Quack Pack

Quack Pack
250px Quack Pack title card
Genre	Cartoon, Comedy, Fantasy
Created by	Rob Humphrey Jim Peterson
Based on	A Concept created by Toby Shelton and Kevin Crosby Hopps
Directed by	Kurt Anderson Toby Shelton
Voices of	Tony Anselmo Jeannie Elias Pamela Adlon E.G. Daily Kath Soucie
Theme music composer	Eddie Money (arranged by Randy Petersen)
Opening theme	"Quack Pack", performed by Eddie Money
Ending theme	"Quack Pack" (Instrumental)
Composer(s)	Eric Schmidt
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	39 (list of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	Toby Shelton Kevin Crosby Hopps
Running time	22 minutes
Production company(s)	Walt Disney Television Animation
Distributor	Disney–ABC Domestic Television
Release
Original network	Syndication
Original release	September 3 – November 28, 1996
Chronology
Related shows	DuckTales (1987) Darkwing Duck (1991)

Quack Pack is an animated television series made by The Walt Disney Company, featuring Donald Duck and his nephews. The show debuted on September 3, 1996 as a part of the "Disney Afternoon" programming block, following the major success of Goof Troop. The series ran two seasons with 39 episodes.

Production

Co-Producers Kevin Crosby Hopps and Toby Shelton turned to Donald Duck shorts for inspiration for Quack Pack. Shelton noted that in the shorts, Donald mostly interacted with humans, and decided to incorporate humans into the world of Quack Pack. This contrasted with DuckTales, a previous Disney Afternoon series, where the world is inhabited by other anthropomorphic animals. Shelton considers Quack Pack as more of an extension of the original Donald Duck shorts than of DuckTales. Because of this, many characters from the DuckTales cartoons and comics, including Disney characters, such as Scrooge McDuck, Launchpad McQuack, Mickey Mouse, Goofy or Chip 'n' Dale, do not make appearances in the series.

The show was created to give each of the nephews their own voices and personalities. Huey was the smooth-talker and schemer, Louie was the athlete and oddball, and Dewey was the intellectual and prankster.

The original title of the show was Duck Daze, but was changed to Quack Pack before release. There are still references to Duck Daze in the theme song.

After Quack Pack left the Disney Afternoon block, it eventually resurfaced in reruns on Disney Channel, and later on Toon Disney. It was removed from the channel's line up along with several other classic Disney shows in November 2004.

Plot

The show centers around Donald and teenaged versions of his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. The actual age of the boys is not made certain. Donald works as a cameraman alongside Daisy, who is a reporter. The group travel around the world looking for a big scoop. The three boys are triplets but Huey had once referred to Dewey and Louie as his baby brothers. Huey must have been the first to be born, therefore making him the eldest of the brothers.

Huey, Dewey and Louie have more distinctive personalities than when they had been presented as younger. They usually resort to extreme and strange measures to avoid getting into trouble with their uncle and to achieve their ambitions. They usually do this by tricking Donald, or whoever else they wish to manipulate. But they usually feel guilty for any of the wrongdoings they had performed which may have upset loved ones, proving that they do possess good morals. Huey, Dewey and Louie share similar passions such as listening to rock music, getting revenge on those who anger them, impressing girls, getting money, pulling pranks, role models whom they look up to and admire, playing games and reading comics. They also share a profound knowledge of cars and mechanics. But there are certain aspects of their personalities that stand out more in each of them.

