Stressed Eric
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 "Spicer than South Park'"? "Badder than Bart Simpson"? Yeah, it is, but not in a good way.
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Stressed Eric is a British-New Zealand-American adult animated television 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.
Overview
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 and has an oral fixation. 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 neighbors, the wealthy, successful, and snobbish Perfect family, provide him with a constant and painful view of what his life could have been.
Eric's workplace is 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 washroom. 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 causes Eric's stress to reach breaking point, the throbbing vein emerges from his temple and wraps itself around his neck, strangling him.
Stressful Qualities
- As mentioned above, the show's premise is basically "The Life of a Butt-Monkey: The Animated Series".
- The original British intro for the show is short, lackluster, and uninteresting. We get a start with Eric Feeble telling Maria that he’s "ten years late already", and Maria only responds by vomiting, then Eric takes his kids to a health school, Eric goes to work and when his last name is called by his boss, the intro ends with him and his pumping vein. That’s it.
- The second season's intro is even more lackluster, as it lazily shows footage from both seasons of the characters introduced.
- Each of these plots is predictable since you already know what's going to happen:
- It starts with Eric running late for work
- Disaster happens to him a lot (and many other people)
- Finally, when Eric is pushed to the limit, the vein would strangle him.
- Eric doesn't get a break nor is even rewarded for getting through a stressful day, and almost all the episodes (excluding the 12th episode) end with him getting strangled by his vein which gets boring and depressing fast, but not in a good way.
- His kids don't get much of a break either, as Brian has pica and a learning disability, while Claire has an extremely fragile immune system.
- Maria, the au pair housekeeper, has a massive drinking problem. She's drunk all hours of the day and rarely does her job.
- Lousy voice acting, especially with Eric's British voice being the biggest offender since it sounds very stereotypical at the time.
- It tries to add in the concept of a middle-class man having to deal with a stressful life, family problems, and an overwhelming job, but its execution is poor and it doesn't treat the concept realistically. This is also pathetic when one were to compare this to other shows like Dilbert, Duckman and Aggretsuko, which all do it in a great manner and most of the time tend to very enjoyable, relatable and can even be hilarious too.
- Most (if not all) of the characters are unlikeable, even Eric himself, whom the audience is supposed to relate to, and feel sorry for him, but he can be a bit of a jerk sometimes (mostly due to his stress).
- Like what Discovery Kids (now Discovery Family) did to Grossology, the US airing schedule was weird; NBC also dropped it after the first season, leaving the second season unaired in the US.
- In the American version/dub, Hank Azaria (who’s known for playing Apu and Moe from The Simpsons) voicing Eric is entirely out of place, not to mention it’s off-sync at the times, one example is when he dubbed pants over trousers in "Nativity", the first episode.
- In the endings to each episode, Eric's vein spontaneously strangles him after too much stressing out, which is more disturbing than funny to watch.
- Speaking of disturbing than funny, there are moments where it tries too hard to be funny but comes off as creepy and nonsensical. Such as Claire’s allergy reactions, two flies humping in the episode "Sex", Paul Power’s (Eric’s Boss) nickname being P.P. (which sounds a lot like pee-pee), Brian eating the baby Jesus Christ prop at the end of "Nativity", a patient stabbing his lap in "Hospital", and the scene where a donkey blows up into pieces in "Pony".
- The character designs are pretty ugly and creepy, even for Klasky Csupo standards.
- Stale color palette and backgrounds that try to represent London, but fail as it looks pretty unnatural sometimes.
- In the 12th episode, "Au Pair", when things finally go right, a tank appears out of nowhere and presumably kills the Feeble family including Maria, which is a terrible way to end the series (in production order) and it just makes even more depressing.
Not-So Stressful Qualities
- Some funny moments here and there, such as Maria bursting into the bumper cars while she’s driving.
- The intro for the American version is interesting and better than the original UK intro, as it shows how Eric's life went downhill.
- There are some likable and tolerable characters, such as The Doctor, who is one of the only people who help Eric.
- Decent soundtrack.
- Eric's boss's catchphrase ("Arseburgers!") is quite goofy (or funny).
- While out of place, Hank Azaria does do a good job at voicing Eric in the US dub.
- Most of the international dubs of the series like the Polish (Zestresowany Eryk), Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish (Stressi-Erkki), and German (Eric im Stress) dubs have better voice acting than the original.
- Despite the creepy character designs and poor color palette, the animation looks okay, considering the fact the first season was animated by Klasky Csupo, who gave us better-received shows such as Rugrats and the aforementioned Duckman while Series 2 was animated by Varga Studio, who were known for animating shows like Kipper and Mr. Bean: The Animated Series.
- As mentioned earlier, the concept for the show is decent and it can also be relatable for people who have to deal with stressful lives, even though there are better shows out there that already have the same concept.
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