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 comic strips by the famous Disney cartoonist Al Taliaferro, Donald and his nephews usually call him 'Uncle Ludwig'. However, theories vary between authors about his precise relationship to the family. Some creators have presumed that his family is simply a German branch of the Duck family that hasn't been included in any major stories. According to Don Rosa's personal family tree, the (unauthorized) theory is he would have to be married to Donald Duck's aunt, Matilda McDuck, making him Scrooge's brother-in-law.
In another theory, Humperdink Duck's early life before marrying Elvira Coot could be nebulous enough to pin him and Ludwig as half-brothers, thus making Ludwing a granduncle to Donald.
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 "Pigeon Panic", where Ludwig exclaims, "Ho! You know you can depend on me!", after Grandma warned him to be careful with her smartest homer. There is an enlightening sequence of two panels in the story "The Rural Eggs-pert", 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!", what makes Ludwig astonished, since he thinks she's referring to him as if he was a livestock. He wouldn't have reacted this way if he wasn't her relative. In the last panel of the story "Barn Dance Doctor", Grandma refers to Ludwig as her "cityfied cousin". Since it was stipulated 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.
In another old story called "The Family Tree Spree", Donald scares of seeing Ludwig's specs on the floor and thinks about them as "Uncle Ludwig's specs". In the end of this same story, it's revealed that Ludwig and Donald are on a same family tree, wherein they both have an ancestor called Colombust Duck, who tried to prove the world was flat. 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 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. Those four stories mentioned above were drawn by Tony Strobl, who was the cartoonist who introduced Professor Ludwig in the American Disney comic books.
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