I've seen Cartoon writers of the time talk about how characters like Eric were required by the powers that be in kid shows of the time.
You would have your positive role model for kids (Hank) that showed how they *should* act: Brave, responsible and such and were rewarded for it. The Leader/Main Hero Protagonist of the group.
And you were also required to have your "negative role model" who would be selfish, or greedy, loud, obnoxious, winey really just any generally undesirable social traits in the group and they would get punished by the show for acting like that. They were mandated specifically to show kids that if you are a jerk bad stuff will happen to you and people wont like you.
This was Eric, and Lance from Voltron, and the thin guy from Kid Video, and a bunch of others. Strangely Link from the Zelda cartoon was also this archetype which is why the cartoon is always thought of as being so bad and strange, they made the usual obnoxious Jerk secondary character the hero but still generally punish him for it.
-ZacWilliam, if the show was ever brought back I'm sure a modern Cartoon would deepen all their characters, like the Netflix Voltron did.