On September 24, 1961 - 65 years ago today - Walt Disney introduced Ludwig Von Drake, the first character created specifically for television. Voiced with an Austrian accent by Paul Frees, Von Drake was billed as a "renowned scientist, lecturer, psychologist [and] world traveler," the "brilliant and eccentric" uncle of Donald Duck, and, according to Disney himself, "the outstanding genius of the century." His job: explain science and technology to the millions tuning into Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on NBC every Sunday.

Von Drake tackled color television, the health benefits of exercising, and the history of aviation - often absent-mindedly - before diving into the subject he claimed to have written the book on. In the February 10, 1963, episode "Inside Outer Space," he opened the animated segment by promising viewers they'd "see stars you have never seen before… when you go traveling in outer space." He plugged his guidebook, Inside Outer Space, noting everything known about outer space was "on the inside," and warned, "the way things are going, you better get your copy right away before it becomes obsolete. And prices go up."

He wasn't wrong about the obsolete part. The episode reused animation from earlier Disneyland TV episodes - "Man and the Moon," "Man in Space," and "Mars and Beyond" - which first aired on December 4, 1957, two months after the launch of the world's first artificial satellite. Those shows were speculative, even fantastical, produced well before the first human spaceflight. By the time "Inside Outer Space" premiered four years later, two Soviet cosmonauts had orbited Earth and two American astronauts had completed suborbital missions - milestones Von Drake conveniently never mentions.

The reused clips weren't the only historical crossover. To keep the earlier episodes accurate (for then), Disney and director/animator Ward Kimball consulted German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, physicist Heinz Haber, and science writer Willy Ley. Their work popularizing space exploration is credited with giving NASA a foothold in the public's perception of the space race.

Von Braun, Haber, and Ley also influenced Disney, writer Bill Berg, and animator Milt Kahl when they named and shaped Von Drake. The duck drew from Haber and Ley's breadth of knowledge and von Braun's expertise and personality. Von Braun even contributed to the full name, as Disney let slip while introducing the host of "Inside Outer Space": "The world-famous authority on outer space, Professor Wernher von … I mean … Ludwig Von Drake."