Main characters

• Donald Duck (voiced by Tony Anselmo) - Wears a blue Hawaiian shirt with red flowers on it. He is Huey, Dewey and Louie's uncle/guardian who refer to him as "Uncle D" if not Uncle Donald. All of them live together in Donald's house. He is also Daisy's boyfriend and cameraman for her T.V. show. He is notoriously well known for being short-tempered and gets angered very easily. He is an especially a notorious prankster. Despite this, Donald tries to be a good parental figure and is sometimes less than willing to trust Huey, Dewey and Louie. However, he has shown that he greatly cares about them and is very protective of them. He portrays himself as a father figure towards them and would usually regard them as his boys. Likewise, Huey, Dewey and Louie have shown they feel the same way as they have referred to Donald as their "own flesh and blood" before. Donald usually misinterprets Huey, Dewey and Louie's harmless intentions for being bad, either by the influence of the unknown bad guy or having nightmares and daydreams about them being destructive. With Huey, Dewey, Louie, Donald and Daisy together, Huey has referred to them as a "happy family". When Donald received super powers he became a super villain known as the Duck of Doom, resulting in a battle between him and Huey, Dewey and Louie (known as the T-Squad when they got their super powers) to get them to clean their bedroom.
• Huey (voiced by Jeannie Elias) - Wears a long red shirt over a light red T-shirt and purple shorts. He usually acts as the leader of the three brothers. In one episode, it is revealed Huey suffered from ailurophobia or fear of cats. His fear was so great that he was afraid of cat sock puppets and had uncontrollable hiccups whenever he saw even a picture of a cat. His fear first began when a swarm of cats scared him while he was dressed as a mouse when he went Trick or Treating with his brothers on one Halloween night when they were little. However, he soon conquered his fear after his conscience got the better of him and he saved a cat that was hanging from a broken tree branch. Unfortunately, it soon turned out Huey was allergic to cats. Huey has a strong belief that the concepts of fate and coincidence are somehow mysteriously linked together; he also believes that they are judges on whether the trio are able to have something or not. This makes Huey possess a more determined character than his brothers as he is usually the last to give up trying to get something when the trio want anything. Huey is also the main brother very easily besotted by girls, sometimes anthropomorphic ducks like he and his family and sometimes they are human. Despite Huey's good character, he can sometimes come across as being arrogant and overly keen on making money on occasions. Huey also has a talent for playing the pipe organ, this was revealed when he performed a parody of the Phantom of the Opera when he got a mind controlling device on his head which he first believed to be braces. When Huey was given super powers, he was given the power of super speed and referred to himself as the Really Incredibly Fast Guy. Huey's full name is never made certain; his brothers sometimes refer to him as Hueton, Huebert or Hueson. According to the original comics and Donald Ducks shorts of which Quack Pack is an extension, his birth name is Huebert.
• Dewey (voiced by Pamela Adlon) - Wears a striped blue baseball shirt with the number one on the back over a light blue T-shirt and blue shorts. He has the longest hair out of the three boys and is generally good with computers and technology. He is usually the most logical out of the three boys. Even though the trio love practical jokes, Dewey is the main practical joker and considers himself a master prankster. It is his good knowledge of technology that make him an impressive prankster such as his knowledge of projectors to create ghosts and fog machines to create a more spooky atmosphere. Every Halloween Dewey enjoys pranking Huey, Louie and Donald but on one occasion this led to them being stranded near a haunted house. Dewey believed this would be a great opportunity to perform more pranks, however, it turned out that the house really was haunted and the scary pranks were being pulled by the monsters that lived there. This resulted in Dewey getting the blame and it took a while for Huey, Louie and Donald to realize the truth. While all three boys possess strong consciences, Dewey appears to possess the most powerful. So much so it manifested itself into a giant, fierce version of Dewey and used brute force to make him protect his family in the haunted house when he attempted to sneak away from it. Dewey also has a strong belief in UFOs despite being aware that there have been scams in the past. When Dewey received super powers, he was given powers of super intelligence and psychokinesis. He referred to himself as Brain Boy. Dewey's full name is also not officially revealed; in one episode he refers to himself as Deuteronomy, but Huey has referred to him as Dewis. According to the original comics and Donald Ducks shorts of which Quack Pack is an extension, his birth name is Deuteronomy.
• Louie (voiced by Elizabeth Daily) - Wears a green tanktop with green shorts and a backwards green cap. Louie is a huge fan of comic books and sports - more so than his brothers, with his favorite comic book hero being Mantis Boy. Louie owns a violin just as Mantis Boy does; at first he is not good playing the violin at all, indeed it is regarded as noise to anyone who hears it, but eventually he learns to play it very well. On occasions, Louie uses it to play sad music when he and his brothers are manipulating Donald in order to get out of trouble. In one episode, it was revealed that Louie feels very strongly for animal rights and even makes plans to set traps to catch poachers to stop them taking animals. He can be fickle when it comes to deciding what to be for a future career; he has made ideas to become an astronaut, a sky diver, a top gun pilot, a hockey goal keeper and a policeman. Despite Louie sometimes fails to understand people's aims, he has proven to be a rational thinker; and sometimes an oddball, when the trio come up with a plan for a particular situation Louie is usually the first of the boys to have second thoughts and rethink the plan and compare it to the situation. When Louie was given super powers he became very muscular and strong. He referred to himself as Captain Muscle. Louie's full name is Louis.
• Daisy (voiced by Kath Soucie) - Wears a pink dress and dark pink shoes, although sometimes she also wears a purple skirt suit or a pink sweater with a dark pink skirt. She has blue eyes, long lashes and often dons pink or purple eye shadow. She is Donald's girlfriend and the reporter of a T.V. show called What In the World, working for Kent Powers. She does everything she can to try and get a story, sometimes even to the extent of intentionally putting others in danger. She has a blue pet iguana named Knuckles who eats almost anything. Daisy cares a lot about Huey, Dewey and Louie and is willing to trust them more than Donald does as he often believes they are up to no good - although Donald's often right. She puts up with Donald's antics as well, which are also often shady and michevious.
• Kent Powers (voiced by Roger Rose) - An egomaniacal TV personality, Kent Powers is the boss of both Daisy and Donald, the latter of which he frequently tortures for so little as a good laugh. He often is nasty to Daisy also though. Although Donald is specifically employed as his cameraman, Kent specifically makes Donald his personal assistant without paying him any extra. Despite his popular image, he is narcissistic, arrogant, dishonest, greedy, selfish and obnoxious, but unlike Donald has nothing whatsoever to compensate for this. Kent openly dislikes Donald, and happily takes every opportunity to try and fire him unless there's a good reason not to.
• Ludwig von Drake (voiced by Corey Burton) - Duckburg's resident genius and inventor. Donald and the boys often visit Ludwig when they need his advice or gadgets, though they tend to make matters worse for those involved.
• Gwumpki (voiced by Pat Fraley) - An immigrant from a country called Gladismorkia, he is friends of Donald, Daisy, Huey, Dewey and Louie and owner of the local restaurant where the boys often patronize. He is generally good-natured, though gets exasperated when the topic of the boys' unpaid tab is brought up.

