Alfred J. Kwak is a children's animated comedy-drama television series based on a Dutch theatre show by Herman van Veen. It was produced by Telecable Benelux B.V. in co-production with VARA, ZDF, , and TV Tokyo, and was animated by Telescreen Japan. It consists of 52 episodes, which were first aired in 1989. The series characters were designed by Harald Siepermann. There are also toys and a comic based on the animated series.
The series has been broadcast in many countries and has been dubbed and subtitled in Dutch, French, Japanese, Greek, English, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Hungarian, Finnish, Serbian, Polish, German, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, Chinese, Czech, Romanian, Korean, and Norwegian.
In 1991, Herman van Veen won the Goldene Kamera award for the cartoon.
Origins
Plot Alfred J. Kwak was born as the son of Johan Sebastian and Anna Kwak. Some time after his birth, Alfred loses his parents and his brothers and sisters after a car hits them as they are moving their home during a heavy rainstorm. Alfred was saved due to his being distracted by a frog, which he broke away from his family to chase. Henk the mole, a good friend of the Kwak family, raises the little orphan duck. Alfred experiences a lot of adventures.
Unlike many other cartoons targeted for children, Alfred J. Kwak features exceptionally mature and often dark themes. Amongst others, it deals with different social and political issues, such as abuse of power, but also raises important values such as friendship and solidarity.
The cartoon is also notable for the political themes it touches. In the cartoon, Alfred fights against a fascist dictator, takes in refugees fleeing from a country under apartheid (with white geese and black ducks), saves whales against hunters, and oversees the changeover of his country from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy with a democratically elected president. Such themes are far from typical in a children's cartoon, and form a big part of Alfred J. Kwak appeal. Other episodes have satirised the Japanese love of golf, and criticised countries which have sharp north/south economic divides.
The cartoon is also unusual for the subtlety of its long-term narrative. In most children's cartoons, the characters do not age. In Alfred J. Kwak, we see the progress of the main characters from very young children to adulthood as the series advances. This is particularly striking in the character of Dolf, who is initially a mere schoolboy, but who, as time passes, becomes a criminal and a dictator.
Setting The time setting of the cartoon is somewhat surreal. On the whole, the technology and dress of most characters seem appropriate to the late 20th century, and yet Alfred and Paljas/Boffin often travel in a spaceship with a technology far more advanced than that, while many characters such as the king's staff, Scratchpaws the cat, and Dolf in his Napoleonic incarnation wear clothes more appropriate to previous ages. Other surreal elements to the cartoon include such strange characters as the evil genie of the bottle, living chess pieces from Alfred's chess game, Pied Piper-style Clown on the Moon, and aliens who appear like ducks except for their human-style feet, and a "dream" style Wild West episode during which Dolf seems to become aware that he is a character in a cartoon.
Characters
Main characters
Alfred Alfred Jodocus Kwak is a duck. As a baby, he lived in a giant clog with his family. After his family was run over by a car, he was adopted by Henk and lives with him in Henk's grandfather's house. Later Alfred moves into a clog-shaped house, using his old cradle as his bed. He is very concerned with other people and values many virtues, like human rights and good manners. Friends, family and the environment, are also close to his heart and he in some episodes even risks his own safety when it comes to doing the right thing. Although he has gone through a lot of sad things, his favourite song is 'Ik ben vandaag zo vrolijk' (I'm so happy today). In the English version, his middle name is changed to "Johnathan". In the Hebrew version, his name is "Shealtiel". In the Icelandic version, he is named Alfreð Önd.
Dolf Dolf is Alfred's archenemy and first appears in episode 4. In the first episode Dolf's parents, a crow and a blackbird, can be seen making disparaging comments on the eggs of Alfred's mother. Both are dressed in traditional German garments. The father wears lederhosen, a feathered hat and, in the Dutch original, speaks with a heavy German accent, while Dolf's mother is seen in a dirndl outfit. In the German version, Dolf is called Kra, in the Finnish version, he is called Korppi.
Dolf gradually develops from a mere naughty schoolboy to a merciless dictator, an arms dealer, a reckless politician, and an overall criminal. Though the show clearly portrays Dolf's acts as inherently negative and wrong, it also provides the background on how Dolf became who he is. For example, as a child, Dolf is prone to blame others for problems in which he too played a role. Dolf mentions that his mother died very early and that his father neglects him due to alcoholism. Dolf can also be seen to express a sense of self-hate and poor self-image; as he is disgusted by the fact that he is only part crow, and paints his orange beak black to disguise his true identity. When Alfred accidentally finds out about this, he cannot understand why Dolf is so ashamed and urges him to drop the secret and tell others about it. Dolf however is petrified and convinced that his friends will make fun of him, and makes Alfred swear he will never tell anyone about it.
