Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

**Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers** is an American television series created by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove.

It focuses on two chipmunks who start a detective agency.

The series premiered on The Disney Channel on March 4, 1989 and aired for three seasons on Syndication until November 19, 1990.

## Plot

Chip and Dale are two chipmunks who start a detective agency, Rescue Rangers, along with their friends Gadget Hackwrench, Monterey Jack, and Zipper. The pint-sized detectives deal with crimes that are often "too small" for the police to handle, usually with other animals as their clients. The gang frequently find themselves going up against two particular arch-villains: Mafia-style tabby cat Fat Cat and mad scientist Norton Nimnul.

## Cast and Characters

### Main

* Tress MacNeille as Chip / Gadget Hackwrench
* Corey Burton as Dale / Zipper
* Peter Cullen and Jim Cummings as Monterey Jack

### Allies

* Peter Cullen as Officer Kirby and Officer Muldoon
* Rob Paulsen and Alan Oppenheimer as Detective Donald Drake / K-9 Plato
* Jim Cummings as Sergeant Spinelli

### Villains

* Jim Cummings as Fat Cat / Wart / Professor Norton Nimnul / Rap Capone
* Corey Burton as Mole / Snout
* Peter Cullen as Mepps
* Brian Cummings as Arnold Mousenegger
* Chuck McCann as Sugar Ray Lizard

## Episodes

See Also: List of Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers Episodes

 2 | 47
 3 | 5

## Film

* Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (Film) (2022)

## Video Games

* Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (Video Game)
* Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers 2
* Squirrel King
* Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers: The Adventures in Nimnul's Castle

## Production

Rescue Rangers was originally conceived as the first of three new companion shows to Disney's popular DuckTales series, which had more than doubled the ratings among child audiences in its time slots after its debut in the fall of 1987. Disney had originally invested $20 million in DuckTales and then invested $28 million in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

It, along with TaleSpin and a third series, Double-O Duck (which ultimately became Darkwing Duck), would round out a programming block later known as "The Disney Afternoon" along with the previously established Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears to capitalize on DuckTales's success.

When Tad Stones first came up with the idea for the Rescue Rangers series, Chip and Dale were not part of the show. He initially pitched doing a TV series based on The Rescuers, but Disney rejected that idea as a sequel to that film was already in production. He created a new concept with the working title of Metro Mice. The original draft starred an Indiana Jones-type mouse named Kit Colby who sported a fedora and a fluffy collared leather jacket, and the rest of the team included a chameleon, an earlier version of Gadget and a character resembling Monterey Jack with a different name. When he proposed the show in a meeting with Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the idea was well received except for the character of Kit. At Eisner's suggestion, they replaced him with the chipmunk duo to give the show some established Disney characters to work with. By late 1987, two years before its television debut, the show was announced under its original proposed title of "Chip 'n Dale and the Rescue Rangers".

While Chip and Dale were established characters, in order to bring them into the series only their general appearance and basic personality traits were kept. Unlike their appearances in Disney shorts, the Rescue Rangers features the chipmunk duo as very verbal, with Chip voiced by Tress MacNeille and Dale voiced by Corey Burton. Audio processing was used to speed up the voice recordings and give the voices a higher pitch, particularly Chip's. The pair were given clothes, Chip the clothing of the original-concept Kit, while the goofier Dale was reminiscent of, but not specifically modelled after, Thomas Magnum from Magnum, P.I. with his Hawaiian shirt.

The series premiered in 1989 on The Disney Channel before moving into a regular slot in syndication the following fall. In 1990, the series premiered as part of the lineup known as The Disney Afternoon, where it ran until 1993. On October 2, 1995, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers began reruns on The Disney Channel as part of a two-hour programming block called "Block Party", airing weekdays in the late afternoon/early evening and which also included Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin and DuckTales.

The show's opening theme was written (listed in the end credits as "words & music") by Mark Mueller, an ASCAP Award-winning pop music songwriter who also wrote the popular DuckTales theme song, and produced by Alf Clausen. The song performed over the title credits is sung by Jeff Pescetto (who also performed the DuckTales theme song). A full-length theme song was recorded by The Jets, a Minnesota pop group, and released on The Disney Afternoon soundtrack.

## Reception

### Critical Response

Hal Erickson of Television Cartoon Shows, An Illustrated Encyclopaedia compared the show to DuckTales, stating that it was "consummately produced and written," and its animation "succeeded in putting most other overseas output to shame." Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media rated the series 4 out of 5 stars, complimented the depiction of positive messages, citing teamwork and saying the series succeeds to depict a female character as a role model, while finding the show family-friendly and entertaining. IGN named Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers as the 60th-best in the Top 100 Animated TV Shows. Jeremy Hayes of BuzzFeed ranked Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers 4th in their "Best Cartoons From The '80s" list. Tyler B. Searle of Collider included in their "10 Best Animated Disney Channel Shows" list.