Characters / The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin The Trio

In General

The main characters of the series and the only characters to appear in every single episode. Teddy Ruxpin and Grubby the Octopede are longtime best friends, while Newton Gimmick is a new friend that they met when they arrived in Grundo in the first episode, and the three have remained an inseparable team ever since.

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• Accidental Discovery: The first three Crystals' powers were discovered by Gimmick's experiments, but they discover the other three by pure luck.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of the final episode, they are off on another journey to find a lost tribe of Illiops in the north.
• Badass Crew: They work as a team to do amazing things while risking danger and overcoming their enemies.
• Beware the Honest Ones: They're all good, moral, and law-abiding people, yet for some reason, Tweeg always thinks that they're up to something. Whatever trouble they get into, the three of them always win in the end, and the villains rarely see it coming. Grundo villains pride themselves on being thieves, liars, and cheaters, so an honest person is not only hard for them to predict, it scares them!
• Big Damn Heroes: When needed, they always come to the rescue of their friends, including each other, in the nick of time.
• Chekhov's Skill: Leota teaches them sign language in "Sign of a Friend". This proves life-saving a few episodes later when it lets Leota's deaf student tell them that the schoolhouse is on fire.
• Chromatic Arrangement: They each get one of the RBY primary colors: Teddy wears red, Gimmick wears blue, and Grubby is yellow.
• Covered in Mud: In "Teddy and the Mudblups", they splatter mud all over themselves to disguise themselves as Mudblups.
• Defiant Captive: When M.A.V.O. captures them in "Captured", they refuse to give in to Quellor's demands. Even if they Walk the Plank. When the Sorcerer captures Gimmick in the Ying arc, Gimmick declares that iron bars won't contain his spirit. And in "Fugitivies", Grubby and Gimmick are being guarded by M.A.V.O. but refuse to admit that they know Teddy.
• Distressed Dude: All three of them have needed rescuing multiple times in the series.
• Dressing as the Enemy: After entering the Hard to Find City for the first time, Teddy and his friends beat up some unsuspecting Gutangs, steal their armor, and put it on to avoid detection.
• Embodiment of Virtue: The Crystals reveal which virtues they embody, like "Imagination" or "Inventiveness" for Gimmick, "Honesty" for Grubby, and "Friendship" or "Generosity" for Teddy. The things they do in the series exemplify this.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: When the Reducing Machine enlarges a strawberry that starts to roll after them, they agree that running would be the best idea, so they do.
• Fire-Forged Friends: They become friends with Prince Arin when they get captured by and escape from the Mudblups together. After they offer to put off their treasure hunt to help find his sister, he calls their friendship the best treasure he ever had.
• Freudian Trio:
  • Grubby: Sometimes the Id (in everyday life when he'd rather just relax and eat), sometimes the Superego (when he's reluctant to go adventuring)
  • Gimmick: Sometimes the Superego (when he'd rather take the time to think and study), sometimes the Id (when he'll act impulsively for his pride and science).
  • Teddy: Always the Ego who mediates between their extremes.
• A Friend in Need: They're always willing to help a friend.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: In "Win One for the Twipper" and the Wizardweek arc, they compete against Tweeg and L.B. in sporting events.
• Group Hug: They do this with each other multiple times.
• Human Ladder: They do this whenever they have to reach a high place, such as escaping from the Mudblup dungeon to a hole in the surface.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: They rarely miss when shooting slingshots with Grubby's root stew. They shoot down whole squadrons of Gutang flying machines this way.
• Incredible Shrinking Man: Whenever they use the Reducing Machine, they shrink down to the size of a bug and have amazing adventures.
• Indy Escape: In "The Faded Fobs", they run away from a giant rolling strawberry.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Gimmick is decades older than Teddy and Grubby.
• Interspecies Friendship: An Illiop, an Octopede, and a Perloon. They also befriend many other races.
• Keep the Reward: When Arin offers them a reward for helping save his sister, they turn it down, since they didn't do it for a reward. Arin insists, though, that they at least keep the Crystals.
• Land, Sea, Sky: Teddy was raised in a country house where his family grew food (land), Grubby is an Octopede, who are natural sailors (sea), and Gimmick designed, built, and commands the Airship (sky).
• Living Museum Exhibit: In Ying, the Sorcerer's forces capture them as specimens for their zoo. Gimmick is billed as "Gimmick the Great" where his intelligence is treated like an attraction, Grubby joins "the Amazing Octopedes", and Teddy replaces the Sorcerer's star attraction, an Illiop who escaped years ago.
• Made a Slave: In "Beware of the Mudblups", the Mudblups capture them and force Grubby to work in the kitchen and Teddy and Gimmick to mine coal.
• Meaningful Name: Teddy is a bear-like Illiop and based on a teddy bear, Grubby resembles the larva (or grub) of insects, and Newton Gimmick is a scientist (like Isaac Newton) whose inventions are his gimmicks.
• No One Gets Left Behind: When one of their own is in danger, they refuse to abandon each other. In "Beware of the Mudblups", after Teddy and Gimmick escape, they go back to save Grubby as soon as they can.
• Nurse with Good Intentions: In "Tweeg Gets the Tweezles", L.B. brings them to help his sick boss. All Tweeg gets is a bad taste from Grubby's soup and burns from Gimmick's mustard plaster.
• Odd Friendship: They're all very different but the closest of friends:
  • Teddy and Grubby: Teddy is daring and seeks out adventure, while Grubby is somewhat cowardly and would rather avoid it.
  • Teddy and Gimmick: One is a Farm Boy who prefers to learn by going out into the world, while the other is a scientist who led a quiet life for many years before the series just tinkering away in his lab.
  • Grubby and Gimmick: Gimmick is a brilliant scientist but somewhat absent-minded, while Grubby's more of a down-to-earth but Book Dumb everyman.
• Oh, Crap!: They get this reaction whenever they realize they're in trouble, such as when the Airship is going to crash in the first episode or when the cave roof is about to collapse in the second episode.
• Only the Pure of Heart: As the reassembled medallion says, "Only the pure of spirit may find the Treasure of Knowledge". In the live-action special, Teddy speculates that whoever wrote it wanted someone like them to take the Crystals.
• Out of Focus: All three have speaking roles in every episode, but they don't appear much in "Tweeg's Mom", which focuses on the villains.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Tweeg Joins M.A.V.O.", they just put on hats and aprons to infiltrate M.A.V.O,. and no one realizes Teddy is an Illiop until his disguise falls off. Double Subverted when Gimmick recognized two Mudblups were really Teddy and Grubby in disguise as a prank... not because of two Mudblups having furry feet or eight legs, but because Mudblups hate daylight and these two Mudblups were out in daylight without sunglasses.
• Poor Communication Kills: In "Tweeg Joins M.A.V.O.", Teddy and Grubby think Tweeg stole the Crystal Book (so does Tweeg), but Gimmick knows it's his book All About Fobs. They could have avoided a lot of trouble if they mentioned the books by name.
• The Power of Friendship: While it's played straight for most of the series, it gets averted once. When M.A.V.O. succeeds in collecting all the Crystals, the dark sides of all of Teddy's friends' personalities are brought to the fore, causing them to abandon him when he needs them most. This results in Teddy having to go on a mission alone.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: An adventurous Farm Boy with Chronic Hero Syndrome, a brutally-honest Cowardly Lion Big Eater, and an Absent-Minded Professor inventor with a Speech Impediment.
• Regular Character: They're the only three characters to appear in every episode.
• The Rival: Tweeg constantly sees them this way and enjoys competing against them.
• Save the Villain: They will do this out of Teddy's desire to help everyone. It works in Teddy's favor when saving L.B. means that the latter owes him later.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: When they get captured by the M.A.V.O. pirates, Quellor offers them great wealth if they hand over the Crystals, but they refuse because you can't put a price on the Crystals.
• Secret Test of Character: After Teddy connects his half of the medallion with the other half, the inscription reads "Only the Pure of Spirit May Find the Treasure of Knowledge." This leads the heroes to discover that said treasure is not the adjoining room full of gold and jewels but six Crystals. Arin suggests that the Crystal were probably meant for the Trio all along.
• Security Cling: When Grubby and Gimmick are startled by Old Beanly's waking reaction in "King Nogburt's Castle", Gimmick jumps in Teddy's arms and Grubby climbs on top of Teddy.
• Signature Team Transport: The Airship is their easy-to-recognize way of getting around.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In "The Lemonade Stand", Tweeg puts on a disguise and becomes a Snake Oil Salesman who convinces everyone that he's selling a Tweezle remedy. In the next episode, to get everyone's money back, the Trio disguise themselves, make Tweeg think they have a machine that can turn colored water into precious stones, and trick him into buying it.
• That Reminds Me of a Song: Because the show is an Animated Musical, they break into song all the time for no reason. Most of their songs are from one of the cassette tapes.
• True Companions: They're as close and family and will do anything for each other.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: During the Great Grundo Ground Race, they must sneak into the Mudblup cave to get some more coal. The footprints they leave behind make the other contestants think they're supposed to go in there, and they get attacked by Mudblups.
• Walking the Earth: Subverted. It starts out this way, with Teddy and Grubby prepared to do it, but they return to Gimmick's house at the end of each adventure.
• Weirdness Magnet: At the end "Leekee Lake", Teddy concludes that they are this because ever since they found the Crystals, the most peculiar things seem to happen to them.
• We Need a Distraction: In "The Rainbow Mine", when Teddy is in Tweeg's medicine wagon, Gimmick and Grubby distract L.B. long enough for Teddy to sneak out unseen.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: It starts with longtime best friends Teddy and Grubby as they go on an adventure in Grundo. Once they get there, they meet and befriend Gimmick, a Grundo native who helps them understand the strange land they're venturing into.

