Huey, Dewey, and Louie

**Huey**, **Dewey**, and **Louie** are young, anthropomorphic white duck triplets who are the nephews of Donald Duck, created by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro. With identical appearances and personalities, the boys are popularly known as loving supporters and mischievous adversaries to Donald, filling both roles in various forms of media since their debut in the 1938 animated short *Donald's Nephews*.

## Background

Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the sons of Donald's sister Della Duck, however in *Donald's Nephews*, their mother is instead named Dumbella. In the original theatrical shorts, they were originally sent to visit Donald for only one day; in the comics, the three were sent to stay with Donald on a temporary basis until their father came back from the hospital (the boys ended up sending him there after a practical joke of putting firecrackers under his chair). In both the comics and animated shorts, the boys' parents were never heard from or referred to again after these instances, resulting in the boys ending up permanently living with Donald, in keeping with Disney's usual elimination of kid characters' parents. All four of them live in the city of Duckburg in the state of Calisota.

The boys are noted for having both identical appearances and personalities in most appearances, with the three sometimes shown as finishing each other's sentences as a running joke. In the theatrical shorts, Huey, Dewey, and Louie would often behave in a rambunctious manner, sometimes committing retaliation or revenge on their uncle Donald for something he did to them. In the comics, however, as developed by Al Taliaferro and Carl Barks, the boys are usually depicted in a more well-behaved manner, usually helping their uncle Donald and great-uncle Scrooge McDuck in the adventure at hand. In the early Barks comics, the ducklings were still wild and unruly, but their characters improved considerably due to their membership in the Junior Woodchucks and the good influence of their wise old great-grandmother Grandma Duck.

### Personalities and appearance

Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Donald Duck's mischievous nephews, who have a usual rivalry with him. While they each have a distinct character trait, they share some similarities. All three are shown to be crafty and troublesome and usually think alike. In some earlier cartoons, they would often argue among themselves and have been shown to whine and cry. But in later films they are seen to agree on pretty much everything. All three also share joy in tormenting Donald for their own amusement (such as when they tied him in his own hammock). However, this is sometimes an act of revenge from a prank committed by Donald instead (such as when he impersonated Ajax the Gorilla and they did the exact same thing, inadvertently endangering their uncle's life if they hadn't sprayed both Ajax and Donald with tear gas). Individually, the personalities and quirks of the boys were inspired by real-life sibling dynamics. Huey is the eldest triplet so he acts the most responsible. Dewey is the middle child and just wants to stand out. Louie, the youngest, often shows that he prefers to enjoy a lazy lifestyle.

These young ducks have feathers which are white and their beaks and legs/feet are orangey-yellow. Their eyes are oval and blue with black pupils. Often their eyes are simply black. Their shirts are in different colors, with the most common color arrangement being Huey in red, Dewey in blue, and Louie in green (except in many printed comics, in which all three of their shirts are instead colored black).

In most appearances, they are children no older than 10. In a number of Carl Barks' stories, they were instead portrayed as kindergartners ( *Kite Weather*, *The Crazy Quiz Show* and *Want to Buy and Island?*); Another Barks story, *Truant Officer Duck*, depicts the boys in second grade, putting them around 7-8 years old. In the *DuckTales* episode "Yuppy Ducks", it is stated several times that they are 10 years old in that episode, and in "Bubbeo & Juliet", the nephews begin their fifth grade school year. However, in the later episode "Bubba's Big Brainstorm", Louie says Bubba the Cave Duckis in first grade, yet Bubba is also shown to be in the same class as the triplets, implying them all to be in first grade despite the previous fifth grade and 10-years-old episodes. Meanwhile, they are uniquely depicted in *Quack Pack* not as young children but instead as teenagers who, by the time of the episode "Need 4 Speed", are old enough to drive.

In the 2017 reboot of *DuckTales*, each triplet wears newly updated clothing to differentiate from each other: Huey wears a red polo T-shirt while still retaining his colored hat as seen in previous appearances. Dewey wears a long-sleeved shirt inside his normal T-shirt. Louie wears a green hoodie.

