Eric Forman
Character
Eric is the youngest child in a family of four, consiting of his strict, war-vetran father, Red Forman, his doting mother with impending separation anxiety, Kitty Forman, and his promiscous, troublesome older sister, Laurie Forman. He also becomes the foster brother to his best friend, Steven Hyde, after Hyde had been abandoned by his own mother.[1]
Eric is the front-man and ringleader of the circus, but is rarely respected. He is the one who comes up with the plans and schemes, often trying to break free of his "square goody-goody rep." But such plans often do backfire in one way or the other. He is often left holding the bag (his friends abandon him) and he is then ridiculed by them for getting in trouble. Eric is a nice guy at heart, who is geeky and somewhat clumsy. He is a smart-aleck teenager, with a lightning-fast wit and a sarcastic, deadpan sense of humor. He is also quite brave and somewhat scrappy.
Eric is often picked on for his slight stature and is likened to "Opie" (for the character Opie Taylor, from The Andy Griffith Show), and Archie Bunker by his friends. Unfortunate nicknames include "Foreplay" (by Casey Kelso), "Foreskin" (by Donna), and "Zitty Stardust" (in reference to him being unable to take a zit-free yearbook photo). His girlfriend Donna is physically stronger than him (and everyone else in the group, really---except for Randy).
However, when incensed enough, Eric will stand up to anyone, even his father, whom he tells off when Red handles Kitty's apparent pregnancy badly – Eric tells Red to be a man for her. He stands up to both of his parents in his insistence on marrying Donna, despite their repeated attempts to stop him. He threatens Casey Kelso with serious injury if he hurt Donna, and even defends his father by breaking another teen's nose, when the latter says that Red "should have been smart and planned ahead, like my dad". Eric also beats a Green Bay Packers fan up during a game, after he insults Eric for wearing a Chicago Bears jersey, which has Red proudly comment that his son has the "Forman Rage". The Forman Rage is the trait that all people of the Forman clan have. It causes people to have extreme feats of anger with the promise of hurting someone in the process. Red is most famously a proponent of losing his temper, yelling at people or threatening to shove his foot one way or another up someone's ass.
Eric has had many typical teen-age jobs over the series. He has worked at the fictional Fatso Burger, Price Mart, a dog food factory, and at the Holiday Hotel as a waiter. At the beginning of the series, Red vehemently opposed Eric's trying to get another 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 far away, and Kitty supported Red by designating Eric's job as being her "precious baby boy". In season seven he 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 enjoyed this being another one of many thorns in Red's side.
Interests
Star Wars
Eric is a well-known fan of sci-fi, such as Star Trek and especially when it comes to Star Wars, which 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.
G.I. Joes
Eric has a large collection of G.I. Joe figures and has stubbornly refused to give them up over the years. Red never liked then and refered to them as "those dolls" whenever they came up in conversation. From Red's comment that the G.I. Joes lost the "Dumpster War of 1979", which is one of the things he says to Eric when Kitty sends him a tape of them and his friends to Africa, it is safe to assume Red threw them out[2]
Music
Eric likes bands such as Led Zeppelin, KISS, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Lynyrd Skynyrd, 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. It is also hinted that he is a Spider-Man fan, having Spider-Man bedsheets and a considerable amount of comic books, most of them bearing the Marvel Comics logo with the titular character on the covers, and when he fought a fan at the Packers game, he tells Red that he learned his moves from Spider-Man (coincidentally, Topher Grace starred in Spider-Man 3 in 2007).
Relationships
Eric is usually very supportive of his friends, even though it is usually not 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 take off, leaving Eric to absorb the brunt of the trouble, after which the gang (particularly Hyde) 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 e
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