Teddy Ruxpin

Teddy Ruxpin

Voiced by: Phil Baron

First appearance: "The Treasure of Grundo"

The primary protagonist of the series, Teddy was responsible for kicking off the adventure that started the series. After finding an old treasure map and half of a medallion, he and Grubby set off for the land of Grundo to search for the treasure. He is a member of a race known as the Illiops, intelligent ursine-like creatures.

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• The Ace: He's only in his teens, but he's already a highly skilled adventurer who can think up plans and solutions on the fly, shoot down enemy planes with a slingshot, single-handedly take on monsters much bigger than him, and survive anything from falling hundreds of feet to swimming in a frozen lake. He's got a lot of other skills too and is an Instant Expert at several things.
• Adaptational Badass: Teddy rarely has to face real danger in the books. While he's not exactly an action hero, the cartoon has a lot more action and genuinely dangerous villains, so he shows off what he can do more often.
• Adventurer Archaeologist: Starting with a treasure hunt in the first episode, he becomes one as he discovers more ancient artifacts and uncovers his people's lost history.
• All-Loving Hero: Teddy is very nice and friendly to everyone he sees. He's even willing to help out Tweeg and L.B., despite how often they cause trouble for him and his friends.
• Badass Adorable: Teddy is basically a giant teddy bear, but he's no slouch when it comes to facing danger.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Teddy wears a shirt and shorts, but no shoes. He mentions in "The Faded Fobs" that Illiops don't normally wear shoes.
• Batman Gambit: He knows Tweeg well enough that in "The Rainbow Mine", he rightly predicts what Tweeg will do, based on his greed, so the Trio can get back all the money Tweeg cheated out of everyone.
• Bears Are Bad News: Played with. The same prophecy that states putting the Crystals in M.A.V.O.'s walls will bring about an age of darkness also warns that an Illiop will be able destroy the organization. The appearance of Teddy along with Crystals' reemergence is a cause of worry to the evil organization.
• Beary Friendly: Nice, caring, and friendly to everyone. The opening line from the first cassette tape says it all: "Hi. My name is Teddy Ruxpin. Can you and I be friends?"
• Berserk Button: He's a Nice Guy to everyone, but do not threaten or harm his friends.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Despite being one of the most soft-spoken characters in the series, Teddy is able to take on M.A.V.O. all by himself and win.
• Big Damn Reunion: In the final five-episode arc, he and his parents are officially reunited when Burl gets his memory back and they go home to Ilana.
• Blowing a Raspberry: While facing M.A.V.O. in "M.A.V.O. Costume Ball", he does this to goad Trudge into charging at him, knocking one of the Crystals out of the Great Ring.
• Brats with Slingshots: He's a teenager whose weapon of choice against the Gutangs is a slingshot with a spoonful of Grubby's root stew in it.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Teddy Ruxpin is an "Illiop". The Brazilian-Portuguese translation calls them bears anyway.
• Caring Gardener: A caring guy who spent his days helping his mom grow vegetables before starting his adventure. His gardening skills come in handy when he shows his friends how to start a peanut farm at the castle.
• Chekhov's Gun: In "Teddy's Quest", rope is one of the things mentioned in his backpack for his trip to Leekee Lake. It turns out to be really important because it allows him to save L.B.'s life.
• Chekhov's Skill: "The Day Teddy Met Grubby" reveals that his mother taught him how to grow vegetables, and when it looks like someone is stealing their potatoes, they set up a booby trap. Both skills get used in the next episode: to start a peanut farm at the castle, and to set up a trap for a spy.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: He always feels the need to help someone whether it's his problem or not. Unfortunately, this often lands him and his friends in danger.
• Crazy-Prepared: He has Arin help him make some slingshots and has Grubby make some root stew in case they need to fight the Gutangs.
• Damned by Faint Praise: The best thing he can honestly say about Grubby's cooking is that it is "interesting".
• Deadly Dodging: When he sneaks into M.A.V.O. during the costume party, he goads the monsters into attacking him but always dodges, making them crash into the walls.
• Death Glare: Yes, believe it or not, Teddy of all people delivers one to his best friend Grubby in "The Wooly What's-It" when Grubby tries to stay behind eating instead of helping deal with a windstorm.
• Determinator: Teddy always refuses to give up, even when the odds are stacked against him. When his friends succumb to the evil of M.A.V.O.'s spell and refuse to help, he decides to just keep going alone.
• Discreet Dining Disposal: He, Gimmick, and Arin end up dumping the root stew Grubby made overboard the Airship (and onto Tweeg's head) because they're too nice to tell him he's a Lethal Chef.
• Disney Death: At the end of "Captured", he falls from the Eclipse, which is hundreds of feet in the air. His friends spend a couple of episodes thinking he died. He only lives because of Soft Water.
• Diving Save: In "The Faded Fobs", he jumps toward Grubby and Gimmick and shoves them out of the way of the giant strawberry.
• The Dreaded: Believe it or not, he's this to the denizens of the Land of Ying. Upon discovering their quarry to be an Illiop, some monster thugs turned and ran. He's also this for M.A.V.O., as their legend that states an Illiop will cause their downfall. Gains some credence when he proves unaffected by their Hate Plague after the succeed in taking all the crystals.
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • Once Teddy regains the real map that Tweeg left on the airship in the previous episode, he tells Gimmick and Grubby that the old lady that came on the ship really was Tweeg in disguise.
  • When Fuzz is kidnapped, he suddenly realizes the perfect way to get him back: use the Third Crystal to sneak in and scare away Tweeg and L.B.
• Exposed to the Elements: Averted during the snowy season, but when Grundo is under M.A.V.O.'s evil spell, he walks through the cold wind in his usual light tunic and shorts.
• Faking the Dead: In "Thin Ice", he pretends to commit suicide through a hole in the ice to escape M.A.V.O. The Fourth Crystal lets him breathe underwater until he enters the Hermit's lair.
