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Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck's father, usually known as Mr Duck (possibly Jamie Duck), though an alternative account suggests his last name to be Ostman, is (or was) an anthropomorphic duck.
Description[]
Little is known about the mysterious Mr Duck, mr guy's brother.[1] He was the boyfriend (and probably husband) of Della Duck, Donald Duck's sister, and therefore the father of Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck. When Della first sent her children over to Donald (temporarily) in 1937, it was because the three little devils had set a cracker off under Mr Duck's chair, sending him to the hospital for several weeks. However, in 1938, when the nephews' caretaking was handed over to Donald for good by Della, Mr Duck was nowhere to be seen; his fate post-1937 is thus unknown.
Physical appearance[]
He may be a duck with short black hair and small eyes.
Behind the scenes[]
Mr Duck was first mentioned in the 1937 Donald's Nephews comic.
Carl Barks believed that he and Della were so irritated by Huey, Dewey, and Louie's behavior that, after leaving them with Donald, they ran away, never to return.[2]
It was hinted in a deleted scene of Don Rosa's Return to Xanadu that a clue as to Mr. Duck's fate (which remains unknown to his sons) was held in Tralla La; but the ducks had to leave the land before they were told the truth.
Due to Huey, Dewey and Louie calling Daisy Duck "Aunt", it has been suspected that Mr. Duck was Daisy's brother; this has been used in one German version of the Duck family tree, but other authors disagree with the notion, arguing that the "aunt" is only because, as Donald's fiancée, Daisy becomes the triplet's "step-aunt".
Don Rosa once "revealed" his identity in his 1970 parody, Return to Duckburg Place, co-written by Ray Foushee. Here, in this unofficial story, he is identified with the Warner Brothers character, Daffy Duck. Rosa would never use Mr Duck in an official story, but he did draw the character for fans several times, basing him on an older depiction of Mr. Duck in Mark Worden's Duck Family Tree. In both cases, he is depicted as a smiling duck with short black hair and small eyes (resembling his sons').
Theories[]
Various fan theories exist to explain the absence of Mr Duck. The most obvious assumption is that he died. One theory suggests that he was killed in World War II, based on the observation that his haircut in Rosa's tree resembles that of a member of the United States Armed Forces. Others think that the fire cracker set under his chair by Huey, Dewey, and Louie caused him to die.
Other theories suggest that Mr Duck is the same character as Tsamjah Phee from Return to Xanadu, as the character is based on the Grand Llama from Frank Capra's Lost Horizons, who, in the film, was revealed not to be a native of Shangri La but instead a European who found his way there and never left.
A theory as to Mr Duck's identity was proposed by blogger Xander Ares, who suggested that Mr Duck is also the same character as Donald's cousin, Cosmo Duck, from The Overnight Hero. Due to Cosmo being an astronaut, the theory suggests that he and Della met when Cosmo was her instructor, training her to be an astronaut. This theory also borrows from the theory that Mr Duck is one of Daisy's brothers, identifying Cosmo/Tsamjah Phee/Mr Duck with the brother of Daisy who dressed up as an astronaut in Donald's Diary.[3] The identification of Mr Duck with Cosmo does, however, require one to view The Overnight Hero as occurring nearly thirty years earlier than intended by its authors.
Johannes A. Grote's Alternative Genealogy[]
Grote's version of the parents of Huey, Dewey and Louie.
In Johannes A. Grote's Duck Family Tree, the portrait of a blonde female duck resembling Rosa's Della, drawn from the background of a Carl Barks story, was used to represent Huey, Dewey and Louie's mother. However, she remains nameless, and, most strikingly, she is depicted as Donald's sister-in-law (the daughter of ”Opa Ostman” and his wife), while it is her husband who is Donald Duck's brother. While the identification of the two Barksian portraits as Huey, Dewey and Louie's parents is acceptable enough, it is unclear how the rest of it can possibly slot in with accepted continuity, as simply switching Della and her husband around again does not suffice — his last name being usually understood to be Duck, rather than Ostman, especially if he is in fact Daisy Duck's brother as is commonly speculated.