### Voices

In most of their animated portrayals, the nephews speak with a similar "duck speech" as their Uncle Donald. As such, Clarence Nash—who originated the voice of Donald—gave the boys the exact same trick voice as their uncle, which lasted for a number of decades until the 1960s.

From the '60s onward, there was effort to make the boys more intelligible than Donald, while still maintaining a duck-like quality in their voices. This began with the The Mellomen, who voiced the boys in the animated educational films *Scrooge McDuck and Money* and *Donald's Fire Survival Plan*, but was cemented with the introduction of Russi Taylor in the late 1980s. Russi's portrayal of the triplets was so well-received that she continues to voice them in a majority of their speaking roles, even to this day. Tony Anselmo also performed the nephews in *Down and Out with Donald Duck*, *Mickey Mouse Works*, *House of Mouse*, and *Have a Laugh!* for voiceovers using the same voice as their uncle but slightly high-pitched.

In *Quack Pack*, the boys were given distinct personalities, and were therefor each given separate voices. For Huey, it was Jeannie Elias; for Dewey, Pamela Adlon; for Louie, E.G. Daily. A similar method was used for the *DuckTales* reboot' of which Huey, Dewey and Louie are voiced by Danny Pudi, Ben Schwartz and Bobby Moynihan, respectively.

## History

### 1938-1940; Creation

In the short Donald's Nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie were portrayed as wily and mischievous, while Donald's perspective was an exaggerated look at the difficulties of parenting. The tone, like most of Donald's cartoons, was comedic and filled with adversarial hijinks, and this battle-of-wits relationship between Donald and the boys would become a staple in the former's animated career from that moment forward.

### 1940-1960

Over the span of 27 theatrical short cartoons, Huey, Dewey, and Louie were amongst Donald Duck's most frequent adversaries (rivaled only by Chip and Dale, who first encountered Donald in 1947). They were interchangeable, having the exact same physical appearance, personality traits, and voices (usually provided by Clarence "Ducky" Nash, who also voiced Donald). Their colors varied by short with the exception of red, which had always appeared on at least one of the triplets sans 1941's *The Nifty Nineties*, where they all wore blue. Throughout the late '40's and 1950s, all three of the nephews wore red.

Over the course of their career, while still filled with comedic slapstick, the relationship between the boys and Donald became slightly more domesticated and down-to-earth. In 1942's *The New Spirit*, for example, Donald listed the boys as his dependents on his tax form, which also stated that they were legally adopted by him.

### 1960-1990

After the conclusion of the theatrical Donald Duck shorts with 1961's *The Litterbug* (which co-starred the boys) Huey, Dewey, and Louie would appear in 1967's *Scrooge McDuck and Money*, released nearly a year after Walt Disney's death. As the name suggests, it starred Scrooge McDuck, a character created by Carl Barks for Disney comic strips, who first appeared two decades earlier in 1947. The boys had previously interacted with Scrooge regularly on the printed page, but never before in animation until this point.

The boys would not appear on the silver screen again until 1983's *Mickey's Christmas Carol*, where they were briefly seen trimming a Christmas tree during Fezziwig's party.

In 1987, Huey, Dewey, and Louie once again co-starred alongside Scrooge McDuck in *Sport Goofy in Soccermania*. In the television special, the boys team up with Scrooge and Goofy to win back the latter's coveted trophy by beating the Beagle Boys in a soccer game. Russi Taylor (most famously known for her work as Minnie Mouse) voiced the boys for the first time here, and she would reprise her role numerous times in the following decades. Months later marked the debut of *DuckTales*, an animated series part of the Disney Afternoon television block. It was based on the Carl Barks *Uncle Scrooge* comics and centered the miserly duck on his globe-trotting adventures, with Huey, Dewey, and Louie under his care following Donald's enlistment in the U.S. Navy. The short established what would become Huey, Dewey, and Louie's trademark colors: red, blue and green. Disney archivist Dave Smith once said, "Note that the brightest hue of the three is red (Huey), the color of water, dew, is blue (Dewey), and that leaves Louie, and leaves are green."