• Farm Boy: The Ruxpins grow vegetables at their cottage out in the country. At first Teddy seemed happy there, but when he discovered the treasure map, he had a desire to go adventuring. Along the way, he discovers the lost legacy of his people.
• Fatal Flaw: His willingness to help others and do the right thing always seems to land him in trouble, dragging Grubby and Gimmick along. In one episode, M.A.V.O. decides that an Illiop's loyalty is his weakness.
• For Halloween, I Am Going as Myself: Briefly pretends to be wearing an Illiop costume to sneak past Bognostroclum and into the M.A.V.O. costume ball.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Believe it or not, Teddy and Quellor sing a duet together when they're both trapped in M.A.V.O.'s prison. They manage not to be overtly antagonistic towards each other, though Quellor's lines lamenting not having the freedom to be an Evil Overlord does creep Teddy out.
• Good Samaritan: Teddy is always willing to help others just because he likes doing it.
• Guile Hero: To achieve his goals, he mostly relies on words, gambits, quick-thinking skills, outwitting his enemies, and the natural effect he has on people.
• Hand Gagging: He does this to Grubby before the latter can give away their mission in the Hard to Find City to a disguised Tweeg.
• The Heart: He's easily the moral center of the Trio and their allies. In fact, he's possibly the Heart for all of Grundo.
• Hero Protagonist: He's the central character who is always doing good deeds and going on adventures.
• The Hero's Journey: It's called The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin for a reason. He goes through the main stages of the Hero's Journey throughout the series, culminating with a return home.
• Hero vs. Villain Duet: Teddy and Quellor sing a duet called "No Place To Go" while they're both imprisoned in MAVO's Dungeon with, Teddy lamenting that while locked up, he's unable to help his friends, cheer people up, or explore whereas Quellor is angry he can't spread darkness, kick a Fob and make it yelp, or be cruel to his grandmother. Funnily enough while they do react to each other's verses, they manage to keep the harmony through the whole song and don't break down into any sort of insults.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Grubby.
• Hidden Depths: "The Day Teddy Met Grubby" reveals that he can play the flute, and also reveals his skills at gardening and building booby traps, both of which are used in the next episode. Later episodes show that his skills extend to piloting a submarine, playing Grungeball catcher, and more.
• Humble Hero: While he always saves the day, he never brags about it or lets it go to his head.
• I Can't Do This by Myself: After Grundo falls under M.A.V.O.'s evil spell, his friends become reluctant to help him, though he insists that he can't do it himself. He manages to push them to do their part, even though they don't like it.
• Idiot Ball: In "Fugitives". After sneaking into M.A.V.O. Headquarters thanks to the Invisibility Crystal, he thinks he's found the Hermit in a cell. He turns himself visible without making sure, even though he says he's going to turn them both invisible in a moment anyway. The unnecessary moment of visibility gets him captured because the person in the cell is really Sludge in disguise.
• I Just Want to Be Free: In "The Big Escape", while he's a prisoner of the Ying Zoo, he sings about wanting to be free. Teddy claims that nothing is more important to him than freedom. He sings another song about wanting to be out when he's locked in the M.A.V.O. dungeon.
• Improvised Clothes: When visiting the Ying Zoo, he and Grubby use leaves and things they find to disguise themselves as monsters.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Seems to be the Illiops' stock in trade. When M.A.V.O. succeeds in collecting all the crystals, Teddy is the only one of his friends who doesn't become a darker version of themselves.
• Instant Expert: Teddy manages to become a master at something he's never used before several times in the series, whether it's playing catcher for a Grungeball team when he's never even been to a game before or operating a submarine that hasn't been used for generations.
• "I Want" Song: "All Locked Up", a duet he shares with Quellor of all characters, is about how they both want to get out of prison.
• The Kirk: He moderates between Grubby and Gimmick and will choose whatever he thinks is best for the situation.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: In "Captured", after multiple attempts to escape the Eclipse, Teddy decides to surrender because it's the only chance to save the Crystals.
• Land in the Saddle: In "The Day Teddy Met Grubby", while trying to stop a stampede of animals, he and Aruzia jump and land on a pair of running bareback Cloppids.
• Last-Name Basis: The members of M.A.V.O. sometimes just call him "Ruxpin".
• The Leader: He leads the Trio on their adventures.
• Let's Get Out of Here: Says this to Grubby word for word when they're attacked by a pack of Bounders in the first episode.
• Literal Cliffhanger:
  • In "The Rainbow Mine", after Rainbow Falls turns into rapids and he gets swept away over the falls, he grabs a dangling root, hanging on until Wooly rescues him.
  • Not an actual cliff, but near the end of "Captured", he is still hanging on for life from the bottom of the Eclipse. This time, he plummets.
• Lured into a Trap: In "Fugitives", when M.A.V.O. captures the Hermit by mistake, they use him as bait to lure Teddy into a trap.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: He often tells white lies to avoid hurting someone's feelings, mostly when he doesn't want to tell Grubby that his root recipes taste terrible. Later, it extends to the Hermit's "chewy vegetable" (underwater plants).
• Never Say "Die": When Teddy falls from the Eclipse, everyone obviously thinks he's dead, but he's only called "gone" or something similar. The characters do say "die" on occasion, but generally only when they worry that someone might die in the future.
• Nice Guy: Teddy is kind, caring, and friendly to everyone, even a villain like Tweeg.
• No One Could Survive That!: When Teddy plummets hundreds of feet from the sky at the end of "Captured", you can't blame anyone for thinking he didn't survive. He only lives thanks to the river's Soft Water and the Hermit who saves him and nurses him back to health.
• Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: In his Birthday Episode, he spends the day thinking that Grubby forgot his birthday. When the Trio set out to Mizley Meadows, their other friends meet up with them to celebrate. It turns out that Grubby had remembered and organized a surprise party.
• Odd Name Out: Unlike Grubby and Gimmick, Teddy's name does not start with a G.
• Only Friend: He was the Hermit's only friend until he convinced the Hermit to come back with him and meet his friends. The Hermit was shy and stayed away from people for years, making an exception for Teddy because the Hermit saved Teddy's life.
• Platonic Kissing: At his birthday party, Leota gives him a kiss on the cheek.
• Positive Friend Influence: His niceness is a good influence over everyone he befriends. Those who start out hostile to him and his companions often become their friends thanks to him. It's put to the test when everyone falls under M.A.V.O.'s Hate Plague, and Teddy has to keep his friends working together.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Only Teddy can turn "Can you and I be friends?" into one of these before taking on all of M.A.V.O. single-handedly.
• Red Is Heroic: Part of his clothes are red. Teddy's not exactly an action hero, but, as stated before in Beware the Nice Ones, he took all of M.A.V.O. by himself in one chapter.
• Reluctant Warrior: In "The Third Crystal", he says violence isn't the answer even though he used it against Quellor in "Tweeg Joins M.A.V.O." and some Gutangs in "In the Fortress of the Wizard". He only uses violence when he has no choice.
• Rescue Reversal: Twice in the series he ends up getting captured while trying to save a friend: First, while trying to save Gimmick and the Octopedes from the Ying Zoo, only to have them cause a jailbreak and break him out, and once where he tries to save the Hermit from M.A.V.O.
• Secret Legacy: His people were once a great civilization that owned the Crystals and created a lot of advanced ancient technology, but lost all of this when the Gutangs took over the Hard-to-Find City, forcing the Illiops to leave for Rillonia and eventually be reduced to simple village people.
• See the Invisible: While under the power of the Third Crystal in "Fugitives", he leaves a trail of footprints in the snow.
• Slippery Skid: When Leekee Lake is frozen over, he's able to cross it if he walks carefully, but when he tries to run on the ice, he only slips and falls.
• Soft Water: After falling hundreds of feet from the Eclipose, a river breaks his fall and saves his life.
• The Strategist: Teddy is usually the one who comes up with the plan to solve a problem, save someone, or defeat the villain, and he can generally come up with plans right on the spot.
• Strong as They Need to Be: In "The Rainbow Mine", when trapped in a cave of rising water, Teddy rips out a large stalactite with his bare hands to use as a lever. Normally, they'd need Wooly to do something like that.
• Take a Third Option:
  • When Tweeg kidnaps Fuzz, Gimmick resigns himself to Tweeg's demands that he leave the valley, while Grubby suggests they go punch Tweeg in the nose to get Fuzz back. Teddy realizes that neither plan is the answer, so he comes up with a third option: use the Invisibility Crystal on themselves.
  • When Leota and the Woodsprites are under M.A.V.O.'s evil spell and refuse to do their part in the plan, Gimmick claims that Teddy's plan won't work without them. But Teddy comes up with a new plan: sneak into M.A.V.O., trick them into knocking one of the Crystals loose to end the spell, then wait for Leota's team to change their mind and get the others.
• Talking in Your Sleep: After being rescued from the river, he occasionally babbles about the Crystals and Quellor while sleeping tucked under a blanket.
• Tantrum Throwing: The phony body extender that Tweeg sells him keeps bopping him on the head and gives him such a headache that he throws it away in anger.
• Team Dad: Acts like one to the Trio, despite Gimmick being so much older. He looks out for his friends, and whenever Grubby and Gimmick get into an argument, he settles things like a father disciplining his children.
• Technical Pacifist: While Teddy doesn't like hurting others, he will if pushed hard enough. He's knocked down M.A.V.O. members on more than one occasion, but his actions are always non-lethal. Even the Gutangs he shoots down always parachute to safety.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Strawberries. He outright says he loves them in the book "The Story of the Faded Fobs" and enjoys every time he goes out to pick them. In the live-action special, a strawberry is how he gets rid of the aftertaste of Grubby's roasted roots.
• Translator Buddy: Sometimes acted as one for Gimmick's Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, such as explaining to Grubby what "combustible" means.
• Two Men, One Dress: In "The Ying Zoo", he and Grubby briefly disguise themselves as a single monster by wrapping themselves in a blanket until Grubby's Ill-Timed Sneeze gives them away.
• Utility Belt: In "Teddy and the Mudblups", he starts wearing a belt with pockets to carry the Crystals, which works better than the bag he used to use.
• Walk the Plank: Quellor and the M.A.V.O. pirates force him to do this when they capture him. Since their ship is an airship, that makes it even more dangerous.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: He's a teenager (15-16 based on the live-action special), but he's usually more levelheaded and practical than most of his friends.
• Xanatos Gambit: He pulls one on Tweeg in "The Rainbow Mine". When the Trio convince Tweeg that they have a machine that can turn Rainbow Falls water into precious stones, Teddy predicts that Tweeg will buy it for whatever they ask. But the Trio have had Rainbow Falls dammed up. And when Tweeg tries to recall the Tweezle remedy, the Grunges tell him they've found other uses for the stuff. All paths lead to the same conclusion: Tweeg has to buy back the Tweezle remedy for as much as his customers are willing to hold out for.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: He's good at adjusting his plans in a moment's notice. In "The New M.A.V.O. Member", when Quellor's pet spots them, it keeps them from getting close enough to implant the last fake Crystal, so Teddy uses his slingshot to shoot it into place. In "M.A.V.O. Costume Ball", when the Woodsprites won't help because of the evil spell, he comes up with a new plan and sneaks past the guard by pretending to be a monster in an Illiop costume.

Grubby the Octopede

Grubby the Octopede

Voiced by: Will Ryan

First appearance: "The Treasure of Grundo"

Secondary protagonist of the series, Grubby and Teddy have been best friends since they were children. Grubby is a member of a race known as the Octopedes, intelligent insectoid creatures that have a penchant for sailing.

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• Adaptational Intelligence: In the books, he tended to be slower and less intelligent than Teddy and Gimmick. In the animated series, he's more of a Book Dumb character with a lot of common sense, sometimes to the point of being the Only Sane Man.
• Agony of the Feet: He complains that his feet hurt from so much hiking at the start of the first episode. Then at the dance in "Grubby's Romance", one of the dancers steps on his foot in high heels. As Teddy put it, "You do have a lot of feet to worry about."
• Being Watched: In "Guests of the Grunges", while hiking through the Jungle with No Name, Grubby says he gets the feeling they're being watched. They are...by a bunch of curious little Fobs.
• Big Eater: Grubby is always hungry and always ready to accept an invitation to dinner.
• Big "SHUT UP!": When everyone falls under M.A.V.O.'s Hate Plague, Teddy tries to stop Grubby, Gimmick, and Wooly from arguing only to receive a collective "Oh, shup up, Teddy!"
• Blame Game: Occasionally, Grubby and Gimmick argue over whose fault it is when something goes wrong, such as during Gimmick's experiment in "Tweeg Gets the Tweezles".
• Body Pocket: Grubby can apparently store things when he's wearing nothing. In "Escape from the Treacherous Mountains", he produces a jewel from behind his back.
• Book Dumb: Unlike Teddy, he usually has trouble keeping up with Gimmick's scientific talking and mindset. When he loses his voice, Teddy remarks that writing is hard for him.
• Brutal Honesty: On occasion. The Crystals identify Honesty as one of his key traits, but he can be a little insensitive when he tells it like it is.
• Butt-Monkey: He tends to be the victim of slapstick in the series.
• Chekhov's Gun: When the Gutangs launch an attack on the airship, Teddy comes up with the idea of using Grubby's Roosted Root Stew as a projectile on their Flying Machines. Later on, he uses the stew to prevent the airbag from being deflated.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: Grubby is a good cook when he uses the right ingredients. It's too bad that so many Octopede recipes are made from roots.
• Cowardly Lion: He's more nervous than Teddy and has an aversion to adventure, but when someone he cares about needs his help, he'll do anything.
• Cowardly Sidekick: To Teddy. He tends to be more cowardly.
• Cranial Eruption: In the first episode, when Leota instructs the Trio how to fix the Airship, Grubby salutes like a sailor while he's still holding his hammer and accidentally hits himself on the head.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's clumsier and more nervous than Teddy and is Book Dumb, but he gets a lot of awesome moments in the series.
• Crush Blush: He blushes while he and Karen embrace.
• Curtain Camouflage: In "Escape from M.A.V.O.", he and Gimmick duck behind a hanging tapestry so Bognostroclum doesn't see them. He doesn't notice their feet.
• Dance of Romance: He spends his time dancing with Karen in "Grubby's Romance".
• Deadpan Snarker: He makes a lot of witty remarks and is a lot more sarcastic than his friends.
• Didn't Want an Adventure: Often, Grubby rather just stay home where it's safe. His last line in the first episode is "I hate adventure!" Unlike most examples, his adventures aren't thrust upon him. He could have stayed in Rillonia, but he follows Teddy wherever he goes out of Undying Loyalty.
• The Drag-Along: He often states how he hates adventure and wishes that they could just stay home safely, but he'll go wherever Teddy goes out of loyalty.
• Expendable Clone: Everything made by the Duplicating Machine in "Double Grubby" turns out to be made of unstable molecules, so his clone eventually disappears.
• Exposed to the Elements: For some reason, being in the snow wearing just a hat and scarf doesn't bother him.
• Fast Tunneling: Grubby and Gimmick dig a tunnel out of their M.A.V.O. cell very quickly. The only reason it didn't get them to safety was because Gimmick thought that they were beyond the walls of M.A.V.O. They weren't.
• Genetic Memory: When Gimmick's invention duplicates him, the other Grubby has the same memories and personality.
• "Good Luck" Gesture: When the Airship is about to crash into the Great Desert in "Beware of the Mudblups", Gimmick suggests crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. Grubby crosses all of his fingers for extra luck.
• Graceful in Their Element: While often a klutz, he's very graceful and powerful in the water, just like most Octopedes.
• Green Around the Gills: When he drinks Tweeg's phony handsomeness potion, he turns green. It fades away after a while.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Though he often wears nothing, he occasionally wears a couple of bits of clothing, such as a hat and scarf in the winter.
• Handy Feet: All eight of his limbs can be used as hands, though he usually walks on six.
• Help, I'm Stuck!: When under M.A.V.O.'s evil spell, he eats so much and gets so fat that when he tries to sneak into the party for more food, he gets stuck in the window. It takes Wooly's strength to pull him back out.
• Heroic BSoD: Grubby goes into a major depression when Karen leaves at the end of the episode.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Teddy.
• Hidden Depths: In "Octopede Sailors", Gimmick is surprised that Grubby knows more about seamanship than he lets on.
• Honorary Uncle: To the baby Fobs, who call him Uncle Grubby at birth.
• Horse of a Different Color: In some episodes, he's known to carry small creatures, such as Fobs or Anythings, on his back. In "King Nogburt's Castle", when Old Beanly is awoken, he jumps on Grubby's back like a horse and acts like he's in the cavalry. The following episode, Grubby rides a cow-like animal.
• Hostage MacGuffin: After Teddy, Gimmick, and Arin escape the Mudblup dungeon, they have to go back to save Grubby.
• Hypnotic Eyes: In "The Ying Zoo", the Sorcerer shows him a bat-like creature that briefly gives him these when it tries to hypnotize him.
• I Am Not Weasel: He's not a caterpillar, he's not a potato bug, he's an Octopede. It's not clear if Octopedes are even technically arthropods.
• I Can't Dance: He tells Karen this, claiming he has eight left feet. With her encouragement, he turns out to be pretty good, although he still falls over from nervousness.
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: While drinking Tweeg's fake potion in "The Medicine Wagon", he says this about it.
• Ill-Timed Sneeze: While he and Teddy are in disguise in "The Ying Zoo", he gives them away by sneezing so hard their costume comes off.
• Improvised Clothes: When visiting the Ying Zoo, he and Teddy first make disguises out of leaves and stuff they find to disguise themselves as monsters.
