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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 independance. 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"
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