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 TV advert for Auto Trader magazine.

He was based on a puppet called Stéphane that was similar but with ears and the hands were fixed. Stéphane appeared in some short films by Mr. Oizo, and had a small cult following in the UK and France. In 1999, Levi's decided to build a television commercial campaign around the puppet, to be directed by Oizo. The character was renamed Eric, a more "international name," in contrast to the original French name Stéphane.

Mr. Oizo directed all the Flat Eric commercials and performed the music for the ads (with his songs "Flat Beat" and "Monday Massacre"). He commented on the collaboration with Henson: "When they first made him he looked too much like Kermit. He had a rounded body which Flat Eric isn't supposed to have. It took 15 days to make him but the second puppet was too tall — he was like a small child and he wasn't funny. Flat Eric has to be little and small to be laughable, so I said no to number two. The third or fourth time he was just about right. He had to be redesigned several times before he created the same mood and feeling that I had with my first, original puppet Stéphane."

Flat Eric was made by Janet Knechtel for Creature Shop, in the UK and was performed by Drew Massey for all the Levi's commercials. The Levi's ads took three days to shoot. The original short films made with Stéphane cost around 15,000 francs to produce. The two Levi's ads cost around two or three million each. The rights to the character are retained by Oizo.