The main villain of the television series Alfred J. Kwak is the crow Dolf de Kraai. Dolf is not really a common villain, like a vicious pirate or mean stepmother, that you often see in children television series. Since the television series starts when Alfred and Dolf are young, it shows more of the background of each character and their upbringing. In Dolf’s case it shows the origin of his actions as an adult later in the series, when he became the dictator of his country through his own founded political party called the National Crows Party.
Dolf is introduced in the series in episode 4. He is a classmate of Alfred, but they are no friends. In contrary, Dolf teases Alfred because he is a duck and has a mole as a father. A family situation that Dolf finds weird. However, his feelings towards this family situation might be more based out of jealousy since Alfred does get a stable upbringing from his loving father Henk de Mol, while Dolf on the other hand has a father who is an alcoholic and his mother died when he was very young.
Dolf’s father is a crow, but his mother a blackbird. Therefore Dolf is born with a yellow beak. Ashamed of his yellow beak, he colors it black every morning with shoe polish, to look completely black. Below are the sketches of Dolf’s father and mother by Harald Siepermann and the corresponding model sheets by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher.
Because of the unstable childhood, Dolf is always active in criminal activities. This becomes most evident when he starts his own political party called the National Crows Party, and becomes the dictator of Great Waterland. The different characteristics of Alfred J. Kwak and Dolf de Kraai play very well against each other and they often cross paths throughout the entire television series.
Below are some of Harald Siepermann’s sketches of a young Dolf de Kraai and the model sheet by Harald Siepermann and Hans Bacher.
