Alfred J. Kwak

Alfred J. Kwak is a duck from a Dutch comic that was turned into a Dutch, German & Japanese cartoon show that aired from '89-'91. He's fairly unknown in the US (I had never heard of him until I found these figures). His girlfriend is named Winnie and speaks Afrikaans. I got a little curious after getting these figures so I found a couple of English dubbed episodes on YouTube. The first episode showed Alfred being born and seemed to be geared to a younger audience. The next episode I watched was where Alfred first meets Winnie. The story begins on a train where Winnie's family is illegally entering the country after fleeing apartheid in their native land (from white geese). Alfred learns how unfair their homeland is and offers them refuge at his house while they figure out how to become citizens. He then has to pay off a blackmailing 5 tentacled octopus (pentopus?) so that Winnie's family won't get deported. This all seems a bit heavy for a cartoon geared towards younger children. I then watched a series of episodes where Alfred's grade school chum (a half crow/half thrush) becomes irate at the current king. He is a crow version of Hitler although he dresses a bit like Napoleon. He forms a political party which gains enough support that they put all dissidents in jail and force the king into exile. Alfred winds up in jail but escapes and then hatches a pretty crazy scheme to bankrupt the fascist party. Alfred winds up dealing with some pretty heavy stuff for being a guy who's always smiling. Anywho, these figures were made in 1990 in West Germany.