Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers

Everybody has a series of some sort that started them on a path of what they come to expect from nearly everything else in the genre proceeding it, whether it be a "Batman", a "Star Wars", or more aptly in my case, "Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers". It was released in '89 to be one of 4 original series on a new 2-hour block of cartoon TV known as the Disney Afternoon. Perfect timing for me, what being around 7 years old. Upon first seeing it I became enthralled. It seems that everyone also has a character whom they feel they can identify with in some degree. I remember being a somewhat scatterbrained kid...goofy, funny, if even also bucktoothed. And I want(ed) a shirt like Dale's pretty bad.

Over the years, I've found that, even having evolved into supposed adulthood, good cartoons are hard to come by and stay with. When I saw the series as a little kid, there was no way I could've pointed out all the little nagging errors in it, like sometimes slippery animation, thoroughly worn music and tired sound effects. Rather, they were counter-balanced with interest by the intriguing concept of a band of tree-residing rodents out to further the cause of justice, no matter how seemingly small the battle.

Just how could the police solve crimes like widespread cheese disappearances, mysterious weather patterns or potential citywide destruction...from a record player? Well, they can't. They don't have the necessary perspective. They aren't 2 and a half inches tall. Naw, these cases are best left for Chip, Dale, Gadget, Monterey Jack and his winged pal, Zipper. Of course, not every team is a perfect unit. Chip might over-analyze a case, leading to missing out on an opportunity to act. Gadget's latest gadget is liable to act in an un-anticipated way. Monty's next rush to action might get the gang in a bit of a pinch. And Dale...well, a "creative" solution is a creative solution, after all. Might just not work, though.

So then, why are the chronicles of diminutive crime-fighters so awesomely excellent? I find that, among many reasons, there don't seem to be many cartoons that can practice what they preach without doing just that. Teamwork, detective work, creativity and tolerance can be extolled without preaching, and to boot, while having fun! Cunning and eccentric baddies like the aptly named Fat Cat don't stand a chance against this well-oiled machine...no matter how well-thought out a devious star constellation rouse is.

It's really quite amazing how Disney's bargain-basement cartoon of the bunch came to be one of the most well-received of them. Of other Disney Afternoon favorites like "Duck Tales", "TaleSpin", and "Darkwing Duck", this is the least expensive to produce, and as aforementioned, my favorite. It just goes to show that a mix of the old-fashioned Disney magic and awesome character interactions make the show over "special effects". About 16 years after the fact, I find this show has not aged, despite my more discriminating tastes, and has remained my all-time favorite cartoon series. Whenever my inner child wells to the surface, I still pop in a long-ago-recorded VHS episode. And dare I say, I hold the series in such high regard that if the latest and greatest can't stack up to the Rescue Rangers, it's just not old-fashioned enough.

"Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers" gets a well-earned 10 of 10 stars.

Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers was a fun cartoon and it was one of my favorites that was on the Disney Afternoon along with Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, DuckTales, Tale Spin, Mighty Ducks, Gargoyles, Timon and Pumbaa and Quack Pack. Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers would be solving improbable mysteries and crimes in every fun filled episode! I always liked Dale because he is so goofy and nuts like I am. I remember that this was one of the shows that I would sometimes watch with my older sister. This show came out a year after I was born. This is another good cartoon that brings back so much good memories of my childhood. It's too bad now a days Disney has crappy cartoons on the air that are just unoriginal and suck! But overall great cartoon.

Disney reigns the animated television series king in 1989 with "Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers," a cartoon about Chip, Dale, Gadget, Monterey Jack, and Zipper, all having lots of fearless adventures and having lots of fun!!!!!

They all live in a tree, ala the Keebler elves, and they have things like a big screen TV with Christmas Lights and a round sofa, an "R/R" flag, a tire/Tinker Toy slide, dominoes for stairs, a mailbox garage, a kitchen, and just about everything that you could find in their home/ headquarters!!!!!

As a child of the early 90s, I've watched this on the Disney Afternoon, and played the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game from Capcom, like what everyone else always did back in the day!!!!! Man, both were so much fun! I wish times like this were here again! Oh well; guess I'll have to invest in a time machine!!!!! LOL

"Rescue Rangers" is a wonderful show; fun for the whole family!!!!!

10 stars!

The Rescue Rangers consisting of stern, no-nonsense chipmunk leader Chip (Tress MacNeille), laid back goofball Dale (Corey burton), muscular but cheese crazed Aussie mouse adventurer Monterey "Monty" Jack (Peter Cullen and Jim Cummings), team mechanic/inventor genius mouse Gadget (Tress Macneile), and their mostly mute housefly friend Zipper (Corey burton) solve cases that are too small to get the attention of the police and do everything from helping both humans and animals finding stolen or missing items to thwarting plans of villains such as criminal mastermind Fat Cat (Jim Cummings) or mad scientist professor Norton Nimnul (Jim Cummings).

Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers was the fifth show Disney produced for televison following the success of Gummi Bears, DuckTales, and The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, as well as the failures of The Wuzzles and the one off pilot turned telefilm Fluppy Dogs. Initially planned as a companion series for DuckTales alongside two other projects Talespin and Double-O Duck (which would be retooled as Darkwing Duck), the series initially was pitched as being based on The Rescuers but was rejected due to Disney in development on the theatrical sequel The Rescuers: Down Under. The series was then retooled as an unrelated concept called Metro Mice featuring a new team lineup with early versions of Gadget and Monterey Jack, as well as a scrapped chameleon character and Indiana Jones-esque mouse Kit Colby. While the concept was better received, the kit Colby character was not and Jeffrey katzenberg and Michael Eisner suggested the established chipmunk duo of Chip 'n' Dale for the leads. The show was a solid success upon release becoming briefly becoming the top cartoon in Syndication, and alongside staples like Talespin and Darkwing Duck helped to give The Disney Afternoon the clout it so enjoyed. At its core Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers is a pretty standard sleuthing show that owes much of its existence to precursors like Scooby-Doo and its various imitators (and also the Nancy Drew/hardy boys mysteries but beside the point), but it's in the creativity of its animation and characters the show really succeeds.

