Ludwig Von Drake

Professor Ludwig Von Drake
First appearance The Wonderful World of Color (September 24, 1961)
Created by
Voiced by
Species Duck
Gender Male
Occupation Scientist
Relatives
Nationality Austrian

Professor Ludwig Von Drake is one of Walt Disney's cartoon and comic book characters. He was first introduced on September 24, 1961, as the presenter (and singer of "The Spectrum Song") in the cartoon An Adventure in Color, part of the first episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on NBC.[3] Said to be an uncle of Donald Duck, he shares a first name and part of his surname with a prominent Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises. He is described as a scientist, lecturer, psychologist, and world traveler. The character displayed his "expert" knowledge on a variety of subjects in eighteen episodes of the classic anthology series,[4] as well as on a number of Disneyland Records.[5]

Paul Frees was the original voice of Ludwig Von Drake. After Frees' death in 1986, Walker Edmiston voiced the role.[1] Since 1987, he has been voiced by Corey Burton.[2]

Character

Ludwig Von Drake comes from Vienna, Austria and has a fascination with knowledge. Since his youth he has been trying to obtain as many diplomas, in any science, as possible. When he is consulted by other family members, it is a running gag that he almost invariably turns out to have a university degree relevant for whatever information they are seeking. He is often shown as having little social competence, however, and is often portrayed as being very forgetful, sometimes even somewhat senile. In the comics Ludwig usually visits with Donald Duck and Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. On occasion, Daisy Duck would coax (or even trick) the professor into giving lectures and tours for her ladies' club. Sometimes Ludwig and Gyro Gearloose have competed as to who is the greater inventor.

In the Wonderful World of Color episode Kids is Kids, Ludwig states that he is a bachelor.

In the comic strips by the famous duo of comic artists Bob Karp and Al Taliaferro, Donald and his nephews usually call him 'Uncle Ludwig', but in the comic stories he is generally called 'Ludwig' or 'Professor' by those ones. Daisy Duck refers to Ludwig as sort of an uncle of Donald in the first Sunday strip where his name is mentioned.[6] In the story "Duckburg, U.S.A.",[7] published in Ludwig Von Drake #1 (November 1961), Professor Ludwig Von Drake arrives in Duckburg by train, and it is shown that Donald Duck had never seen this Austrian relative before, not even in a picture.[8] Grandma Duck, Uncle Scrooge McDuck, Daisy Duck, Gladstone Gander, Huey, Dewey and Louie, Gus Goose, and Gyro Gearloose also appear in this same story waiting to know Ludwig at the train station, and Grandma enthusiastically exclaims, "Professor Ludwig Von Drake! Such a nice-sounding name!".[9] According to an explanation created by Don Rosa's personal family tree, he would have to be married to Donald Duck's aunt, Matilda McDuck, making him Scrooge's brother-in-law. Nevertheless, Ludwig exclaims in the Christmas story "The Cuckoo Clock Caper"[10] that he and Scrooge are "joined in good fellowship".[11] Besides, he was shown as a member of the Absentminded Dating Club,[12] being the suitor of another member of this same club in some old comic strips, a duck woman called Alice.[13] Therefore, Ludwig's marital status is officially unmarried.

In a theory based on an old American comic story called "The Family Tree Spree",[14] Humperdink Duck's early life before marrying Elvira Coot could be nebulous enough to pin him and Ludwig as half-brothers, thus making Ludwig a granduncle to Donald. In this story, Donald scares of seeing Ludwig's specs on the floor and thinks about them as "Uncle Ludwig's specs".[15] In the end of this same story, it's revealed that Ludwig also appears in Donald's paternal family tree, wherein he and Donald both have an ancestor called Colombust Duck, who tried to prove the world was flat.[16] So it's possible to conclude that Ludwig, whose Austrian father obviously owns the surname Von Drake, has an ancestor with the surname Duck because of his mother. In this case, Humperdink, who possibly was some years older than Ludwig, really could be regarded as half-brother on mother's side of Ludwig and both of their parents would be descendants from the failed geographer Colombust Duck.