### 1990-present

In 1996, after the huge success of *DuckTales*, Huey, Dewey, and Louie would star in their own series, *Quack Pack*, which significantly featured them as teenagers. The series ran for one season, and a total of 39 episodes.

In 2017, Disney debuted a reboot of *DuckTales*. The producers of the series made an effort to develop the nephews into their own, individual characters. They also established that the order of how audiences say their names — "Huey, Dewey, and Louie" — is also the order of their birth.[9] The series also removes Dewey and Louie's caps, leaving that signature design element for Huey.

## Films and television

### *DuckTales*

The boys later starred in the 1987 animated television series *DuckTales*, in which they appeared in adventures with their great-uncle Scrooge McDuck (due to Donald having enlisted in the U.S. Navy). The boys' personalities were mainly based on their comic book appearances as opposed to the ones in the theatrical shorts. The series focuses on the boys' life with Scrooge while Donald is off serving in the Navy.

Throughout the course of the series, the boys come to know various characters such as Launchpad McQuack (Scrooge's personal pilot and bumbling sidekick), Gyro Gearloose (a wacky inventor who's convoluted inventions constantly cause mayhem in Duckburg), Scrooge's maid Mrs. Beakley and her granddaughter Webby. With all these characters, the boys create strong, family-oriented bonds that last the entire series. Specifically with Webby, who acts as the "honorary niece" at times, with the young girl duckling even referring to Scrooge as "Uncle Scrooge", like the boys. Even so, Huey, Dewey, and Louie have often expressed dislike in having Webby tag along on their adventures.

They also meet several of Scrooge's enemies and are often their targets in the villains' plots to overtake Scrooge--Magica De Spell (a wicked sorceress) is one of the many antagonists, along with Scrooge's rival Flintheart Glomgold and, most notably, the infamous Beagle Boys, who are some of the more bumbling foes the boys face, though they still cause a great threat to McDuck's fortune due to their enormously large family.

In 1990, the boys starred alongside Scrooge in *DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp*. In this film, the boys must help Scrooge defeat a powerful wizard named Merlock in his quest to dominate the world through the use of a genie's magic.

### *Quack Pack*

Huey, Dewey, and Louie also starred in the 1990s TV series *Quack Pack*, in which the three were portrayed as teenagers and their full names were given as **Hubert Duck**, **Deuteronomy D. Duck** and **Louis Duck**. In *Quack Pack*, the boys were given more distinct personalities, with Huey being something of a ladies' man, Dewey as a computer whiz and Louie as a comic book geek. Most episodes revolved around the boys' mischievous nature and often getting into trouble with their Uncle Donald.

In some episodes, including the series' pilot, the boys would become their superhero alter egos known as "The T-Squad". Huey had the ability of super speed, Dewey had incredible intelligence and psychic powers and Louie held the power of super strength. The hero forms were provided by their great-uncle Ludwig Von Drake.

### *Mickey Mouse Works*

In *Mickey Mouse Works*, the boys played recurring roles. Like their original classic cartoon appearances, the boys would often battle Donald. In the series, they were voiced by Tony Anselmo.

In "Donald's Rocket Ruckus", the boys attempted to ride an attraction they were too short for.

In "Survival of the Woodchucks", they followed the guidelines of the Junior Woodchucks but retaliated against Donald when they learned that he didn't pass the survival test.

One of their most notable appearances in the series is in "Mickey's Remedy", where they were babysat by Mickey while Donald went out. They tricked Mickey into spoiling them until Mickey learned of their trick. As punishment, Mickey had the boys believe that they were dying until they promised to change their ways.

### *Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas*

Huey, Dewey, and Louie appeared in the 1999 direct-to-video film, once again voiced by Russi Taylor.

