Two Chips and a Miss

I personally like the Chip 'n' Dale cartoons, and I like the characters. The cartoons haven't got the most original stories ever, but they are always funny, and beautifully animated and scored. Two Chips and a Miss is no exception, in fact I consider it one of their best. It is also one of their most different and interesting, instead of the two playing against Donald or Pluto they play off against each other, plus you get a glimpse of their social life, which is refreshing in a sense. The story is nothing especially new concept-wise, but it is very well-paced and much less routine or predictable than some of their other cartoons. Two Chips and a Miss is often funny and very cute, who ever knew Chip 'n' Dale were such good musicians. It is beautifully animated, with all the characters well drawn, the backgrounds are fluid and the colours are lovingly textured and vibrant. The music is also wonderful, as are Chip 'n' Dale, more intelligible than usual, and the lovely Clarice(just wish there had been more cartoons with her in). Overall, interesting and cute. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Chip and Dale each receive a note to meet Clarice, a voluptuous chipmunk for whom they have fallen big time. They sneak out, not realizing that each has received the invitation, and meet at her night club, the Acorn. This then turns into one upsmanship, each trying to outdo the other. They are both talented musicians and strut their stuff for her. She, of course, knows her charms and manipulates them to no end.

Chip n' Dale are rather static and boring, to me and the Warner Brothers Goofy Gophers are much more entertaining, but they did do a few good shorts, of which this is one. I suspect this is because the rivalry here is realistic and the situation much more interesting. This one's well worth looking for. Recommended.

A Walt Disney CHIP 'N' DALE Cartoon.

There's lots of rodent romance going on at the Acorn Club when TWO CHIPS AND A MISS get together.

Here is a very routine Chipmunks film which (rather embarrassingly) puts their pint-sized canoodling on display. The lovely Clarice, for all her furry allure, would make only this one film appearance.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Bambi, Peter Pan and Mr. Toad. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

What's the conflict here? Pretty simple: Chip and Dale have a nightclub near them and, more specifically, a pretty girl chipmunk named Clarice singing there, and they each want her. So they both act like they don't want her, then act like it's time to go the bed, and then, well, there's total rivalry head-butting chipmunk madness with gags. It's a constant stream of them once they start, and they all work, not one misses, and yet the key ingredient here is charm: this is a delightful piece of art (yes, art) that has two characters in a duel that starts ugly and then becomes charmingly silly and stupid as it goes on (duelling instrument playing with Chip on piano and Dale on upright bass for Clarice's big number).

I've seen this cartoon dozens of times, and if you're wanting to introduce your child to Chip 'N' Dale from when they were being produced by THE Walt Disney, this is the one to start with. If they don't take to it, well, don't bother with the others! (Well, except Applecore, that's the other must-see). It's charm on parade whether you love these characters or not.