Eric Sparrow first appeared in Tony Hawk's Underground, and started out as a friendly rival for the player character. He quickly becomes nothing more than a nuisance to them, landing the player in hot water with Jersey thugs, Floridian local authorities, and finally, the Russian army in Moscow. The first major thing he does wrong to the player is steal his big trick and passes it off as his own, namely a McTwist across the roof and over a helicoptor to another roof in Hawaii.
Eric showed up next in Tony Hawk's Underground 2, where his presence was played for comedic effect, as he is shown to be incredibly lame in comparison to the other skaters. Sparrow did not make any kind of appearance for the subsequent two games, and made his re-introduction into the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater franchise in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, arguably the last good Tony Hawk game prior to the plastic skateboard peripheral era. His inclusion in THPG also marked the only time the character was not voiced by Mikey Kelley, but rather a new voice actor. This could be due to Kelley lending his voice talents to skate., a game released that same year, and the only skating game to successfully dethrone the Tony Hawk franchise. As a result of these events, they ended up with someone who sounds less like Sparrow, and the protagonist voiced by someone who sounds eerily similar to Kelley.
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