If you remember the Chip 'n' Dale shorts where the duo had abrasive encounters with Donald Duck or Pluto the dog, their personalities are kept pretty intact with only the addition of details such as Chip's Indiana Jones inspired jacket and fedora or Dale's Hawaiian shirt which was a reference to Magnum P. I., and yes, I'm serious about both those points. New characters such as Monterey jack with him serving as the team's muscle fits with the 80s era in which the show was produced as you can see clear influence on the character with American fascination with Aussie "bushman" culture that came about from the likes of such films as Crocodile Dundee. While Monterey jack is undeniably inspired by America's Aussie craze of the time, he's given enough personality that he feels like his own creation rather than a reskin of popular trends of the time, Gadget is also quite fun playing the very MacGyver esque tech genius of the team whose inventions made of discarded household trash or appliances create some memorable devices like submarines, zeppelins, cars, or other assorted gizmos that serve the exact needed purpose to get the team. We also have Zipper, who serves in a similar capacity to the Recue Rangers how Slimer served the Ghostbusters in The Real Ghostbusters, only with Zipper being much more endearing and less abrasive.

The plots of Rescue Rangers are pretty standard for the type of show this is, unlike the pulp adventure inspired approach by Ducktales or slice of life adventures in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Rescue Rangers has a lot in common with the various Hanna-Barbera sleuth shows produced during the 70s in an attempt to capture the success of Scooby-Doo, while it's a well worn formula that has often been the subject of parody the fact that it's formula isn't bad because just because something is formula doesn't make it bad, but laziness with that formula is. Rescue Rangers while it uses a well-worn formula, it sprinkles in enough details to keep it engaging with a world that's illy but also not afraid to get legitimately threatening or unnerving at certain points with episodes "Pound of the baskervilles" featuring strong gothic atmosphere that pays homage to Sherlock Holmes adventures or "The Case of the Cola Cult" which took a relatively taboo topic of cults and tried to explain it and their dangers to viewers of the time. It's little details and extra bits of effort that made the show a cut above the Hanna Barbera schlock that recycled that formula, that and of course the animation which par for the course for Disney Television was putting out higher than average quality in comparison to other syndicated cartoons of the era such as Rankin/Bass or Dic.

Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers doesn't stray far from the formula established by children's sleuth shows, but thanks to creativity in both the writing, characters, and world created it manages to refresh it and make it feel new again. The animation is as expected really strong and puts many other syndicated cartoons of the era to shame, and there's a fun sense of comradery among the central cast of characters that makes them fun to join on adventures.

In brief, this is a cartoon show about a gang of animals--two chipmunks, two mice, and a common housefly--who live together in a tree and solve crimes and have various adventures together. But it's so much better than it sounds from that simple description. The writing is witty with sharp, consistent characterizations, both of the Rescue Rangers themselves and of all the various villains and minor characters. The background music is catchy and the plots are inventive, random, silly and at the same time serious, without being preachy or heavy-handed in giving "morals" at all.

As for the basics of the show, the Rescue Rangers are composed of Chip--intelligent and determined with a streak of mischief that only occasionally surfaces; Dale--goofy and often trying to prove himself, and also to bring out Chip's goofy side; Monterey Jack--worldly and generally in control of the situation, except of course when it comes to cheese; Gadget--brilliant and absent-minded and sometimes startlingly wise; and Zipper--plucky and enthusiastic and loyal. But all of that can be found in any summary of the show; it doesn't capture what is so great about the show. None of the characters are even close to one-dimensional, and their interactions are complex, witty and fascinating, and can't even be summarized briefly.

Just as interesting are the "bad guys"--the main recurring ones are Fat Cat and his gang, and Professor Nimnul, a self-proclaimed unappreciated genius. The villains are witty, entertaining, ironic, outrageous, and just plain funny. And in general the show avoids the issue of "good vs. evil" directly; the plots typically revolve around the Rescue Rangers thwarting some scheme of a villain to gain power or wealth in unlawful ways (although some episodes don't even have an identifiable villain), but you're not made to hate the villains at all, only to disapprove of their selfishness or greed. In terms of subtle moral messages, I would say that this show shows (not preaches) the value of teamwork, the idea that everyone deserves help, and that selfishness and greed will get you nowhere in the end.

But the moral messages are not the main reason to watch this show, although they're important to the charm of the show. I started watching it when I was about four, and it's stuck with me throughout my life, becoming a central part of our family culture even when we go years without actually watching an episode. If a show can be judged by how often it gets quoted or referenced in everyday life, then Rescue Rangers has been the best and most important show in my life. So many of the lines and references have worked their way into my regular vocabulary, lines that are witty or clever or insightful or just plain funny. So often my dad and I find ourselves making analogies to RR episodes while having serious discussions. On the surface the plots may seem entertaining but not "deep" in a traditional dramatic sense, but believe me, the wit of the plots and characters and dialogue seeps into your thoughts in ways that will surprise you. It's fun and entertaining, and in a subtle way, very meaningful.

Overall, I wouldn't be who I am now without this show. I find that it's written with a depth of cleverness, references, wit, and character development that isn't quite matched in any of the other Disney Afternoon shows (with Gummi Bears coming closest). It's funny, entertaining, and deep, and I'd recommend it to anyone of any age who's willing not to be cynical about watching a show about crime-solving rodents. It's more than worth it.