Stressed Eric

Stressed Eric is a 1998 British 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. The show ran for two series in the UK, although the redubbed American version broadcast on NBC only lasted for 1 series.
Overview.
40-year-old Eric Feeble is still upset over his divorce two years before. He lives in a middle-class London house and is always kept under extreme amounts of pressure and stress from all aspects of life, which is represented by a throbbing vein in his temple. His two children, Brian and Claire, plague him with fear and worry daily. Claire is a frail 6-year-old who is allergic to virtually everything, including wheat, ponies, and spices; 10-year-old Brian has learning problems and has been kept back three straight years in school, and has an oral fixation and pica. The family's au pair housekeeper, Maria, is an 18-year-old Portuguese woman with a serious drinking problem; despite Eric's frequent attempts to keep her under control and focused, she stays passed-out drunk for hours at a time. His former wife Liz left him for a Buddhist but phones him up incessantly, which merely adds to his stress level. The next-door neighbours, the wealthy, successful, 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" in 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.
Voice cast.
The broadcast of the series on NBC in the United States replaced Mark Heap's voice with that of Hank Azaria, whom also serves as a producer for the dub, repurposing Eric as an American expatriate.
Broadcast and production.
The show was first broadcast on BBC2 in April 1998 and ran for two series. Stressed Eric was bought and briefly aired by NBC and adapted for American audiences with the lead characters' voice redubbed and re-worked as an American expatriate with several original lines changed for cultural purposes, a new opening sequence that reflects the changed storyline and cutting scenes for time constraints.
"Stressed Eric" continued when Hibbert Ralph produced the second series. The second series was animated by Varga Studio instead.
Reception.
The U.S. version of "Stressed Eric" received mostly negative reviews by American critics.
In a positive view, "Variety" noted that the lead character "is so unfathomably pathetic that he makes Homer Simpson look like Bill Gates" and was critical of the decision to redub the series in American English, but stated that the series was otherwise "wry and smart".
Charles Solomon of the "Los Angeles Times" said that the series "seems to be trying to out-do 'South Park' for sheer tastelessness in an animated series" and that Azaria "may be able to make Eric likable, but it’s going to be an uphill battle" since "the characters on 'Stressed Eric' [...] come across as alienated, crass and nasty."
Tom Shales of "The Washington Post" expressed his surprise at the fact that the cartoon originally ran on the BBC—a broadcaster he felt "a history of great TV"—since "the British cartoon seems mainly an imitation of American cartoon hits like Fox's 'The Simpsons' and 'King of the Hill,' instead of the kind of thing the British do best." He also had a low opinion of the title character, calling him "an imbecilic stumblebum who appears to deserve the bad things that happen to him" and negatively comparing him to Homer Simpson.
Alan Pergament of the "Buffalo News" gave the programme a two-star rating. He hoped that "Azaria's narration will be a little slower than that of the British voice performer" but remarked that "Eric is such a bumbler and his life is so stressful that it isn't much fun to watch." He also thought the comparison to "South Park" in the series' promos was foolish, noted that it ran against another Americanized version of a British series—"Whose Line is it Anyway?"—and remarked that "as good as it is to get some original programming in the summer, 'Stressed Eric' is so routine that it's difficult to understand why it has won awards across the ocean."
DVD release.
"The Complete Stressed Eric Collection" was released on DVD in the UK on 2 May 2011, with the following special features: