Duck family (Disney)
The Duck family is a fictional family of cartoon ducks related to Disney character Donald Duck. The family is also related to the Coot, Goose, and Gander families, as well as the Scottish Clan McDuck. Besides Donald, the best-known members of the Duck family are Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald's triplet nephews.
Members of the Duck family appear most extensively in Donald Duck comics (although some have made animated appearances). In 1993, American comics author Don Rosa published a Duck Family Tree that established the characters' relationships in his stories. He also created a fictional timeline for when certain characters were born (All birth/death dates given below are Rosa's). Other comics authors both before and after have shown variations in the family.
Ancestors[edit]
Andold "Wild Duck" Temerary[edit]
Andold "Wild Duck" Temerary (Italian: Mac Paperin) was created by Gaudenzio Capelli and Marco Rota and appears in stories set in the Middle Ages. His first appearance was in "Paperino e il piccolo Krack" ("Donald Duck and the Little Krack"), published in Almanacco Topolino #228 (Dec 1975).[3] He is a lookalike and ancestor to Donald Duck. Andold was a commander who protected the shores of Caledonia (Scotland) from Vikings. He has a girlfriend named Aydis who looks like Daisy Duck, and he also has five soldiers, two of them are named Little Bo and Big Brutus.
Andold wears a helmet, topped with a miniature decoration representing his own face. As a comical touch, the decoration's facial expression always matches Andold's own, changing between panels if necessary.
In the first Andold story (Paperino e il piccolo Krack from 1975), Donald dreams about Andold, in the second (Le avventure di Mac Paperin: L'arrosto della salvezza from 1980, published in the United States as Donald Duck and his fierce ancestor... Andold Wild Duck), Huey, Dewey, and Louie are reading a book about his adventures. In later Andold stories, the modern-day Ducks do not appear. All Andold Wild Duck stories are illustrated by Marco Rota, most of them are also written by him.
The first Andold comic to be published in English was Donald Duck... and his fierce ancestor... Andold Wild Duck by Rota, published in a December 1993 edition of Donald Duck Adventures with cover illustration by Don Rosa featuring Andold.
The names Andold and Aydis are anagrams of Donald and Daisy.
Pintail Duck[edit]
Pintail Duck was a 16th-century Duck relative and the first early ancestor to appear in the comics (in Barks' 1956 story, Back to Long Ago). Pintail served in the Royal Navy as the boatswain aboard HMS Falcon Rover. The Falcon Rover raided Spanish targets in the Caribbean Sea between 1563 and 1564 when the ship was sunk. Pintail was friends with the ship's first mate, Malcom "Matey" McDuck, who was a mutual ancestor of Donald and Scrooge.
Don de Pato[edit]
Don de Pato was a 16th-century Spanish ancestor of Donald through both the Coot family and Clan McDuck, first appearing in the 1965 comic The Golden Galleon written by Carl Fallberg with art by Tony Strobl. He was a member of the Spanish Armada.
In the TV series Legend of the Three Caballeros, he appears under the name Don Dugo (used previously in German and Dutch translations of the comic), as one of the members of the original Three Caballeros, along with the ancestors of José Carioca and Panchito Pistoles.
Seth Duck[edit]
Seth Duck was an ancestor of Donald's, considered a hero after warning Duckburg of an impending Native American attack. His statue exists in Duckburg's Park. He appeared in the 1967 comic The Clock Plot by Vic Lockman and Tony Strobl.
First generation[edit]
Humperdink Duck[edit]
Humperdink Duck is the earliest known contemporary Duck family member. He is the husband of Elvira Coot, known to the family as "Grandma Duck", and the father of Quackmore (Donald's father), Eider, and Daphne Duck (Gladstone's mother). Humperdink is father-in-law to Scrooge's sister Hortense (Donald's mother) who married his son Quackmore. He is Donald's paternal grandfather and the maternal great-grandfather of Huey, Dewey, and Louie, through their mother Della (Donald's twin sister). Humperdink worked as a farmer in rural Duckburg. Don Rosa gave the character relevant appearances in two stories, "The Invader Of Fort Duckburg",[4] a chapter of the saga The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and "The Sign Of The Triple Distelfink".[5] In the family, he was known as "Pa Duck", and later as "Grandpa Duck".
Humperdink's life before having a family was never shown in the comics. Don Rosa speculated that the Duck family originated from England, but it is unknown if Humperdink is an immigrant.[6]
In the story "The Good Old Daze" by Tony Strobl,[7] Grandpa Duck (an older Humperdink) appears in a flashback scene taking care of little Donald along with Grandma, where he is portrayed as a dedicated but rigorous grandfather. Grandpa Duck's real name was not revealed in this story, but in an untitled story from 1951, an old lover of Grandma called Humperdink has a cameo appearance. Don Rosa considered that this character became Donald's paternal grandfather.[8] In "The Good Old Daze", artist Tony Strobl drew Grandpa Duck with a long beard and some hair, while Rosa has depicted him with a short beard and a full head of hair. In the Danish story The Good Neighbors (part of the series, Tamers of Nonhuman Threats), by writer Lars Jensen and artist Flemming Andersen, Strobl's version of Grandpa Duck appears in a flashback scene that is told by his wife Grandma Duck.[9] He also appears unnamed in the 1955 film No Hunting, in which he posthumously inspires Donald to take part in hunting season.
