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.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the sons of Donald's sister Della Duck; in "Donald's Nephews", their mother is instead named Dumbella. In the original theatrical shorts, they were originally sent to visit Donald for only one day; in the comics, the three were sent to stay with Donald on a temporary basis, until their father came back from the hospital (the boys ended up sending him there after a practical joke of putting firecrackers under his chair). In both the comics and animated shorts, the boys' parents were never heard from or mentioned again after these instances, with the boys ending up permanently living with Donald. All four of them live in the fictional city of Duckburg, in the fictional state of Calisota.