Reginald Albert 'Red' Forman, an extremely conservative Navy War Veteran, who can also be a strict disciplinarian when necessary. His wife, Kitty refers to him as great in bed! During working hours he's the boss from Hell, at home never content and always bickering with his extremely sociable wife Kitty and kids, mainly Eric, who is ...
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Reginald Albert 'Red' Forman, an extremely conservative Navy War Veteran, who can also be a strict disciplinarian when necessary. His wife, Kitty refers to him as great in bed! During working hours he's the boss from Hell, at home never content and always bickering with his extremely sociable wife Kitty and kids, mainly Eric, who is told the right response to just about all his actions would be dad's foot up his ass. It is revealed that only once he has actually put his foot up someone's ass the way he always likes to threaten everyone, but it was not his son's and he doesn't reveal anything more about it. It is implied that there was other forms of physical abuse going on a lot in the way he raised his son, yet he is never seen applying corporal punishment, just traumatizing verbal abuse.He's even less happy with the almost constant presence of Eric's friends, mainly in the basement, but ends up accepting Kitty virtually adopting the abandoned bastard of the lot, Steven Hyde, and actually tends to favor the fellow brute over his own dumb ass kid, whose accomplishments he avoids to praise almost at any cost. Sometimes, though extremely rarely, he does praise his son, which thus always shocks him. Naturally, libertine neighbor Bob is seen as the most annoying person, but again Kitty forces him to be neighborly against every grain in his boorish body.Red has the hardest time to let his emotions (other than anger, grumpiness, excitement and disappointment) show, or deal with others emotional outbursts - especially crying is horribly unpleasant thing to him to be anywhere near. He considers crying a female thing and a sign of weakness. The only point where we see him nearly crying is when Eric gives him a front line ticket to a game of his favorite football team. When surprised Kitty asks if he's actually crying, he quickly says no and runs out of the room. Also, saying I love you is rarely heard from his mouth, although unintentionally implied quite often, which his son always happily picks on. Only his wife gets to hear the three words quite often. When Kitty tells their son that the father yells at him only because he loves him, and Eric realizes its true, the next time Red yells at him, Eric states: I love you too, Daddy. to which Red genuinely but warmly replies: Stop being weird. Red also thinks that men shouldn't hug other men. His homophobia is somewhat strong, but not too serious as he didn't offend the gay couple who at one point moved into their neighbor house and he didn't drive them away for their sexual orientation.When his son, Eric, was about to leave to Africa for a year, Red finally lets his true emotions openly and genuinely show. He effortlessly tells Eric that he'll miss him, loves him and wishes he has a good trip, and when stunned Eric suggests: This seems like a moment when normal people would hug. he embraces his son. Red even gives him his old switch knife from the war, which Eric had never been allowed to touch, under the penalty of death. When the mother and Eric's friends record an audio tape to send to Eric, Red again can't bring himself to tell Eric he misses him. Kitty tricks him to say it in private to her, but she had the tape recorder under a pillow, recording the discussion, wherein Red finally stated, again effortlessly and with deep emotion: Of course I miss him. He's my son! His first born child, daughter Laurie, was his favorite, and appears a Daddy's girl. Red was ignorant to his daughter's slutty personality, but eventually learns about it when she temporarily moves out of his house. However, Red has realistic expectations of her future, acknowledging that she isn't the brightest kid around but more likely to succeed by her beautiful looks.When Red is really, really angry, he goes fishing. According to Eric, it's something about stabbing the worm with the hook over and over again, being therapeutic to Red. Red loves and appears to be very good at hunting.Red has two brothers, Jerry and Marty. Jerry is only mentioned once, by their mother, Bernice. Marty appears in the episode where their mother dies. Jerry is said to be very wealthy. Red dislikes Marty because Marty is a hippie and very in touch with his feelings, and wants everyone to be the same way.
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