Episodes 22 through 25 are essentially an allegory of the rise and fall of Fascism and Nazism, with Dolf himself, though wearing a Napoleonic uniform, as a clear caricature of Adolf Hitler. It begins with Dolf returning from abroad, in a train with Austrian markings, and meeting up with his friends. He then discusses the current political climate in Great Waterland, and expresses disgust with it. Dolf then decides to found a political party, the latter National Crows Party, for which he goes to Alfred to lend money. He explains his ideas, but Alfred refuses and Dolf barges out of Alfred's house in a fit of rage. Alfred and Henk express their fear of Dolf, but Henk reassures Alfred that Dolf will never gather enough money to fund his intended party. Not much later however, Dolf inherits a huge fortune. He founds his party, which through promising employment and change quickly becomes a major and powerful political movement. Dolf eventually stages a coup d'etat and takes over the country. Political opponents, including Alfred, are imprisoned on the charge of high treason. Alfred and his friends barely escape and flee abroad to the neighbouring country of Great Reedland. Not much later the King of Great Waterland himself flees as well, and Dolf proclaims himself Emperor Dolf I. Alfred and the other political dissidents however devised a plan to dispose of Dolf and steal Dolf's inheritance from the vaults of his palace. Without his money, Dolf's power quickly dwindles and he is forced to flee.
Dolf eventually makes an appearance as an illegal arms dealer and general criminal in further episodes. In the 43rd and 44th episodes, the King has decided to abdicate and for the first time, democratic elections are held. Dolf once again attempts to rule Great Waterland as one of the three official candidates. In order to get ahead of the other two candidates (Ollie being the first candidate), he hires some foreigners to sabotage the dam, which protects the waterland from being flooded by the seawater. After the dam has broken, Dolf cunningly withdraws his entry because he wants to "help" people and cannot waste time on a campaign. Dolf then publicly funds the repairs of the dam, skyrocketing his popularity and prompting his reentry in the presidential race. He then, in an attempt to get rid of any compromising evidence, tries to kill Lispel, who saw the criminal act. Lispel manages to escape and, though heavily wounded, can tell Alfred the truth about the flood.
Dolf manages to escape and continues his life of crime. In the final two episodes, Dolf becomes the henchman of an oil magnate who is attempting to get his hands on the blueprints of an environmentally friendly fuel, invented by Professor Buffon. After a fight, in which Dolf attempts to kill Alfred by pushing his car off the road, Dolf is again captured and is sentenced to 26 years of imprisonment. Aided by a former member of his Crows Party, he can escape and takes Winnie, Alfred's girlfriend, hostage. In the series' finale, after a manic hunt, Alfred finds Dolf, who tells him where Winnie is. After telling Alfred her whereabouts, Dolf attempts to escape, only to be caught by the police and put back into prison.
Henk Henk is a mole and the adoptive father of Alfred. In the Israeli version, he is called Hafi, a diminutive for "Hafarperet" - the Hebrew word for "mole".
Winnie Winnie is a black duck and Alfred's girlfriend, her name is a reference to Winnie Mandela. In the Dutch version, she speaks Afrikaans-accented Dutch; Afrikaans being a language closely related to Dutch and spoken in South Africa. Alfred meets her and her family, in episode 27, on a train leaving for Great Waterland after his holidays. Her family are refugees who escaped from their home country after it had been taken over by white geese. After Alfred helps her parents to sort out the problems in her country, she joins Alfred on many of his adventures and holidays. She works in the local university as a secretary (as first seen in episode 34) and lives with her brother Tom in a little house near the forest.
Secondary characters Professor Paljas is an interdisciplinary academic. He is a polar bear, and speaks with a German accent. In the UK, Hungarian, Serbian, and Israeli versions he is called Professor Buffon. He makes his first appearance in episode 18, in which he attempts to communicate with the whales in the South Pole using his new invention "Jonus". He returns in episode 26, in which he asks Alfred to join him on his expedition to the Himalayas. He also travels (with Alfred of course), to Egypt to find the only medicine which can cure his ill colleague, and to the jungle to investigate a volcano which keeps erupting. He cares a lot about the environment and develops a petrol for vehicles that doesn't expose any carbon monoxide and prevents acid rain. Ollie is Alfred's close school-friend, a stork, who grows up to be a lawyer, and later, after the defeat of Dolf, the first democratically elected president of Great Waterland. In the Dutch version, Ollie is a girl during childhood, but a male when he is an adult, confirming his status as transgender. This change is never directly addressed in the series. In a Dutch interview from 2013 however, Van Veen stated that this gender change was intentional, since that also happens in the real world. In the Israeli version, Ollie is a female and is named Luli.