• Inescapable Net: He and Teddy met when Grubby got caught in Teddy's potato patch trap, which is a simple net that falls on top of him. He should have been able to just take it off him, but he needs Teddy's help to get out.
• Innocently Insensitive: Sometimes, he makes insensitive remarks without meaning to, such as noting that Aruzia's clothes were prettier the last time they saw her.
• Insistent Terminology: Grubby is fond of reminding people that the appendages normally thought of as his hands are actually two of his eight feet.
• Interspecies Romance: Briefly has one with a caterpillar named Karen while shrunk by Gimmick's Reducing Machine. It doesn't end happily because he becomes big again and she joins the migration after turning into a butterfly.
• Ironic Fear: Water. Grubby's a powerful swimmer and a natural sailor just like most Octopedes. But being Lost at Sea as a child is traumatizing enough to justify it.
• It Runs in the Family: Octopedes are natural sailors, and Grubby comes from a long line of them. A flashback reveals that his father is a skilled sailor in his own right.
• Jabba Table Manners: While under M.A.V.O.'s evil spell, his appetite is so turned up that he gorges madly and messily.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mild example, but Grubby can be cowardly and insensitive at his worst. Still, he's a good, loyal friend who will go to any lengths for those he cares about.
• The Klutz: Not always, but he can be clumsy at times.
• The Lancer: To Teddy. While Teddy boldly seeks out adventure, Grubby is nervous and would rather avoid it. Still, they're best friends, and Grubby sticks with Teddy out of loyalty.
• Layman's Terms: Often, he'll repeat what Gimmick says in simple terms once he gets used to the way Gimmick talks.
• Lethal Chef: Everyone hates Grubby's food, but that's because he makes it out of tree roots, which are a delicacy to Octopedes. It gains new meaning when his root stew is weaponized.
• Literal Cliffhanger: After an earthquake causes a fissure in the Great Desert he falls in and clings to a rock.
• Lost at Sea: "Octopede Sailors" revealed that this happened when he was a child. A storm whipped him off a boat and left him adrift. Zelza's crew found him, rescued him, and reunited him with his family when they came ashore in Rillonia.
• Love at First Sight: In "Grubby's Romance", he and Karen fall for each other when they first meet.
• Love Makes You Dumb: When he falls in love with Karen, he acts all goofy and briefly even forgets his name.
• Massive Numbered Siblings: "On the Beaches" reveals that Grubby is the oldest of six kids.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: His extra limbs let him shoot multiple Gutang flying machines at once.
• Multiarmed Multitasking: Because of his Handy Feet, sometimes he uses them to do the work of more than one person, such as picking several strawberries at once.
• Obsessed with Food: Even when he's not eating, his mind is usually on food.
• Old Fashioned Row Boat Date: He imagines him and Karen doing this while singing "Looking Back at Me".
• Other Me Annoys Me: He gets frustrated that his duplicate in "Double Grubby" is always arguing with him. This is because both consider themselves the real Grubby.
• Out of Focus: He and Gimmick tend to get reduced roles in the episodes that deal with Teddy interacting with the Hermit.
• Papa Wolf: After the Fob babies adopt him as their Honorary Uncle, he jumps in to save their lives in more than one episode.
• Plucky Comic Relief: His witty remarks, nervous or clumsy behavior and big appetite make him the comic relief of the series.
• Pungeon Master: He loves making puns. During the incident with the giant strawberry, he makes several, hoping to "preserve" a sense of humor.
• Ship Tease: He has a one-episode mutual love interest in Karen, but it doesn't work out because they belong in different worlds. Later, he gets a new one with childhood friend Xena.
• Signature Laugh: A short, soft, two-syllable chuckle.
• Single-Episode Handicap: In "Sign of a Friend", Grubby eats some Shush-Bush, a plant that causes temporary muteness. He and his friends then learn sign language from Leota. The muteness wears off by the end of the episode.
• Slippery Skid: When the Trio escapes a Door Jam in "The Faded Fobs", Grubby lands on some of Tweeg's cannonballs and tries awkwardly to keep from slipping and falling.
• Smarter Than You Look: Grubby is more intelligent than he acts. While he's content to let Gimmick and Teddy do most of the thinking, sometimes he's the one who comes up with a great idea.
• Species Surname: His full name is Grubby the Octopede.
• Spell My Name with a "The": "The" is his middle name. The M.A.V.O. jailer refers to him as "Octopede, Grubby the".
• Swapped Roles: Normally, Gimmick would spout off some Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness, and Grubby would repeat it in Layman's Terms. In "Teddy's Quest", they swap roles when discussing Teddy's backpack.
• Tears of Joy: In "Secret of the Illiops", he finds the minstrel's song so beautiful that he sheds tears over it.
• Team Chef: He often does the cooking at Gimmick's house. Fortunately for Teddy and Gimmick, he can cook much more than root recipes.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When M.A.V.O.'s Hate Plague spreads across Grundo, Grubby and Gimmick spend the whole time together arguing and only work together because Teddy forces them to.
• Temporarily Exaggerated Trait: When the darkness of M.A.V.O. falls over Grundo, his vice of gluttony gets exaggerated into Jabba Table Manners.
• They Have the Scent!: He tries to do this in "The Third Crystal" to figure out what happened to Fuzz, but the only thing he sniffs out are the grundleberries they picked for lunch.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Root stew.
• Twice Shy: He and Xena have this relationship. They're attracted to each other but are too shy to admit it.
• Two Men, One Dress: In "The Ying Zoo", he and Teddy briefly disguise themselves as a single monster by wrapping themselves in a blanket until Grubby's Ill-Timed Sneeze gives them away.
• Undying Loyalty: To Teddy. Even though he's easily frightened and doesn't share Teddy's love for adventure, he sticks with Teddy and will follow him wherever they go.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's the strongest of the Trio but not very physically skilled.
• Use Your Head: At the beginning of "Escape from the Treacherous Mountains", Grubby encounters a Gutang after inadvertently bumping into him. When the Gutang asks for Grubby's name, the latter headbutts him off the ledge.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Gimmick. Grubby is brutally honest, and Gimmick is an Insufferable Genius, so they tend argue or blame and criticize each other. Despite their disagreements, they remain firm friends.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: After a being washed away by a wave while trying to save his father, Grubby really has an aversion to water.
• Wingding Eyes: When he sees Xena all grown up, he gets hearts in his eyes.
• You Are Number 6: While in the M.A.V.O. dungeon, he is designated prisoner number 403221.

