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TWEEG CHARACTER PROFILE  By Josh Isaacson, Teddy Ruxpin Online Webmaster

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"

 

 

   

                  

 

 

Will Ryan (above)
was the voice of Tweeg in the
Adventure Series 

 

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