Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

Synopsis

Episodes

Characters

Main

• Chip is the leader of the Rescue Rangers. Loosely modeled after Indiana Jones, Chip wears a fedora and a bomber jacket and frequently uses a rope to lasso or swing to other spots. Chip is mature and has a strong sense of moral standards, to the point that he is sometimes accused of not knowing how to have fun. He can be opinionated and often ends up in arguments with Dale over his best friend's more lackluster approach. At times, though, he also lets himself go and joins Dale in some mischief. He and Dale have a crush on Gadget.
• Dale is the co-founder of the Rescue Rangers. He wears a red and yellow Hawaiian shirt reminiscent of Thomas Magnum in Magnum, P.I. Though passionate about the job, he is a free-spirited, genial hotshot who is sometimes immature and forgets to think before he acts. He spends his free time reading comic books and playing video games. A known candy addict, Dale has "chocolate attacks" similar to Monterey Jack's cheese attacks. He frequently finds himself being knocked on the head by Chip when he says or does something foolish. Dale is largely a friendly and easy-going character, though he is just as willing to get serious when the situation calls for it. Dale has also shown some remarkable creativity, as he is depicted constructing several gadgets of his own based on one of his favorite movie characters in the episode Double O Chipmunk, seemingly in only a few hours, despite seeming to have little to no technological background.
• Monterey Jack, known as "Monty" to his friends and called "Cheeser" by his mother, is an adventure-loving, red-haired and luxuriantly mustachioed Australian mouse who spent years traveling the world before a chance meeting with Chip and Dale during their first case. After Fat Cat destroyed his home, Monty and his sidekick Zipper decided to join the group in their detective work. Stronger and larger than the others—indeed, he has demonstrated feats of strength that some humans would be hardpressed to match—Monty can be quick to anger if he, or his friends, has been offended. This trait sometimes leaves him ready to do battle with a much larger opponent, and the others having to calm him down. Monty has an overpowering addiction to cheese, and the sight or smell of cheese causes him to be almost hypnotically drawn to it in a mustache-twisting, spiraling-eyed "cheese attack". Monty loves to tell stories of his travels, even if the others often stop his reminiscing, and he often uses colorful "pseudo-Australianisms" while talking, such as "Strike me starkers." Monterey Jack is the only Rescue Ranger known to have two living parents, Cheddarhead Charlie and Camembert Kate, who are also travelers. Also, names of his entire family, including his own, have references to various types of cheese. Monty is most frequently found in the company of either Zipper or Dale, whose fun-loving nature matches his own. He also seems to consider Gadget to be something of a surrogate daughter, most likely due to his long friendship with her late father. Due to his traveling experience, Monty often handles the traveling arrangements for the group. Cullen voiced Monterey Jack in season 1, along with the first 36 episodes of season 2 excluding the five-episode pilot. Cummings voiced him in the pilot, along with the last 11 episodes of season 2, and season 3.
• Gadget Hackwrench is a young blond-haired female mouse who is the team's pilot, mechanic and inventor who wears a purple jumpsuit with blue goggles on her head. The daughter of deceased inventor and aviator Geegaw Hackwrench, who was a good friend of Monterey Jack, she first met Chip and Dale when Monty brought them to Geegaw's in search of an airplane. At loose ends since her father's death and eager to help, she joins the team. Known to say "Golly" whenever she's surprised by something, Gadget moves, thinks, and talks quickly, sometimes leaving the others looking dazed and confused. In addition to building and maintaining the Ranger Plane, Gadget is the one responsible for the various technological items used by the team, and is regularly inventing new vehicles and tools for the team's use. She has the uncanny ability to take discarded and unrelated items and invent nearly anything with them, which she attributes to the fact that she has a "mind-bashingly high IQ" and is easily bored. Unfortunately, her creations don't always work the way she intends, and have sometimes failed at just the wrong moment to cause the team trouble. Both Chip and Dale are attracted to Gadget, and often compete for her attention, but she doesn't seem to notice in many cases. Gadget's personality was based upon the inventive female character Jordan in the 1985 movie Real Genius. Gadget is so popular in Russia, there is a religion based on the character.
• Zipper is a tiny bluish-green housefly and a long time friend and sidekick of Monterey Jack. With his tiny size and flying abilities, Zipper often handles little jobs that the rest of the Rescue Rangers cannot. He speaks in unintelligible buzzes that only Monty and other insects are able to understand, although, in later episodes, he talks more clearly. Despite his tiny size, Zipper occasionally has impressive displays of strength which are matched only by his unwavering loyalty to his friends.