In the film, the boys star in a segment where they wish for Christmas every day, which is them reliving the exact same day from before in a never-ending loop due to the wish's effects. The first two days are great, but then become extremely annoying afterward. When they try to fix time, they sabotage Christmas in order to mix things up. Despite this, they ended up destroying and ruining Christmas. When Donald is hit by the Christmas tree, instead of yelling at the boys and losing his temper, as usual, he just lies there depressed and humiliated, and the boys realize what they did was the worst thing they've ever done. Feeling guilty and wanting to redeem themselves, they make sure the next day became the greatest Christmas they ever had. This restores the balance to their family and the never-ending Christmas ends.

They later appear during the grand finale, singing Christmas carols with the other characters.

### *House of Mouse*

In *House of Mouse*, the boys served as the club's band, first calling themselves the Quackstreet Boys (an obvious parody of the Backstreet Boys). They then changed their name to the Splashing Pumpkins (parodying the Smashing Pumpkins) but went back to being the Quackstreet Boys in later episodes. Other names have been used as well, such as QuackWerk, Plymouth Rock, and Kid Duck. Like in *Mickey Mouse Works*, they were voiced by Tony Anselmo, though a few episodes had them looking similar to how they looked in *Quack Pack*.

The boys' biggest role in the series was in the episode "Music Day", which showed the boys breaking up after arguing over a photo shoot, forcing Mickey, Donald, and Goofy to try to reunite them before the show ends.

In "Pete's House of Villains", when the club was briefly taken over by Pete, they were replaced by the Three Little Wolves.

They also appear trapped in the club with the other characters in *Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mouse*.

### *Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas*

Huey, Dewey, and Louie are brought into the third dimension in the CGI sequel.

In their starring segment of the film, they realize they are on the Naughty List this year. In order to gain presents, they leave home and have a grand adventure in Santa Claus' workshop in *The North Pole*. They once again ruin Christmas by accidentally making a mess on Santa's workshop but redeem themselves by saving it again. When they finally find the list's room, instead of writing their names on it, they write Scrooge's. Due to their good deeds, they receive presents and a "Thank You" note from Santa himself.

They play supporting roles in Donald's segment, where they are seen under the care of Daisy, wanting Donald to come with them for Christmas festivities. However, Donald's grouchy attitude towards the holidays and his desire to be left alone prevent such a thing from happening peacefully. After a mishap at the mall's Christmas show where Donald destroys the Christmas display in a fit of rage, Daisy sadly takes the boys out without their uncle, though Donald's Christmas spirit eventually gets the better of him, allowing he and his family to reconcile.

The boys reappear at the end of the film, singing Christmas carols with the other characters in Mickey's house.

### *Mickey Mouse*

In the episode "Black and White", the boys can be seen walking past the movie theater at the very beginning of the episode. In this appearance, they appear wearing black shirts along with caps sporting their traditional colors.

The boys later appear in "No" (donning outfits similar to the ones they wore in *Mr. Duck Steps Out*), where they take advantage of Mickey's inability to say the word "no" by asking to borrow toilet paper and using it to teepee his house, taunting him afterward. In the end, the boys are seen with the other characters of the episode, returning their favors by giving Mickey three new rolls of toilet paper and in asking Mickey to join the latter in watching TV.

The boys reappear in "Duck the Halls: A Mickey Mouse Christmas Special", where they join Scrooge, Ludwig Von Drake, and Daisy on a winter migration to a beach resort in the south. They are notably upset by Donald's absence, who chose to stay with Mickey in the north to celebrate Christmas. When Donald falls ill due to the cold weather, Mickey rushes him to the boys and other ducks. As they're all together, the boys learn that Christmas can be spent anywhere, and thusly do so with their blood and extended family.

They also take part in the town's annual "Three-Legged Race" (each hopping on one leg) in the episode of the same name, and attend Mickey's birthday party in "The Birthday Song".

