Rufus and Twig are major characters in Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, voiced by John Beach and Henry Mandell respectively. The brothers[1] are a duo of shifty and bumbling young dweasels ('dino-weasels', officially capitalized as Dweasels), serving as magic animal stooges of the story's antagonist, the evil witch Lady Kale. Once they become magically bond with Kale through the Dark Stone, they are able to talk to her.
With their ability for sniffing out wild magic bits, the mischievous duo keeps Kale informed of the news about magic jewels and on the Jewel Riders' actions and whereabouts. The ever imperious and bad-tempered Kale is often greatly annoyed by their constant clumsiness and stupidity. However, Rufus and Twig admire Kale and always remain faithfully loyal, no matter how harsh and abusive she can be to them.
Official description[]
From the Project Summary 6/26/95 internal guide:
"RUFUS & TWIG
Rufus and Twig are two Dweasels (dino-weasels) who are Kale's helpers. They have an uncanny ability to sniff out wild magical bits like blood hounds. Their reactions are designed to be very funny and showmatic (over the top).
In the show[]
Character[]
Rufus (the purple-skinned one with a gold collar) and his brother Twig (green-skinned, with a silver collar) are a pair of mean but cowardly and silly dino-weasel creatures that are always up to something. They are wisecracking but very nervous and always overreacting to situations.
Before their recruitment by Lady Kale, the former princess of the kingdom turned an evil sorceress, they have lived in the Dweasel Nook village, near their very much better-spirited cousins named Pepe and Gidney. Now, Rufus and Twig are devoted absolutely to Kale and always strive to make her proud of them (they succeed rarely) as they eagerly work to help her rid of Merlin and forever rule Avalon.
They can track the magic in her search for the Crown Jewels and later the Wizard Jewels in which they use their smell sense, often commenting on how delightful scent the magic has to their huge snoots. As such, they are often seen going around alone, either spying on and following the Jewel Riders or actively searching for "magical bits" to sniff them out for Kale. When the two are travelling with Kale, they are usually perched on the side wings of her Dragon Wagon, which they hope might be rewarded to them as the "Dweasel Wagon", but they can also be inside the cabin at times, and on an occasion they fly around in a "a small Montgolfier type balloon".[2]
Quite often they get dressed in various costumes, including even cross-dressing on multiple occasions. One script actually refers to them as "Dweaselvestite" when they try to pass as a human woman in their crude disguise and also notes they "smell horrid" for the wolves as they sniff out "something horrible."[3] When the genie Guardian asks for their any wishes to fulfil, the two "dweasel boys" choose to get a lot of fast food and a "sexy" dweaselette.
Relations with Kale and others[]
Rufus and Twig are fiercely loyal to Lady Kale (whom they call the "Witchy Thing", "Witchy Witch", "Witchy One", "Great Witch", or "Mistress of the Magical", but never by her name), even as she shows absolutely no care for them and addresses them as "idiots" and "snivelling cowards". They used to live in great fear of Merlin's anger, believing he would "fry them like little ants, squash them like bugs, tweak them like tomatoes, burst them like bubbles". After witnessing Lady Kale sending Merlin into the Wild Magic, the two both fear and worship Kale in awe of her "mightier than mighty" power.
They and Kale can understand each other even if they often have trouble comprehend her (and humans in general) through her Dark Stone. As the story begins, they locate this great evil jewel for Kale in a wild magic portal in the woods and its power magically bonds them with her. Once they receive their Dark Stone themed collars, she can also communicate with them remotely by using the Dark Stone like a cell phone. However, unlike the magic animals of the Jewel Riders, who share the halves of their Enchanted Jewels, the dweasels themselves cannot use the magic of the Dark Stone (or any other magic) at all.