In some old comic stories where Ludwig visits Grandma on her farm, it's clear that they have a close relationship, as shown in the story "Message From Space",[17] where Grandma exclaims, "You need rest, dear boy!", after thinking he had a kind of nervous breakdown.[18] In "Pigeon Panic"[19] Ludwig exclaims, "Ho! You know you can depend on me!", after Grandma warned him to be careful with her smartest homer.[20] There is an enlightening sequence of two panels in the story "The Rural Eggs-pert",[21] where Ludwig is resting in an old chair of Grandma's house when an antique buyer asks Grandma to sell him "this fine old specimen" (the chair) and she answers, "Well, it's been in the family for years, but I could do without it!", making Ludwig astonished, since he thinks she's referring to him as if he was a livestock.[22] He wouldn't have reacted this way if he wasn't her relative. In the last panel of the story "Barn Dance Doctor",[23] Grandma refers to Ludwig as her "cityfied cousin".[24] Since it was stipulated by Don Rosa that her father was a Coot and her mother was a Gadwall, it's not clear if Ludwig Von Drake is related to Elvira Coot through her father or her mother. Elvira could have an Austrian ascendancy to explain her kinship to Ludwig.

Ludwig revealed in "Blown Up Genius"[25] that he came from a long line of glass blowers.[26] In "The Big Payoff",[27] it's revealed that he spent many months living in Donald's house since his arrival in Duckburg. Ludwig wins a TV chess challenge in this comic story, making Donald exclaim, "Yippee! He did it! Now he can pay all he's owed us (he and his nephews) for these many months!".[28] According to the story "The Jewels of Skull Rock",[29] Ludwig spent six months in Donald's house.[30]

Those ten stories mentioned above were drawn by Tony Strobl, who was the cartoonist responsible for introducing Professor Ludwig into American Disney comic books. Actually, Ludwig's first comic book appearance was in a not previously mentioned story by Strobl, "The Scene Stealer",[31] first published in October, 1961. The events showed in this one presumably happened after the ones showed in "Duckburg, U.S.A.", which was published two months later.

Wonderful World of Color appearances (1960s)

Professor Ludwig Von Drake was introduced as a new character alongside Walt Disney himself in the very first episode of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color after the series was moved to NBC in the fall of 1961. He was designed, and frequently animated, by Milt Kahl and Ward Kimball, two of Disney's Nine Old Men of animators.

TV

Theatrical

Inside Donald Duck

Among his many interests is psychology, and he has tried to make a psychological study of his nephew Donald Duck. Ludwig was best fleshed out in this anthology cartoon, where Donald's psychology was examined, as we got to see some of his worst temper tantrums. Ludwig however was well understood by the end of the cartoon. His Austrian German ancestry betrayed itself in his language - for example "as we say in the psychiatry" is a very typical Germanism. In comics translated into German he sometimes speaks with an Austrian accent, like "ein bisserl" instead of "ein bisschen". He also enjoys several off color jokes, for instance "What you have here is a depressed Duck! And there is nothing worse than depressed duck...unless you like depressed duck...but the taste is sometimes...." making a pun off of the dish of pressed duck.

Cartoon appearances (1980s–present)

Von Drake has appeared on several Disney animated cartoon series: DuckTales, Raw Toonage, Bonkers, Mickey Mouse Works, Quack Pack, Disney's House of Mouse, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mickey Mouse and in numerous television specials. In all of these, Von Drake wears a pink shirt, black tie, red vest, and a lab coat.

In House of Mouse, Von Drake appears as a recurring character. In "Ask Von Drake", Mickey tries to prove that Ludwig Von Drake doesn't know everything. At the end, Mickey convinces him that during the headcount of all the Disney characters, he forgot himself. Also, in "House of Genius", Ludwig creates robot duplicates of Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto. At the end, when Ludwig brings in a robot duplicate of himself, Mickey tells the robot to send the real Ludwig packing.

Ludwig Von Drake in the Sing-Along Songs series

In the Disney's Sing-Along Songs series of videos, he has hosted or co-hosted these six volumes:

Disneyland Records discography

In 1961 Disneyland Records released the LP Professor Ludwig Von Drake. The LP had two songs from the character's debut in the An Adventure in Color episode ("The Green With Envy Blues" and "The Spectrum Song"), as well as new songs and comedy bits.