Newton Gimmick

Newton Gimmick

Voiced by: Tony Pope (books and special), John Stocker (series)

First appearance: "The Treasure of Grundo"

Tertiary protagonist of the series, Gimmick is the creator of the Airship. Without him, the Trio's adventure quite literally would never have gotten off the ground. He is a member of a race known as the Perloons, intelligent human-like creatures. Gimmick, like other Perloons, is very prone to stuttering.

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• Absent-Minded Professor: He's quite intelligent but sometimes gets a little lost in his own head.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • In the first episode, when Leota claims she's a Woodsprite, he says there's no such thing. She replies, "And I suppose there's no such thing as a big bag of air stuck in my tree, but there it is, big as life!"
  • In "Wooly and the Giant Snowzos", after spending much of it denying that Snowzos exist, one comes to them. He claims that there's no such thing as that either until the Snowzo identifies himself as a Snowzo.
• Ash Face: In "Gimmick's Gizmos and Gadgets", mixing chemicals causes an explosion that leaves him spotted with black ash.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: While under the Hate Plague, he says, "I'm sorry, Grubby. I shouldn't have called you a moron. I should have said imbecile!"
• Baldness Angst: Subverted. In "The Medicine Wagon" Tweeg convinces Gimmick that he needs his fake hair-growing medicine, but by the end, Gimmick realizes that being bald never bothered him before.
• Berserk Button: While he's normally a pleasant and jovial guy, he'll get furious if you insult his skills as an inventor. And don't abuse his Airship.
• Big "SHUT UP!": When everyone falls under M.A.V.O.'s Hate Plague, Teddy tries to stop Grubby, Gimmick, and Wooly from arguing only to receive a collective "Oh, shup up, Teddy!"
• Birds of a Feather: He and Eunice are both intellectual Perloons who have the same stutter.
• Blame Game: Occasionally, Grubby and Gimmick argue over whose fault it is when something goes wrong, like during Gimmick's experiment in "Tweeg Gets the Tweezles".
• Blind Without 'Em: Whenever his glasses fall off, he can hardly see.
• Blue Is Heroic: One of the main heroes of the series who wears blue.
• Blue Means Smart One: The scientist and inventor of the Trio and the one who regularly wears blue.
• Bungling Inventor: Zig-zagged. Many of his inventions do work, but many others never do what they're supposed to. Played for drama in "Gimmick's Gizmos and Gadgets" when needs the right invention for King Nogburt's Logic Fair.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": He's called a Perloon, which seems to be a human in this world.
• The Captain: Gives commands on the Airship. Captain Zelza nicknames him Captain Gimmick because of it.
• Character Catchphrase: Often uses "Heavens to Grundo!" as an expression of surprise.
• Caught in a Snare: He sets up a rope net trap for Jungle Grunges to catch vegetable thieves, only to accidentally get caught in it himself.
• Challenge Seeker: Some of his inventions are just born from a desire to challenge his mind. In "Tweeg Gets the Tweezles", he tells Grubby this when he asks why he'd bother to make a machine to do something as simple as buttering bread.
• Comically Missing the Point: Sometimes.
  • When the Crystals go missing, Teddy says to start from the beginning, so Gimmick starts telling his life story starting with grammar school.
  • After the Sorcerer's crow, along with some henchmonsters, meets him and demands to know where "the others" are, Gimmick says, "Why, they're right behind you," pointing to the henchmonsters.
• Cool Old Guy: With just a hint of Grumpy Old Man. He's genial, hospitable, and friendly, but can get high-strung and impatient with his friends.
• Curtain Camouflage: In "Escape from M.A.V.O.", he and Grubby duck behind a hanging tapestry so Bognostroclum doesn't see them. He doesn't notice their feet.
• Didn't Think This Through: Though his ideas are often brilliant in theory, he often misses a critical point in them. In the first episode, when he built the Airship, he forgot to install a steering mechanism, which makes them crash into Leota's tree on the maiden flight.
• Discreet Dining Disposal: He, Teddy, and Arin end up dumping the root stew Grubby made overboard the Airship (and onto Tweeg's head) because they're too nice to tell him he's a Lethal Chef.
• Ditzy Genius: He's a scientific genius but short on common sense.
• Expospeak Gag: He does this a lot.
  Gimmick: I suggest we assemble some assorted sustenance and depart for the purpose of an exterior repast.
  Teddy: You mean we should go on a picnic?
  Gimmick: Why, yes. Precisely.
  Grubby: Teddy, how come Gimmick always uses such complicated ways of saying simple things?
  Teddy: I guess it's just part of being a genius, Grubby.
• Faeries Don't Believe in Humans, Either: After finally accepting that Snowzos are real, he tells one of them that he's a Perloon. The Snowzo says Perloons don't exist.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: He wears one yellow sock and one blue one.
• Fast Tunneling: Grubby and Gimmick dig a tunnel out of their M.A.V.O. cell very quickly. The only reason it didn't get them to safety was because Gimmick thought that they were beyond the walls of M.A.V.O. They weren't.
• For Science!: He loves doing things for science, whatever the circumstances. When the Sorcerer asks him to build a theme park ride, he enjoys the challenge.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Zig-zags between this and Bungling Inventor. Enough of his inventions work to qualify.
• The Gift: In his song "Naturally Scientific", he claims that the reason he's such a smart inventor is because of natural abilities rather than formal training.
• Heroic BSoD: He falls into one in "Gimmick's Gizmos and Gadgets" when he confronts the thought that he's just a Bungling Inventor and worries that he's not good enough for the Logic Fair. Fortunately, he gets over it when he thinks up a new invention that saves the day.
• Hostage MacGuffin: After he and the Octopede sailors are captured by the Sorcerer's forces, Teddy and Grubby go to rescue them.
• How Unscientific!: In "The Mushroom Forest", when he sees a mushroom walking away, his reaction is that it's scientifically impossible.
• "I Am" Song: He gets two: "Naturally Scientific", sung by himself, and "Gimmick" sung by Teddy and Grubby about him.
• Idea Bulb: Gets one during the song "Gimmick" in "The Crystal Book".
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Comes to this conclusion when the Mudblups serve him lunch.
• If My Calculations Are Correct: He says this a few times in the series.
• Innocently Insensitive: In "Teddy and the Mudblups", Grubby is annoyed how Gimmick is always leaving him to do chores while he's busy inventing, but Teddy assures Grubby that Gimmick doesn't mean to be inconsiderate.