Villains

• The Claw (voiced by Frank Welker) - An extremely violent criminal named for the metal claw replacing his hand. The Claw first appears in "Ready, Aim... Duck!" when Donald claims that he was responsible for breaking the triplets' video-game console (in reality, Donald himself was the one who broke it). This causes The Claw to seek out Donald in anger. In his second appearance, "The Long Arm of the Claw", the Claw reappears as a fully rehabilitated "good citizen". However, he relapses back into his violent nature whenever he sees gold and calms down only when he hears the sound of a ringing bell.
• Agent X (voiced by Kath Soucie) - A feminine and very arrogant robot assassin working for an unnamed criminal organization, Agent X appears in "Heavy Dental". Thinking he's visiting the dentist, Huey gets an experimental mind-control device attached to his head when the doctor in charge mistakes him for Agent X in disguise. As Huey quickly discovers and abuses the device's power to his advantage, Agent X is sent to terminate him and retrieve the device. She chases Huey back to Donald's house, where the duck is trying (and failing miserably) to fix the kitchen plumbing. Once inside, Dewey comes up with the idea to use the broken pipes to drench Agent X in a torrent of water, completely rusting her.

Episodes

Main article: List of Quack Pack episodes

Home video

VHS releases

In 1997, three VHS cassettes containing 6 episodes of the series were released in the United States.

VHS Name	Episode Titles	Release Date
Alien Attack!	"I.O.U a U.F.O." & "Ducklaration of Independence"	July 15, 1997
Ducks Amuck!	"Ducky Dearest" & "All Hands on Duck"	July 15, 1997
House of Haunts	"The Boy Who Cried Ghost" & "Cat and Louse"	August 26, 1997

DVD releases

US releases

The episodes "Transmission: Impossible", "Heavy Dental" and "Feats of Clay" were released as the first Region 1 volume Quack Pack: Volume 1 in the United States on February 14, 2006, but further releases have not been planned yet.

International releases

A one-off Christmas special compilation DVD titled Disney's Christmas Favourites was released in Region 2 on October 31, 2005, and contains the Quack Pack episode "Snow Place to Hide", along with the Mickey Mouse Works short segment "Mickey's Mixed Nuts", the 101 Dalmatians: The Series episode "A Christmas Cruella", and the short cartoon Toy Tinkers.

External links

• Official website
• Quack Pack at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• UltimateDisney.com — Volume 1 DVD Review with Pictures
• Quack Pack at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
• Quack Pack at IMDb
• Quack Pack at TV.com