Eric Forman - Character

Character

A nice guy at heart, Eric is generally geeky, physically weak, and somewhat clumsy. He is nonathletic and shows little interest in sports. He is a smart-aleck teenager with a lightning-fast wit and a sarcastic and deadpan sense of humor. He also lights "incenses" with his friends in his basement. Eric is also known to "screw" things up a lot, which is parodized throughout the series.

Eric is often picked on for his slight stature, and other characters have likened him to "Opie" (for the character Opie Taylor, from The Andy Griffith Show), and Archie Andrews. Other unfortunate nicknames include "Foreplay" (by Casey Kelso), "Foreskin" (by Donna), "Zitty Stardust" (in reference to him being unable to take a pimple-free yearbook photo), "Scrawny Little Neighbor Boy" (by Hyde), and "Dumbass" (by Red).

His girlfriend Donna is physically stronger, smarter, and larger than he, a fact which is cause for many jokes by all who know them. Donna is seen beating everyone individually on more than one occasion.

Though physically weak, Eric can show a surprising amount of courage and even physical power when necessary. When incensed enough he will stand up to anyone, even his father, and during these moments he can be surprisingly eloquent. He stood up to Red when he was troubled about Kitty's apparent pregnancy and told him to be a man for her. He also stood up to both of his parents in his insistence on marrying Donna, despite their repeated attempts to stop him. He threatened Casey Kelso with serious injury if he hurt Donna, and even defended his father by punching another teenager (David Milbank) who had informed him that Red will eventually lose his job at the auto parts plant. He also beat a Green Bay Packers fan up during a game, after the fan (along with Red) repeatedly insulted Eric for wearing a Chicago Bears jersey; however, Eric turned to violence only when the fan insulted Red for telling him to stop arguing once the game had finished, as Red only saw the argument as being appropriate banter between opposing fans during the game. This made Red proud enough to remark that his son had the "Forman Rage".

Eric's best friend is rebel Steven Hyde. When Hyde's mother left town at the end of the first season, Eric tried to persuade his parents to do something about his best friend's living conditions and thus Hyde was invited to live with the Formans, which he does for most of the series. When Red was quick to throw Hyde out, after an arrest for possession of drugs, Eric attempts to rescue him by proving Red's hypocrisy.

Of his group of friends, Eric seems to dislike Jackie the most. In an early episode, Red tells Eric that Jackie is his favorite out of his friends because she can fix cars (which is surprising, because Jackie is very petite and narcissistic), Eric replies that she's not one of his friends. Eric finds Jackie boring, shallow, obnoxious, long-winded and utterly useless. Conversely, Eric only seems to find Jackie attractive when not hearing her voice in any way, stating at one point: "Good God, she is hot!" (after picturing her in a bikini and, at the advice of Hyde, silent). She believes she gets a free pass into the circle because she happens to be dating someone in the group. Jackie is generally demeaning towards Eric due to his effeminate qualities, dorkiness and physical weakness, and believes him to be unworthy of Donna (although she doesn't think much of Donna, either), which causes Eric to dislike her even more. However, as the series progresses, it is shown that they develop a tolerance for each other and eventually a friendship. As early as season two, after Jackie breaks up with Michael Kelso, Eric stands up to comfort her. When Kelso begins to date Eric's sister Laurie, Eric realizes that he wants Jackie to continue to hang out in the basement, simply because it makes Laurie uncomfortable. Eric is the first person Jackie told when she suspected she was pregnant in the first season and they have been known to occasionally help each other out. In the episode "Jackie's Cheese Squeeze," Eric admits that they are "friends", as long as they don't refer to each other as such in public, and in the season seven finale, Jackie calls Eric from Chicago and admits that she's always cared for him and considers him a good friend.

Eric is a well-known fan of science fiction, such as Star Trek and especially Star Wars, in which he compares himself to Luke Skywalker. This is cause for much ridicule at the hands of his exasperated family and friends. He is known to keep a collection of Star Wars models and figurines. He is also known to have a large, beloved collection of G.I. Joe. He listens to artists such as Led Zeppelin, KISS, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Queen, Styx and Rush. He is also a Beatles fan and has been known to liken his group of friends to them, accusing Jackie of "breaking up the band" with her romantic entanglements with Kelso and Hyde (calling her Yoko, in reference to Yoko Ono). It is also hinted that he is both a Batman and Spider-Man fan, having Spider-Man bedsheets and a considerable number of comic books, most of them bearing the Marvel Comics logo with the titular character on the covers. When he fought a fan at the Packers game, he tells Red that he learned his moves from Spider-Man; coincidentally, Topher Grace starred as Eddie Brock, a character who obtains powers very similar to Spider-Man, thus transforming him into the monstrous Venom in Spider-Man 3 in 2007.

Eric has had many typical teenage jobs over the series. He has worked at Fatso Burger, Price Mart, a dog food factory, and as a waiter at the Holiday Hotel (all of the business names were fictitious). At the beginning of the series, Red vehemently opposed Eric's attempts to get a job during the second season citing that it would interfere with his school work and make it harder for him to get into a good college located far away. Kitty supported Red by designating Eric's job as being her "precious little baby boy". When Eric announced his marriage proposal to Red and Kitty, Red fired him from his job at Price Mart so he couldn't make the money to get married. Kitty cost him a potential job at a bank for the same reason. Red and Kitty even went so far as to revoke their offer to pay for Eric's college tuition in a final act of desperation to put a stop to the wedding but were unsuccessful. In season seven Eric was much ridiculed by his father when he took a year off from school and work to contemplate his future and enjoy being lazy. Eric took pleasure in the contempt Red had for this decision.

Eric is usually very supportive of his friends, even though it is very rarely reciprocal. On several occasions, when the gang found themselves in a predicament as the result of a prank gone awry or some other unforeseen circumstance, the rest of the group would take off, leaving Eric to absorb the brunt of the trouble, after which the gang (mainly Hyde) would hassle and tease Eric for getting into trouble (as in Stolen Car, Eric Gets Suspended, Eric's Hot Cousin and Rip This Joint). This has much to do with Eric's trusting nature and indicates that what he lacks in physical strength and courage, he more than makes up for in strength of character. Eric however, has been known to get his revenge on his backstabbing friends from time to time, such as when Kelso took the gang on a "dine-and-dash" without telling them and the group eventually abandoned Donna and Eric at the restaurant. Eric and Donna exacted their revenge by serving a batch of brownies which they referred to as "Special Brownies". However, in this case, the "special" ingredient that Eric and Donna had included was Ex-Lax. This was a particular problem for Fez, whose girlfriend had arrived to make amends with him, just as he was running for the bathroom. At times, however, Eric's friends will come to his aid when he's truly at the end of his rope. His less morally inclined friends are quick to take advantage of him and sometimes take his willingness to help them for granted. However, Eric is also quick to stand up for himself whenever he feels he has been wronged by his friends' actions. Although in later episodes he seemed to become more selfish, babied by his mother, and lazy.

Eric is also quite stubborn, which has on several occasions brought bad luck to himself. For example, when Donna calls from California and when Kitty tries to tell him, Eric refuses to even listen to his mother and (when he finds out the call) later scolds her for not telling him. Also, when Hyde was about to get kicked out of the Forman's house for his drug use, Eric tells Red that he also does drugs (despite Donna telling him not to), only to find out that Hyde gets to stay.