Grandma Duck[edit]
Elvira "Grandma" Duck (née Coot,[10] October[11] c. 1855) is Donald's paternal grandmother and the Duck family matriarch. In most stories, she is simply referred to as "Grandma Duck". She was introduced to the Disney comic universe by Al Taliaferro and Bob Karp in the Donald Duck newspaper comic strip, first in a picture on the wall in the August 11, 1940, Sunday page, and then as a full-fledged character in the strip on Monday, September 27, 1943.[12] Taliaferro found inspiration for her in his own mother-in-law, Donnie M. Wheaton. Depending on the writer, Grandma Duck has had various given names over the years. In a story by Riley Thomson from 1950, she was named "Elviry"[11] and in a story from 1953 she was given the name "Abigail".[11] Don Rosa later gave her the name "Elvira" in his comic books series The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
According to artist/writer Don Rosa, Grandma was born around 1855. In the comic strips by Taliaferro and Karp, it is mentioned that in her youth she was a pioneer in the American migration to the west, riding a covered wagon and participating in many Indian Wars.[13][14] Later, she married Humperdink Duck, and they had three children named Quackmore (Donald's father), Daphne (Gladstone's mother) and Eider (Fethry's father in the non-Barks duck universe). Grandma Duck helped to raise her great-grandsons, Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck (her daughter-in-law Hortense's grandsons and granddaughter Della's sons). In most comic book stories, as well as other media that handles Donald Duck's childhood, it was Grandma Duck who filled the role of Donald's caretaker.
Grandma made her animated debut in the 1960 Wonderful World of Color episode This is Your Life, Donald Duck, where she was voiced by June Foray. The episode depicted her great difficulty in raising Donald, a strong-willed and ill-tempered duckling from the moment he was hatched. She also made a brief appearance in Sport Goofy in Soccermania, a non-speaking cameo in Mickey's Christmas Carol, and can be spotted in the background of the DuckTales episode Horse Scents.
Second generation[edit]
Quackmore Duck[edit]
Quackmore Duck (born 1875) is the father of Donald Duck, and has been variously depicted with or without a moustache. His parents are Humperdink and Elvira "Grandma" Duck. He was born in Duckburg, and from and early age displayed a heavy temper. He worked at his parents' farm until 1902 when he met Hortense McDuck and they became engaged. He started working for her brother Scrooge McDuck.
By 1908, he was helping Hortense and her sister Matilda McDuck run their brother's empire as Scrooge's chief accountant, mainly because Scrooge thought that as a possible heir, he would be motivated to work hard and stay honest. In 1920, he married Hortense and within the year became the father of twins: Donald and Della. The couple became parents when they already were more than 40 years old, according to Don Rosa.
Quackmore's image is visible in several photographs in the DuckTales reboot premier, Woo-oo!, and is also mentioned by name in the episode by Webby Vanderquack.
Goose family[edit]
Luke Goose[edit]
Luke Goose (sometimes called Luke the Goose) is the father of Donald's cousin Gus Goose. He was originally supposed to be Gladstone Gander's father,[44][45] Daphne Duck's husband and Gus's uncle, but Carl Barks later changed his mind, making Goostave Gander (who was originally Gladstone's adoptive father after Luke and Daphne "overate at a free-lunch picnic") Gladstone's biological father and Daphne's husband. Luke the Goose disappeared from the tree.
When Don Rosa created his Duck Family Tree, he used Luke Goose (removing "the" from his name) and made him the husband of Fanny Coot and Gus Goose's father.
Gus Goose[edit]
Gus Goose is Donald Duck's second cousin, and the great-nephew of Grandma Duck. He debuted on May 9, 1938, in Al Taliaferro and Bob Karp's Donald Duck comic strip, before making an animated appearance in the 1939 short Donald's Cousin Gus.[46] Because the animation studio took much longer to produce a film and worked with a schedule much farther ahead than the comic strip, Gus, like Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie "first saw the light of day" in the animation department, with the comic strip being based on the film that was in-the-works.[47] Gus's main personality traits are laziness and gluttony.[46]
Within Disney comics, Gus is usually shown living as a farmhand on Grandma Duck's farm outside of Duckburg. Along with his gluttony, Gus is quite lazy, often doing little if any work on Grandma's farm. He also has a tendency of falling asleep at random occasions, sometimes even standing up. On occasion Gus has even shown signs of ingenuity as to finding methods or solutions to make his chores much easier for him and at times even automating them so he does not have to work at all.
Gus made no appearances in DuckTales, but there is a background character in the series, Vacation Van Honk, who looks similar to him.
Gus appeared in the 2000s animated series Disney's House of Mouse, as the club's gluttonous chef, speaking only in honks rather than words. He also made non-speaking cameo appearances in both Mickey's Christmas Carol and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
The friend and neighbor Gustav Goose from Quack Pack is probably not the same as Cousin Gus since there are very few similarities (aside from the name and general size of the character). Some confusion is also caused by the German comicbook version of Gladstone Gander being referred to as "Gustav Gans" ("Gustav Goose").
In Danish comic book stories, Gus Goose has appeared as the boyfriend of a classy and rich anthropomorphic swan named Cissy Swann.[48] In Italy, a nephew of him named Pepper appeared in two stories.[49]
Gander family[edit]
Goostave Gander[edit]
Goostave Gander is Gladstone Gander's father. In some early stories he is married to Matilda McDuck, Scrooge's sister and adopted Gladstone and his brother and had a son, Osar, but Carl Barks later had him married to Daphne Duck instead. They are considered the parents of Gladstone Gander; although his wife and son's luck does not include him. "Us Ganders have never sunk low enough to associate with you Ducks!", exclaimed Gladstone to Donald in "Race to the South Seas" by Carl Barks,[50] suggesting that there is a mutual antipathy between his father's family and his mother's. In this same story, Gladstone exclaims, "Us Ganders have never worked!",[51] what suggests that originally Gladstone's luck came from his father's side.