubbing toilets and stuff like that.
01:03:21And pest control.
01:03:23And pest control and bail bonds.
01:03:25I don't care who you are or what your work ethic is.
01:03:28You work 10 or 12 hours a day as a pest control technician.
01:03:32Come on, you just soak your feet in Epsom salts
01:03:35because you're so sore and you have like three hours
01:03:37before you have to go to sleep.
01:03:39You don't really feel like doing anything.
01:03:41So now you can catch him on Twitch,
01:03:43working hard for that Patreon money.
01:03:45♪ Fredrick Fox, Twitch extravaganza ♪
01:03:48♪ Who else but Fredrick Fox? ♪
01:03:51And you have to respect his level of transparency.
01:03:53He's working right in front of you.
01:03:56What's going on here?
01:03:59Meh.
01:04:00You know what whatever you donated is going towards.
01:04:03And if you like what he's doing,
01:04:05he's not gonna compromise his vision.
01:04:07People talk about, oh, I wanna animate and work hard
01:04:10and get good and get in the industry
01:04:12so I can go animate for Disney
01:04:14and spend the rest of my life
01:04:15drawing other people's creations
01:04:17and getting in trouble if I draw them
01:04:20outside of work on a napkin or something.
01:04:23Disney has a lot of strict rules.
01:04:24But I don't mean to hate on Disney, but.
01:04:26I guess that's like a real artist, right?
01:04:28He's gonna do what he's gonna do
01:04:31and you just have to trust in his vision.
01:04:33Bottom line, I wanna do my own thing.
01:04:35Someone comes to me and says,
01:04:36hey, we'll produce your cartoon
01:04:37and give you a team of animators.
01:04:40But this guy, Bob McHarvey over here
01:04:44is gonna be the one writing the story
01:04:46and you have to run everything by him.
01:04:47I wouldn't do it.
01:04:48They gave me a million dollars.
01:04:49I wouldn't do it.
01:04:50And it was refreshing to see
01:04:51that the guy I was following 16 years ago
01:04:54still was doing the same type of comedy
01:04:57just to a smaller audience.
01:04:59I admire your talent.
01:05:02You are crazy as hell.
01:05:06All right, what would you like?
01:05:08I'd like a hot pastrami.
01:05:10How hot is the pastrami?
01:05:12Which kind of feels full circle
01:05:14to when he was making videos
01:05:15for his LiveJournal friends.
01:05:17This was his inner circle
01:05:18still getting to see the same type of content.
01:05:21I did not hit her.
01:05:23I did not.
01:05:24It's bullshit.
01:05:25She lied.
01:05:27I stabbed her in the face with a soldering iron.
01:05:31He's still having fun with rap songs.
01:05:33Got a big weed stash.
01:05:35The cops just passed.
01:05:38I just seen a big old ass.
01:05:42It's Saturday.
01:05:44He's still making silly songs.
01:05:46Shine on my nutsack makes me go.
01:05:49Take me home to the place I belong.
01:05:53He's still doing impressions.
01:05:55I did, I'm satisfied with vittles
01:06:00and non perishables.
01:06:03But for one thing,
01:06:05I hope you leave enough room for my fist
01:06:08because I'm going to ram it into your stomach
01:06:10and break your goddamn spine.
01:06:14And he's even doing the risque jokes.
01:06:16Fox and Crystal also left
01:06:18and the two confess their feelings for each other.
01:06:20Gay.
01:06:24And the furry jokes.
01:06:27Oh, Jesus Christ.
01:06:28What the fuck?
01:06:32So I salute you, Frederick Fox.
01:06:35Taking a break from all your worries
01:06:38sure would help a lot.
01:06:42Wouldn't you like to get away?
01:06:47Sometimes you've got to go
01:06:50where everybody knows your name.
01:06:53And they're always glad you came.
01:07:23Literally comment on any video
01:07:25and I will respond to you.
01:07:27Unless you tell me I suck
01:07:28and then I'll feel bad.
01:07:31Congratulations.
01:07:33Be sure to like and subscribe.
01:07:35And if you want more notifications
01:07:37be sure to tickle that bell down there.
01:07:39Well,
01:07:44that was very interesting.
01:07:50I'll be in my trailer.
01:07:52Hey, we got to do the medium shot.
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