• Insane Troll Logic: While normally a scientific genius, he comes up with some strange conclusions, such as sunspots causing mushrooms to walk.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: In "Tweeg Gets the Tweezles", he claims that Grubby's clumsiness ruined his experiment and that his bread-slicing machine won't work now. It does. In "Wooly and the Giant Snowzos", he claims that the creature they've just met can't be a Snowzo because they don't exist. Until he says that he is a Snowzo.
• Insufferable Genius: He's aware of how smart he is, and his pride can get the better of him. In "Teddy and the Mudblups", when Gimmick said that the Crystals were right when they called him "inventive", Grubby retorts, "That Crystal should have said you were conceited too."
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Some of his ideas turn out not to be as smart as they seemed at first. In one episode, he suggested visiting the Great Desert to look at the rock formations there, forgetting how hot it gets there in the summer.
• It's Probably Nothing: In "The Crystal Book", he gets so caught up in his work that he thinks that a sudden glow is just Fuzz turning on the lamp and doesn't realize the Crystals are glowing. In "Wooly and the Giant Snowzos", when the characters hear a noise, he says it's just the wind. He's wrong.
• Labcoat of Science and Medicine: It looks more like an apron, but it's white, and he keeps some of his tools in it.
• Last-Name Basis: About the only person who calls him Newton on a regular basis is his old flame, Eunice.
• Lying to Protect Your Feelings: Like Teddy, he'll lie about his opinion of Grubby's root stew to spare his feelings.
• MacGyvering: In "Gimmick's Gizmos and Gadgets", he disassembles a music machine and uses the instruments to build a bridge to rescue Frank and Faye Fob.
• Mad Scientist: He's an eccentric scientist who builds some very strange inventions.
• Mathematician's Answer: When the Trio try to help Tweeg while he has the Tweezles, this conversation happens:
  Teddy: What is it, Gimmick?
  Gimmick: Well, it appears to be a cross between a Grunge and a Troll.
  Teddy: I mean do you know what's wrong with him?
  Gimmick: Oh, absolutely. I'd say he's suffering from a repeated multiple pigmentation differential.
  Grubby: You mean he's covered with spots?
  Gimmick: Why, yes. If you want to get technical.
• Most Writers Are Writers: He has written a scientific book called "All About Fobs".
• Motor Mouth: He's known to rattle on about a certain topic, often using complicated phrases to say what can be said in a few words.
• Mr. Exposition: Frequently plays this role among the Trio, since he's the expert on how things work as well as the only one who knows Grundo very well at the start of the series.
• Mysterious Past: Unlike Teddy and Grubby, we never see his past in a flashback. All we know is that he moved to the valley after Tweeg and is old friends with Eunice the doctor.
• The Name Is Bond, James Bond: When in disguise in "The Rainbow Mine", he introduces himself to Tweeg by saying "My name is Potts. Caractacus Potts, famed explorer."
• Nerd Glasses: A smart guy who always wears big, round glasses.
• Odd Friendship: With Captain Zelza, a tough-as-nails seawoman who acts like an old-fashioned sailor. The two become chummy, and she gives him an Affectionate Nickname.
• Older Sidekick: He's many years older than Teddy.
• Old-Timey Bathing Suit: Wears a white one with blue polka dots in "On the Beaches". In other episodes, though, he goes swimming in a pair of trunks.
• Out of Focus: He and Grubby tend to get reduced roles in the episodes involve the Hermit.
• Palate Propping: In the first episode, he jams Bounders' mouths with sticks to stop them from being a threat. Later, he accidentally does it with the treasure map, allowing Tweeg to create a Fool's Map.
• Pauper Patches: He has a patch on his pants knee.
• Plant Hair: Tweeg's phony "hair-growing gunk" is really mud that has flowers sprout from it, causing Gimmick to look like he has this until he wipes it off.
• Pride: He's aware of how smart he is and is proud of it. Once in a while, he lets his pride get the better of him and does something foolish.
• Science Hero: His biggest weapon for solving problems is science. On several occasions, the Trio wouldn't have managed to save the day without his inventions.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He tends to talk in complicated, scientific terms.
• Ship Tease: With Eunice. They are very close and affectionate and are implied to have had a relationship in the past that they are rekindling. While it could be interpreted as just friendship, Teddy and Grubby conclude out loud that Gimmick has a crush on her.
• Skepticism Failure: Every fantastic creature that he thinks doesn't exist, like Woodsprites, Elves, and Snowzos, turns out to be real.
• Skewed Priorities: In "The Ying Zoo", when the Sorcerer convinces him to invent a new theme park ride, he's having so much fun that he forgets that he really should be thinking about escaping.
• Slippery Skid: While the Trio are shrunk by the Reducing Machine in "Take a Good Look", he steps on some spilled butter on the table and slides to the edge.
• The Smart Guy: The genius scientist and inventor of the Trio.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He's The Smart Guy and always wears glasses.
• Speech Impediment: Of the... eeh, um... Verbal Tic type. It's not really a stutter, but when speaking he does tends to... eh-uhh... hesitate at key words and phrases. as if he's... eeh... searching for the right word.
• Talking in Your Sleep: In "Teddy and the Mudblups", he mutters something about working on one of his inventions before he wakes up.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: When M.A.V.O.'s Hate Plague spreads across Grundo, Grubby and Gimmick spend the whole time together arguing and only work together because Teddy forces them to.
• Temporarily Exaggerated Trait: When the darkness of M.A.V.O. falls over Grundo, his being an Insufferable Genius gets turned up, so he won't stop bragging or putting down others' intelligence.
• Token Adult: Teddy and Grubby are teenagers, while he's an adult.
• Trapped the Wrong Target: Twice in the series, he gets caught in a trap meant for someone else, once to catch a spy in "Secret of the Illiops", and once to catch vegetable thieves in "Anything in the Soup".
• Unfortunate Item Swap: In "The Medicine Wagon", he meant to give Tweeg a jar of nutmeg, but realizes too late that he picked up the wrong jar and really gave him a projectile powder he calls "popcorn pizazz".
• Verbal Tic: As stated above, he will, eh, uh, interject an extra syllable or two that sounds like he's, er, trying to remember what to say.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Grubby. Grubby is brutally honest, and Gimmick is an Insufferable Genius, so they tend argue or blame and criticize each other. Despite their disagreements, they remain firm friends.
• Waking Non Sequitur: When he wakes up in "On the Beaches", he yells "Save the manuscripts! Women and children first!"
• You Are Number 6: While in the M.A.V.O. dungeon, he is designated prisoner number 403222.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Inverted. In "Anything in the Soup", villain Quellor says it's a pity that Gimmick wastes his talent doing good in the world.