Stressed Eric

Stressed Eric
Genre	Animation Dark comedy
Created by	Carl Gorham
Written by	Carl Gorham Michael Hatt Gavin Rodgers
Directed by	Season 1: Steve Ressel Steve Loter Cathy Malkasian Season 2: Peter Western Roger Mainwood Kim Burden
Composer(s)	Peter Baikie Mat Clark Jason McDermid
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language(s)	English
No. of series	2
No. of episodes	13
Production
Executive producer(s)	Arlene Klasky Gábor Csupó Miles Bullough (season 2) Claire Jennings
Producer(s)	Carl Gorham Hank Azaria Mitch Watson
Editor(s)	John Bryant
Running time	30 Min
Release
Original network	BBC Two, MTV, TV2 (New Zealand)
Original release	20 April 1998 – 11 October 2000, 11 October 2003 (New Zealand)
External links
Production website

Stressed Eric is a British cartoon series that was produced by Absolutely Productions for the BBC Two television channel in the United Kingdom and Television New Zealand. The series revolves around Eric Feeble, a middle class man who is always stressed, because of his family, work, co-workers, etc.

Eric Feeble is 40 years old, still upset over his divorce two years ago, lives in a middle class London house, and is always being kept under extreme amounts of pressure and stress from all aspects of life, represented by a throbbing vein in his temple. His two children, Claire and Brian, plague him with fear and worries every day. Claire is a frail six-year-old who is allergic to a large range of things such as wheat, ponies, spices etc.while Brian is a ten-year-old with learning problems who has been kept back three straight years in school, has an oral fixation, and has pica. The family's au pair housekeeper, Maria, is an eighteen-year-old Portuguese woman with a serious drinking problem; despite Eric's frequent attempts to keep her under control and focused, she seems to be passed-out drunk for hours at a time, often sprawled on a floor. His ex-wife, Liz, left him for a Buddhist, but she insists on phoning him up incessantly, which merely adds to his growing stress level. The next-door neighbours, the wealthy, successful and snobbish Perfect family, provide him a constant and painful view of what his life could have been.

Eric's workplace is absolutely no escape from his everyday problems. His boss, Paul Power (known as PP), is loud, rude and demanding; he has demoted Eric from Assistant Manager to a low-level clerk in an office sandwiched between the janitor's closet and the men's toilets. His secretary, Alison, is completely useless, spending all her "working hours" making and taking personal phone calls and shrilling rudely at Eric when he requests her attention.

At the end of almost every episode, as the climax of events cause Eric's stress to reach breaking point, the throbbing vein emerges from his temple and wraps itself around his neck, strangling him.

A US adaptation replaced Mark Heap's voice with that of Hank Azaria.

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