The cartoon was created by Scottish cartoonist Alex Graham and published first in the Daily Mail on 8 July 1963.

[1] Fred's cartoon strips are renamed as Wurzel in Germany, Lillo il Cane Saggio (Lillo the wise dog) in Italy, Lorang in Norway, Laban in Sweden and Retu, Pitko or Koiraskoira in Finland.

[3] Alex Graham based Fred on his own dog Frieda and drew over 9,000 comic strips.

He is shown often as being temperamental and spends much free time reading the newspaper, walking Fred, and playing golf.

Known relations to the family are "her rich eccentric" Uncle Albert and her sisters, one in UK and one overseas.

One mention of The Beatles and the family's continually recovered lounge sofa suite are among the few giveaways of their age.

A variant of this are sequences of strips over several days having a common theme such as for Christmas or summer holidays, but without narrative continuation.

Again, some later Michael Martin strips do follow on for a few days, as with a birthday party mentioned in the 1997 book or stories such as a summer holiday or buying a new car.

Fred has a certain amount of snobbishness and appreciates the finer qualities of life, as shown clearly in the Alex Graham era strips, with attitudes of the time.

During 1977, a large hardback book entitled "Fred Basset and the Spaghetti" was published by The Daily Mail.

A book published during 1988, "Fred Basset 25 Years", a similar compilation, is considered its forerunner.

The 2010 Annual, released in October 2010, is unusually entitled "Fred Basset Yearbook 2010–2011", in an attempt to keep the book selling in 2011.

This follows a tradition of annuals since the 1930s which were dated the next year to stop buyers thinking it was an older edition.

J Salmon Ltd currently print a Fred Basset calendar displaying twelve cartoons drawn by Michael Martin.

During mid-1977 a short-lived 5 minute television cartoon of Fred Basset was shown on the BBC, made by Bill Melendez Productions, voiced by actor Lionel Jeffries .