### *DuckTales* (2017)

Huey, Dewey, and Louie return in the reboot series with their full names given this time as **Hubert Duck**, **Dewford Dingus Duck** and **Llewelyn Duck**. They are featured in the series with distinct appearances, voices, and personalities, though they each take after their Uncle Scrooge in some way: Huey has Scrooge's intelligence, Dewey has Scrooge's fearlessness, and Louie shares Scrooge's love of treasure. About 10-12 years of age, the series depicts the nephews as having been raised by Donald since birth, due to the absence of their mother, Della Duck. Together, the family lives in the Duckburg harbor in Donald's houseboat, and although the nephews love their uncle, they eventually grow tired of his overprotective and "boring" ways. In "Woo-oo!", they plot to use the houseboat to sail the seas and explore nearby cities while Donald is at a job interview, but their plan backfires. With no other option, Donald sends the boys to stay with Scrooge McDuck, his housekeeper Bentina Beakley, and Beakley's granddaughter Webby Vanderquack, for the time being. Scrooge is initially disgruntled by the sudden appearance of his great-nephews, but slowly comes to admire their adventurous spirits—so much so, that he invites them to join his expedition to find the lost city of Atlantis (on the condition that they keep it a secret from Donald).

Donald—being on the same expedition with his new employer, Flintheart Glomgold—finds Scrooge and the boys in Atlantis and berates the former for putting his love of adventure before the safety of the family. To Donald's surprise, Dewey is able to use what he's learned from Scrooge to safely guide the family out of the sunken city and to safety. Back in Duckburg, Donald comes to terms with his nephews' love of adventure and allows them to visit Scrooge every so often. When the houseboat explodes, however (due to Dewey having accidentally left the engine running) Scrooge invites Donald and the boys to stay in McDuck Manor until Donald can fix the boat. Dewey uses the opportunity to analyze some of Scrooge's old keepsakes and discovers a portrait depicting Scrooge and Donald on an adventure, with Della by their side. Over the course of the first season, Dewey and Webby team up to learn more about Della. They discover that Della had stolen something from Scrooge called the "Spear of Selene"—a revelation that puts Della's moral alignment into question.

Out of fear of worrying his brothers, Dewey keeps the investigation a secret from Huey and Louie, though he eventually confesses the truth in "The Secret(s) of Castle McDuck!". Both Huey and Louie rebuke Dewey for his secrecy, accusing him of acting selfishly. Dewey apologizes for this, and the brothers agree to band together to continue the investigation and learn the truth. By the time of "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!", however, the uncertainty of Della's absence becomes too much for Dewey to handle, prompting him to demand the truth directly from Scrooge. A downhearted Scrooge explains that before the nephews had hatched, he, Donald and Della had been going on amazing adventures all around the world until there was a point in time where they had almost nowhere new to explore. This had prompted Della to have ambitions to explore outer space, knowing it was the most uncharted area of all. Scrooge manufactured a rocket dubbed *The Spear of Selene* to gift to Della in honor of the nephews' birth. Della discovered the rocket early, however, and stole it behind Scrooge's back. Through radio transmissions, Scrooge tried to navigate Della to safety, but she was caught in a cosmic storm and declared lost in space ever since. In response, Donald blamed Scrooge for the tragedy and adopted the boys as his own. Blaming their great-uncle for the loss of their mother without letting him explain what really happened, the boys resent Scrooge to the point of wanting to leave McDuck Manor and return to the bay. In "The Shadow War!", they are trying to get rid of all the souvenirs that they got on adventures with Scrooge right before they move to Cape Suzette the following day. Mrs. Beakly explained to the boys during a farewell party on what really happened and scolded them for turning their back on Scrooge. After some thinking, Donald and the boys realize how much they and Scrooge need one another, and decide to go back to the mansion to reconcile with him. As soon as they find out about Magica, they break into the mansion and manage to save Scrooge. They forgive him and join him for a swim in the bin.

