In Which The Mysterious Fred

Some Mario series enemies just don't enjoy the wide popularity of others. While the Koopalings, rich with multifaceted personalities, slowly become nothing more than a retro reference and fanwork-only characters, dumb-faced and mashed-potato-brained Petey Piranha hogs all the karting/bossing glory. Great concepts get abandoned, more palette swaps get introduced. And some really bizarre creatures, like this article's main point of interest, seem to be forgotten forever despite their potential.

In Super Mario Land number two (grab six coins, you're through), you face Wario in his (actually Mario's) castle, your alter ego and evil rascal, who seems to have installed very peculiar anti-real-owner defense systems into the halls. The heroic and sometimes bunny-eared plumber must jump his way between Hadouken-shooting Piranha Plant statues, spiky swinging spheres, several kinds of moving and collapsing platforms, weight-activated traps, and finally, a bunch of five very strange ball-like beings, each called Fred.

Attacking Mario in three groups of one, two and two respectively, Freds employ a very simple tactic - bouncing off the walls in a 45° angle, just like the floating disembodied head of Mario in a certain typing simulator after announcing "Look! I'm a video game!". They can be defeated with two stomps (or one if you're on Easy mode) and only pose a threat because you can fly right into one of them when you bounce off the other, and because of their above-average speed. To retain briefness, they seem a bit out of place being the pre-boss guardians of the final level.

Maybe this was the reason why they never appeared again - the developers couldn't possibly find a use for them as Wario's helpers in the Wario Land series, or just forgot to look through the "obscure ideas" bin. A shame, because think of what would be if just someone had the right imagination to set things going and give the Freds more personality/abilities!

Wario Land could have the garlic-reeking antihero summon them out of his overalls instead of some plus coins that were basically enemy-dispatching money. Up+B! It's a Fred! Throw him and watch him ricochet off walls and knocking enemies away or into unpleasant places. Or, use him to reach difficult-to-clean places with switches in them! In fact, if you are fast enough, you can even jump up and take a ride! But Wario's girth would make every Fred give up, so don't expect the fun to last longer than a few seconds.

The two next Wario countries could make Fred a helpful transform-type object, touch one and Wario, in front of all onlookers, turns into Fredario! An artist's impression of this concept can even be found on a movie poster in Beanbean Kingdom's Yoshi Theater:
In this form, Wario, too, can feel like a Pong ball and let himself fly in strictly mathematically calculated ways! And, wouldn't the fights against Ball Bunny be much better with this form? Just align yourself so you hit the goal/basket after 3 ricochets and you're done!

Wario Land 4 and Shake It! could have used Freds in boss battles - launch them billiards-like so they hit the e.g. giant enemy crab's weak point for e.g. massive damage! In Wario Land 4, pick them up and throw. In Shake It!, uh, shake them. Like you do with basically everything.

And how wintastic would have the Wario Ware series become if instead of the completely-out-of-the-thinnest-air red-nosed humans and cab-driving dogs, the designers decided to revive some of the more old-school Wario pals like Fred, Hen, the pyramid researcher, Shokora, Waluigi et al? Wario Ware: Twisted - Fred stage - BOUNCE! REFLECT! ATTACK MARIO! PULSATE! CHANGE COLOURS! GROW A NOSE! and the occasional random ABSEIL!

The chance that Fred gets a revival sometime soon is pretty slim, though. We might as well hope for a return of Tatanga. As a mayor villain. Of a 3D action-adventure. But at least we still have our
~Waluigious: Super Fred Land would be a bit too much, eh?