Donald's Nephews
Donald's Nephews (1938) is a Donald Duck animated cartoon which features Donald being visited by his three nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. This cartoon is Huey, Dewey, and Louie's very first appearance in animation. The short, and the three nephews, was the idea of Al Taliaferro, the artist for the "Silly Symphonies" comic strip, which featured Donald Duck. The Walt Disney Productions Story Dept. on February 5, 1937, sent Taliaferro a memo recognizing him as the source of the idea for the planned short. Taliaferro subsequently introduced the nephews in his comic strip, which by this time had been renamed "Donald Duck", on Sunday, October 17, 1937, beating the theatrical release of "Donald's Nephews" by almost six months.
Silent Running
Enlisting the aid of the ship's three "drones" (service robots), Huey, Dewey and Louie (named after Donald Duck's nephews), Lowell stages a fake premature explosion as a ruse and sends the "Valley Forge" careening towards Saturn in an attempt to hijack the ship and flee with the last forest dome. He then reprograms the drones to perform surgery on his leg and sets the "Valley Forge" on a risky course through Saturn's rings. Later, as the ship endures the rough passage, Drone 3 (Louie) is lost, but the ship and its remaining dome emerge relatively undamaged on the other side of the rings.