The track list for the "Ludwig Von Drake" LP:

  1. I'm Ludwig Von Drake
  2. The Spectrum Song
  3. The Green With Envy Blues
  4. It Gets You
  5. Von Drake Variations on "The Blue Danube"
  6. Professor Ludwig Von Drake Discourse: All About Sound Recording
  7. An Operatic Version of a Theme from 'Cinderella'

As of February 2010, the digitally remastered LP can be downloaded exclusively at the iTunes Store.[32]

The Disney studio encouraged the writers of Duck comics to introduce this new character in print, and already in September 1961, Von Drake started appearing in Al Taliaferro and Bob Karp's featured daily strips. However, aside from a solitary cameo appearance in a one-page story in Uncle Scrooge #54 (December 1964), the character was not used by leading Disney duck artist Carl Barks.

In 1961, Dell Comics launched a comic book series starring Von Drake and illustrated by Tony Strobl,[33] but it only lasted for four issues before being discontinued. The character made subsequent appearances in other comic titles such as Walt Disney's Comics and Stories and in the Donald Duck newspaper strip.

Professor Ludwig has often been used by Italian cartoonists, including in some of the long sagas inspired by famous books that they usually produce with the Duck Family, such as "La storia di Marco Polo detta Il Milione"[34] (free translation "The Million - A Story of Marco Polo") and "Paperino in: Il mondo perduto"[35] (free translation "Donald in: The Lost World"). As a result, he has achieved a quite significant popularity in Italy (he's known there as Pico De' Paperis).

Similar character

In an episode of Goof Troop, it was revealed that Goofy has an uncle named Ludwig Von Goof. Von Goof is also a scientist, whose appearance is almost identical to Von Drake, except for the fact that Ludwig Von Drake is a duck and Ludwig Von Goof is a dog.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 News from me
  2. 1 2 "Corey Burton TV Credits". Retrieved March 2, 2016.
  3. ↑ Cotter, Bill (1997). The Wonderful World of Disney Television - A Complete History. New York: Hyperion Books. pp. 67, 76. ISBN 0-7868-6359-5.
  4. ↑ Smith, Dave (1998). The Updated Official Encyclopedia: Disney A to Z. New York: Hyperion Books. p. 337. ISBN 0-7868-6391-9.
  5. ↑ Fisher, David J. (1992). The Music of Disney: A Legacy in Song Collector's Book. Walt Disney Records. pp. 28, 48. ISBN 0-7868-6359-5.
  6. ↑ Coa Inducks - Page for the Sunday strip ZD 61-09-24
  7. ↑ "Duckburg, U.S.A". Coa.inducks.org. 1961-12-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  8. ↑ r (1961-09-24). "Ludwig Von Drake". Goofy313g.free.fr. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  9. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story Duckburg, U.S.A.
  10. ↑ "The Cuckoo Clock Caper". Coa.inducks.org. 1962-10-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  11. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story The Cuckoo Clock Caper
  12. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic strip YD 85-07-12
  13. ↑ Coa Inducks - Index to strips with Alice from YD
  14. ↑ "The Family Tree Spree". Coa.inducks.org. 1962-03-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  15. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story The Family Tree Spree
  16. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story The Family Tree Spree
  17. ↑ "Message From Space". Coa.inducks.org. 1962-05-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  18. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story Message From Space
  19. ↑ "Pigeon Panic". Coa.inducks.org. 1964-08-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  20. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story Pigeon Panic
  21. ↑ "The Rural Eggs-pert". Coa.inducks.org. 1961-12-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  22. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story The Rural Eggs-Pert
  23. ↑ "Barn Dance Doctor". Coa.inducks.org. 1961-12-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  24. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story Barn Dance Doctor
  25. ↑ "Blown Up Genius". Coa.inducks.org. 1962-12-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  26. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story Blown Up Genius
  27. ↑ "The Big Payoff". Coa.inducks.org. 1962-05-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  28. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story The Big Payoff
  29. ↑ Coa Inducks - Page to the comic story The Jewels of Skull Rock
  30. ↑ Coa Inducks - Excerpt of the comic story The Jewels of Skull Rock
  31. ↑ "The Scene Stealer". Coa.inducks.org. 1961-10-01. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  32. ↑ "iTunes - Music - Professor Ludwig Von Drake by Paul Frees". Itunes.apple.com. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  33. ↑ 'Ludwig Von Drake' comic book #1-#4 featuring Tony Strobl List
  34. ↑ "La storia di Marco Polo detta Il Milione". Coa.inducks.org. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
  35. ↑ "Paperino in: Il mondo perduto". Coa.inducks.org. Retrieved 2015-08-01.
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