Months later the boys, Donald and the rest of Scrooge's workers are reinstated back into McDuck Manor. Louie, being inspired by Scrooge's success in the business world, decides to create his own company of Louie Inc, while he and his brothers come across a few more new faces known to their families such as their distant cousin Fethry Duck, and Donald's old college buddies Panchito Pistoles, and Jose Carioca. They also come across some familiar faces like Storkules, having him act as Donald's new roommate for some time. Louie decided to take advantage of Storkules' presence by having him take down monsters attacking the city of Duckburg, hoping to try and make a high profit to jump-start his new company. Unfortunately the monsters Storkules had captured ended up escaping, leading them to attack Donald's houseboat, causing Louie to throw away all the merchandise he bought from the money he made as a diversion for the monsters. Once the monsters were captured once more, instead of letting them attack the city again, Scrooge proposed to Louie that he uses them as a method of transportation for the lemonade company Scrooge had just made in Cape Suzette.

Soon after, Christmas had finally come with Huey decorating the Mansion, Louie writing a letter to Santa trying to reason with him to put him on the nice list after some of the bad things he did over the year, and Dewey sulking in his room, revealed to still be depressed over the realization of spending yet another Christmas without his mother. Dewey then discovers Scrooge with three spirits, with Scrooge explaining to Dewey that they accidentally haunted his home once, and from there on spent each Christmas crashing some of the greatest Christmas parties in history with them. As the four went off to travel back in time, Dewey had held onto the Future spirit's cloak, but fell into the snow and realized he had gone back in time, likely to when his mother hadn't yet disappeared. Dewey searches the mansion, only to run into a strange emo-looking kid, who was revealed to be Donald when he was close to Dewey's age. Dewey then goes with young Donald to the back of McDuck Manor to find his sister, Della, where she had been setting up traps to try and capture Santa Claus. They find her, but soon after the three run into a giant Wendigo monster, and fight it off until they are able to tangle it into a rope Della had used earlier as a trap. Later, young Donald and Della decide to go back into the mansion to get Scrooge to deal with the monster, but not before Dewey hugged Della out of instinct, knowing how much he wanted to spend Christmas with her. Although Dewey wanted to warn his mother about what would happen years from then, Della and Donald reminded him not to as it would have disrupted the space-time continuum. After Donald and Della went back inside, future Scrooge picked up Dewey and took each other back to their present, where they sang some Christmas carols with the rest of their family for the remainder of the night.

When Della Duck returned to Earth, she was surprised to learn their names, as she had planned calling the three Jet (Huey), Turbo (Dewey) and Rebel (Louie), even writing it down in case no one could understand Donald Duck. Dewey was initially shocked that he missed out on being called Turbo but Della comes to accept Huey, Dewey and Louie as the three's names.

### Cameos

Huey, Dewey, and Louie appear in the opening animated intro to *The Mickey Mouse Club*. Unlike most of the shorts, they all wear blue shirts and red caps.

In the 1988 film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*, Huey, Dewey, and Louie appear in a picture on a newspaper clipping in Eddie Valiant's office, describing how Eddie and his now-deceased brother Teddy saved them from an unknown kidnapper.

## Trivia

* A few comics feature a fourth nephew brought about accidentally through artistic error. He is often jokingly dubbed as Fooey or Phooey, the nephews' "long-lost brother". Later, Phooey Duck was purposely written into the Danish comic *Much Ado About Phooey* by Lars Jensen who established Phooey as a scientific phenomenon who sporadically popped in and out of existence in proximity to his siblings.
* Strangely, it's not ever shown how Huey, Dewey, and Louie ever got to Traverse Town if Disney Castle wasn't destroyed. Plus, it's unknown why they wouldn't be at Disney Castle in *Kingdom Hearts II*, but instead at Hollow Bastion, yet they do tell Ventus that they're going to save up Munny to go on a big adventure.
* Typical of cartoon characters, Huey, Dewey, and Louie rarely appear to age (note Quack Pack), even where the story they're involved in shows characters around them to age like Max Goof (though they appeared alongside him in *House of Mouse* at older ages) or Sora from the *Kingdom Hearts* series.
* The three of them were intended to appear as a combined character with Scrooge in the canceled *Epic Disney Racers*.
* Despite their identical appearance, the 3 nephews each have a signature color. This wasn't until the 1980s when it became established: Huey in Red; Dewey in Blue; and Louie in Green.