Flat Eric

Favorite Advertising Characters (21 items)
list by kathy

Flat Eric is a low-tech, yellow puppet character from Levi's commercials for Sta-Prest One Crease Denim Clothing, built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

His name comes from an idea for a commercial that included having a car run over his head and flattening it. The idea was not used but the name stuck.

In the commercials, Flat Eric would ride with his friend Angel (played by Phillipe Petit) around California, evading the police as a wanted criminal.

He was featured in the music video for "Flat Beat" by French artist Mr. Oizo (aka Quentin Dupieux) and he also appeared as a prop in series 1 of the 2001–2003 BBC comedy The Office.

In 2004, he co-starred with David Soul in a five million pound TV advert for Auto Trader magazine. He has also appeared on The Big Breakfast.

The puppet also featured heavily as a prop for more than 10 years on SIC Radical interactive chat-show Curto Circuito, being usually named as "Boneco Amarelo" ("Yellow Puppet" in Portuguese).

Flat Eric has also been featured in many magazines, including Arena, Cosmopolitan, Heat, Melody Maker, Ministry, Mixmag, Muzik, NME and The Face.