Jack W.
Tweeg is perhaps the most unsuccessful bad guy in the history
of children's entertainment, and in the days of the 80's, when The
Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin was produced, a
non-successful bad guy was a revolutionary idea. What came out of
changing the mold was an unforgettable character.
On the surface, Tweeg
cares about two things: Getting rich, and joining MAVO, The Monsters
and Villains Organization, for which he is far too inept to attain
membership. These two goals continue to drive him throughout the
storyline. As time passes, we see that under the surface Tweeg
is also hopelessly trying to attain his mother's approval. In fact,
Tweeg's origins, when revealed, are perhaps the biggest
reason, (even moreso than wanting to
join MAVO), of why he is the way he is: his absentee father, Elroy
Tweeg, is a grunge and a carefree surfer who rode away on "the most rad
wave in history" to escape the cantakerous Elanor, Jack's mother, who
does belong in MAVO. In the episode "Grubby's Romance" we see
Elanor write a letter to Tweeg explaining if he doesn't attain MAVO
membership, she is disowning him. She signs it, "Your Ashamed Mother".
Tweeg wouldn't be
complete without his sidekick, LB the Bounder, who as Ken Forsse put
it, is much smarter and able than his boss, without the determination
and independence. LB pretty much does what Tweeg says, and gets little
if any pay for doing so. LB is the lead of several Bounders, small red
creatures with horns who basically live to be no good on a misdemeanor
level. One of Tweeg's greatest frustrations is being called humorous
variations of his real name by LB (Probably on purpose) such as
"Tweeze". Tweeg usually follows up one of these gaffaws with
"The name is TWEEG- T-W-E-E-G".
As
time passed in the television series, Tweeg's mold was broken
a bit, and a slight soft side began to show. Tweeg temporarily left his
life in Gimmick's valley to go surfing and hang out with his long-lost
father. He even became a member of MAVO and through a series of gaffs,
even the Supreme Opressor (leader) at one point. I personally
feel that the writers of the TV show got off base a little with these
developments with Tweeg's character, although the changes proved to be
beneficial to the storyline in general. By the end of the TV series,
however, Tweeg was pretty much back to his inept scheming ways.
When Ken Forsse
created Tweeg, he throught it would fit the story better to have Tweeg
as more inept and greedy than actually successfully bad; and
this taught a valuable lesson that being bad isn't always what it's
cracked up to be. The best example of this was perhaps in the episode
"Grundo Graduation" in which Tweeg starts a war between the elves and
the woodsprites. The fighting ends up causing a fire, and an ember of
the fire floats along the breeze to Tweeg's roof, where it subsequently
burns the living quarters of his tower.
My personal favorite
moments of Tweeg are when he's firing his canonball. As Gimmick so
appropriately stated, "If he's firing at us it's probably the safest
place in the valley to be." equally humorous are the cannonballs
themselves, inscribed with "Return To Tweeg"