  Antagonists

• Fat Cat is a felonious, obese grey tabby cat and one of the Rescue Rangers' most frequent antagonists. Formerly owned by criminal Aldrin Klordane, in which capacity the Rangers first encountered him, Fat Cat became an independent agent and animal world crime boss after Klordane's incarceration. Inordinately proud of his appearance, he keeps his whiskers clean, wears a purple business suit, and has a taste for expensive things. Fat Cat is a ruthless criminal mastermind, and his plans, though sometimes bizarre, are nevertheless dangerous and sadistic. He hates dogs and several of his schemes have been attacks against them. The only thing he hates more than dogs are the Rescue Rangers, which he always tries to get rid of using elaborate and slow methods, rather than killing them immediately. The complexity of his plans usually ends up being his downfall. He has a cousin who lives in Paris, France. Voice actor Jim Cummings described Fat Cat as a combination of Zero Mostel and Dom DeLuise. Fat Cat is usually accompanied by four henchmen. In spite of their combined stupidity, Fat Cat almost always sends them out to do his dirty work for him, as he is too smart, or too lazy, to get his paws dirty, and they are too stupid and intimidated by him to do anything less than follow his exact orders.
• * Wart is a lizard henchman of Fat Cat who dresses in a gangster-style suit and hat similar to his boss.
• * Mole is an overweight mole henchman of Fat Cat who is slow witted but cheerful, and wears an undersized red T-shirt and a yellow hat. When plans go wrong, Mole usually is the one who Fat Cat chooses to use as a punching bag.
• * Mepps is a thin, yellow alley cat henchman of Fat Cat who is dressed in a ratty blue vest and toboggan, and who speaks with a whiny voice.
• * Snout is a rat henchman of Fat Cat who wears a short sleeved red turtle neck with a black vest and a dark blue hat that covers his eyes. He is seen the least of Fat Cat's henchmen.
• Professor Norton Nimnul is the Rangers' other major enemy and a mad scientist who once worked for Aldrin Klordane, which, as with Fat Cat, is how the Rangers first encountered him. Though Nimnul is an intelligent and creative scientist, his plans often lack any trace of logic and tend to be extremely convoluted. For example, he kidnapped all the cats in the city to make an immense amount of static electricity, and in his appearance in the pilot he constructed a laser cannon designed to create a giant gelatin mold which would be used to cause an earthquake under the United States Gold Reserve. Nimnul has receding red hair, wears very thick glasses, and a high-pitched laugh. Unlike other humans in the series, Nimnul is aware of the Rescue Rangers' activities, and even that they have human-level intelligence, due to their constant interference in his plans; this became even more explicit in "A Fly in the Ointment" when his malfunctioning teleporter caused him to swap heads with Zipper, allowing him to understand the Rangers when forced to work with them to rescue Zipper from the hospital and put everyone back to normal. He is physically modeled on Disney animator Bruce Talkington.

  Production

Home media

United Kingdom VHS releases

United States VHS releases

UK, Australia and New Zealand releases

DVD releases

North America (Region 1)

International (Region 2)

Video on demand

Reception and legacy

Other media

Cameos and other appearances

• Darkwing Duck : In the episode "Twitching Channels," the voices of Monterey Jack and Chip are briefly heard through an audio-reception helmet-device that can tune into sounds from other universes.
• Raw Toonage : In the episode hosted by Jitters A. Dog, Jitters serves as Dale's stunt double.
• Bonkers : In one episode, Bonkers mentions the Rescue Rangers.
• Aladdin : In the episode "Strike Up the Sand," the Genie transformed into Zipper.
• Robot Chicken : In the episode "Disemboweled by an Orphan", Gadget goes without pants to challenge the double standard of the males going without pants.
• 'DuckTales' : At the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con, it was confirmed that Chip, Dale, Gadget, Monty and Zipper would appear in the show's third season. In the episode, "Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!", the Rescue Rangers are first introduced as super-evolved lab animals created by F.O.W.L. agent Black Heron. They escaped from their captivity and later helped Launchpad McQuack defeat F.O.W.L. agent Steelbeak.

  Merchandise

Theme parks

Comic

Cameo appearances

''BOOM!'' revival

Video games

• In 1990, Capcom released a video game based on the show called Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers for Nintendo Entertainment System. It is a platform game distinguishable by the player needing to grab boxes, carry them on top and throwing to attack enemies and sometimes clear or form the path. It features a 2-player cooperative mode, and allows some non-linearity in choosing levels on a map. Each level is a various location of the city. In the story the Rangers must stop another of Fat Cat's schemes. The ongoing is described by dialogues between levels.
• A second NES game, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2, was released by Capcom in 1993. The sequel is the same in the principle of picking and throwing boxes, features additional incentives for cooperative play such as mini-games, that can only be played by two players, and the ability to throw the partner as a weapon.
• An unofficial Mega Drive sequel to these games, titled Squirrel King, was produced by the Taiwanese developer Gamtec. This game was later the basis of the unofficial Mega Drive Super Mario World game.
• Also released in 1990, Hi Tech Expressions' PC game ' saw the Rangers having to rescue Monterey Jack, who is caught in a mousetrap in Professor Norton Nimnul's castle. To rescue him, the chipmunks must infiltrate the castle to collect various parts so Gadget can build a flying machine to reach Monterey Jack.
• A Disney's Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers hand-held LCD game was released by Tiger Electronics.
• Chip, Dale, Gadget and Zipper appeared on cards which were in the game Mickey's Memory Challenge for Amiga and MS-DOS released for Infogrames and Disney Software in 1993.
• Chip and Dale are playable characters in ', for PlayStation, Windows PC, Sega Dreamcast and Game Boy Color released by Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Interactive and Disney Interactive in 2000.
• In May 2010, Dynamic Pixels Ltd. released a mobile game Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, where Fat Cat kidnapped Zipper and imprisoned him on a distant island. The team have to repair their legendary plane to get it but, unfortunately, they have no spare parts so the Rescue Rangers have to use their investigating skills together with enterprising skills as only their plane will help them to get to Fat Cats den. The story is divided into 27 non-linear missions that can be reached via a city map. Every mission is one of 3 different mini-games. The game can be downloaded free of charge and players use micro transactions to purchase in game money to spend it on different in game content like upgrades, additional equipment, power-ups, bonuses etc. if needed.

  Live-action film adaptation