Despite their boundless admiration of Lady Kale, the extremely haughty and self-centered former princess is usually at least showing open distaste of such foul and foolish creatures and only on a rare occasion they manage to please her. More often, the very short-tempered Kale can be seen physically mistreating the two with casual cruelty, chocking them or kicking and throwing them around whenever they hesitate to obey her orders or just annoy her with their goofy antics. (Even more so in some scripts, for example booting them out of a tree-house window in the script of "Wizard of Gardenia".[1])
The dweasels in turn have deep contempt for Kale's beloved dragon, Grimm, calling him "dumb" when neither Grimm nor Kale can hear them. But they save Grimm from drowning (in "Travel Trees Can't Dance") and keep him around them during the time when Lady Kale is gone (and when they greatly miss her), and they expect to be eventually awarded the Dragon Wagon to be their own after her victory. They strongly despise all good creatures, trying to bully them and usually very much enjoying seeing Kale hurting others. Only once they feel somewhat sorry in their own special way for the beautiful unicorn Sunstar who was ready to sacrifice herself to not let Kale get Merlin's key ("Woe is for you, pretty beast / Should give great witch the key, stupid thing").
Second season[]
Between the events of the seasons one and two, Rufus and Twig relocate from Castle Thornwoods to the Dweasels Nook with Grimm after Lady Kale has been destroyed in the episode "Full Circle". During that time, they are sad for her being gone but their sorrowful mood lasts only a moment before they become overjoyed by the thought of finally having the Dragon Wagon for themselves, and when Kale makes her sudden return to Avalon, the first thing she does is to go find Grimm living with the dweasels. The dweasels then happily return to Kale's service, gladly enduring her continued bullying of them as ever in their continued "adventuring with the Witchy Witch".
Eventually, in the show's next to final episode "Lady of the Lake" ("Spirit of Avalon"), the two end up magically turned into statues, along with Grimm and Lady Kale herself, by Princess Gwenevere using the powers of the Wizard Jewels and the Staff of Avalon. (In theory, Merlin's new One Jewel should be able to restore them to life, just like Gwen saved the other Jewel Riders from the same fate using the Staff of Avalon just moments after defeating Kale, but what actually is shown is only that Gwen's group just took the Dark Stone and otherwise left them all there.)
Appearances[]
- First season: "Jewel Quest, Part I", "Jewel Quest, Part II", "Travel Trees Can’t Dance", "Song of the Rainbow", "Wizard's Peak", "The Faery Princess", "Badlands", "Home Sweet Heart Stone", "Dreamfields", "Revenge of the Dark Stone", "Full Circle"
- Second season: "Morgana", "Fashion Fever", "Prince of the Forest", "The Wizard of Gardenia", "Mystery Island", "The Fortune Jewel", "Spirit of Avalon", "The One Jewel" (cameo)
Behind the scenes[]
Development[]
Rufus and Twig's Enchanted Jewel Riders Show Bible descriptions read "Humbling Bumbler" (their character quote: "We bow at such immensity").[4] They have been originally conceived as a pair of large fur-covered actual weasels and can be still seen as such even in some late-stage production sketches (such as the one here). Their possible color schemes also changed several times.[5]
Even earlier in the pre-production, they had replaced of Kale's other planned magic animals. Art director Greg Autore said: "When designing a character for animation they have to read well. The weasel-like dragons read better on screen than predictable snakes and bats."[6]
Twig was dubbed by Marco Kröger in German. The word "dweasels" was translated as fouineurs (snoopers) in the French version.
Legacy[]
Rufus and Grimm later inspired the character of Scourge in Avalon: Web of Magic, a bumbling, not very intelligent, humming, hunched apelike creature with long arms, big round eyes, rows of pointy teeth. It is a magic tracker, but not very good, that gathers magical stones and information for the Dark Sorceress, whom he even calls "Great Queenie" and "Witchy Thing" too. Twig also almost shares his name with Tweek.
References[]
Characters |
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List of characters List of episodic characters Main characters |
Magic |
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Magic, Wild Magic, Jewel Quest, Jewel Armor |
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Wizard of Gardenia (script)
- ↑ Travel Trees Can't Dance (script)
- ↑ Fashion Fever (script)
- ↑ Enchanted Jewel Riders Show Bible – The Jewel Riders Archive
- ↑ Color Model Sheet & Art Boards | Princess Gwenevere (Starla) and the Jewel Riders | 25th Anniversary
- ↑ Greg Autore and the Toy Design of Jewel Riders - Part Three | The Jewel Riders Archive