Quack Pack is an American animated sitcom produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, featuring Donald Duck and his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie.[1] The show debuted on September 3, 1996, as a part of the "Disney Afternoon" programming block, following the success of Goof Troop, and ran for one season with 39 episodes.[2]
The show centers around Donald Duck, who works as a cameraman alongside his girlfriend Daisy, a reporter for the TV show What In the World. The pair travels around the world with his now-adolescent nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, looking for noteworthy news stories.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie have more distinct personalities than their younger selves had. They usually resort to extreme measures to achieve their ambitions without being punished by their uncle, often by tricking him only to feel guilty about it afterwards. The brothers share similar passions such as listening to rock music, getting revenge on those who anger them, impressing girls, getting money, pulling pranks, playing games and reading comics, as well as a profound knowledge of cars and mechanics.
When Donald and Daisy go to do a report on a Naval vessel, it is revealed that Donald still owes them 24 hours of worktime, and his C.O. is content on giving him a hard time as comeuppance for all the times Donald has thrown him overboard.
Donald draws the ire of his boss Kent Powers when he shows up to work late. To try and keep his job, he writes a story, hoping he'll buy it.
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.[3] Because of this, many characters from the DuckTales cartoons and comics, including Disney characters, such as Scrooge McDuck, Launchpad McQuack, and Mickey Mouse don't appear in the series, although Ludwig Von Drake does make a couple of appearances.
In the show, the previously interchangeable nephews were given 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.[3]
The original title of the show was Duck Daze, but was changed to Quack Pack before release.[4] There are still references to Duck Daze in the theme song.
After Quack Pack left the Disney Afternoon block and following the launch of Disney's One Saturday Morning on ABC, it eventually resurfaced in reruns on Disney Channel, and later on Toon Disney. The show was removed from the channel's line up along with several other Disney shows in November 2004.
This show was aired on Disney Junior in Turkey, Netherlands, Flanders, Japan, and Southern Africa, on Disney Channel in Germany, India, Mexico, Poland and Turkey, and Disney XD in Scandinavia and Latin America.
All episodes of the series are currently available on the Disney+ streaming service.
In the summer of 1997, three 45-minute VHS cassettes containing six episodes were released in the United States.
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.[9][10]
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 Toy Tinkers.[11]
Zach Gass of Screen Rant called Quack Pack one of the "classic Disney cartoons," writing, "It's not the most original idea, but it's definitely an animated '90s time capsule. With its choice of design, dialogue, and certain plot devices, it's unarguably a product of its time, for better and for worse."[12] Catherine Hug of CBR.com said, "While Quack Pack only had one season in 1996, it featured the hilarious antics of Donald Duck and his three nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. While Donald tried working as a TV Cameraman, he also had to watch over his three rebellious nephews."[13] Susana Polo of Polygon stated, "Quack Pack wasn’t all bad ideas. Like our modern DuckTales reboot, it seized upon the idea of giving Huey, Dewey and Louie differentiated personalities."[14]
Quack Pack served as inspiration for the 2017 DuckTales episode of the same name, wherein the main characters find themselves trapped in a 1990s sitcom and are forced to contend with the human studio audience, which they view as monsters since humans are not part of the series.[15] Additionally, in the series finale 'The Last Adventure!', it was revealed that Donald kept a Hawaiian shirt similar to the one he wears in Quack Pack, and Della, sarcastically, asked if the year was 1996, which was the year the series released.[citation needed]