Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers’ on Disney+, A Half-Toon, Half-Live Romp With More References Than A Library

Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers (Disney+) is a wild spin through throwback cartoon references and wacky humor from director Akiva Schaffer that features his Lonely Island cohort Andy Samberg and comedian John Mulaney as the titular duo, whose world is a hybrid of animation and live action. When a good friend is kidnapped, it’s up to Chip and Dale to rescue him, and their lives become a reboot adventure along the lines of their long lost Disney show. 

CHIP ‘N DALE: RESCUE RANGERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In 1982, Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samberg) bonded during a sight gag gone bad in their grade class, and the two pals never looked back. “Chip was so funny and thoughtful about everything,” Dale says, “and I never thought about anything! We were perfect together.” They hit LA, made the rounds of auditions, and landed bit parts. (Cue a snippet from Full House, with Chip and Dale rocking to Jesse’s guitar solo.) And then came their big break, being cast on the Disney Afternoons program Rescue Rangers alongside Monterey Jack (Eric Bana), Gadget Hackwrench (Tress MacNeille), and Zipper the Fly (Dennis Haysbert). It’s 1990, and Chip and Dale are living the dream, partying with toons and humans alike at the show wrap party. But it all goes south when Dale tries to go solo.

Years later, Dale is skating by on limited notoriety and desperate nostalgia. He’s also the recipient of three-dimensionalizing “CG surgery,” which in this world where humans and cartoons coexist is the same as cosmetic body work. As for Chip, he’s the same old 2-D toon, and a salesman for Coercive Insurance. Out of the blue, Monterey Jack calls them for help, and it’s an awkward reunion. But Monty, their old buddy, really is in trouble. He’s been targeted by Sweet Pete (Will Arnett), a fat and old version of Peter Pan who now operates a bootleg animation studio alongside his henchmen, Jimmy the Polar Bear (Da’Vone McDonald) and Bob (Seth Rogen), a motion capture dwarf. Chip and Dale team with police detective Ellie Steckler (KiKi Layne) and Captain Putty (J.K. Simmons) to take down Pete and save their pal.

The chipmunks’ search leads to some crazy places. On a streetscape full of cartoon dogs blowing bubbles, happy-go-lucky animated children, and kindly shopkeepers, Dale tells Chip not all is what it seems. “Sometimes when I’m low on cash I sell my fur to that wig shop,” he says. In fact, all manner of illicit toon activity exists beyond the veneer. (Two words: “Muppet fights.”) And when the pals access a parlor for stinky cheese high-ons – “I got smell lines that’ll take you through the ceiling,” Bjornson the Cheesmonger (Keegan-Michael Key) tells them – it leads straight to Sweet Pete and his black market cartoon activities.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Andy Sanberg channels his Johnny character from the Hotel Transylvania films here, playing Dale as a bright-eyed dum-dum who happily pratfalls his way through life. And while the Rescue Rangers afternoon TV show was never one of Disney’s legacies, this film shares with the recent Cruella a willingness to rip into the establishment DNA and pull the Mouse House in a contemporary direction.

Performance Worth Watching: As Captain Putty, the bizarro Gumby chief investigator of Sweet Pete’s cartoon bootlegging ring, J.K. Simmons continues his string of strong voice work. (He played Claggart in the 2021 animated adventure Seal Team.) But it’s doubly funny, because Simmons gives Putty the exact gruffness he would a real-life police captain character, which is exactly what Putty is in the half-toon, half-human world of Rescue Rangers.

Memorable Dialogue: Chip learns the horrible truth from Monterey Jack about just what Sweet Pete is doing to all the abducted legacy toons. “‘Bootleg’ you? What does that mean?”

Mony lays it out. “Did you hear what happened to that little guy, Flounder? When he fell behind on krill payments? They kidnap the bloke, erase his mouth so he can’t scream, then change him around to try and sneak by the copyright laws, and then smuggle him overseas to a black-market studio, where he’ll spend the rest of his life being forced to make terrible bootleg movies.” And just like that, The Little Mermaid becomes “The Small Fish Lady.”

Sex and Skin: Come on, forget about it. Unless you’re still crushing on Gadget Hackwrench.

Our Take: Of all the referential running gags inside Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers, it’s Dale’s giddy exclamation at the toon-packed 1990 wrap party for their (then) hit show – “I’m doing the Roger Rabbit with Roger Rabbit!” – that really stands out, since there’s nothing this film loves more than to pull and stretch the reboot concept into sardonic new shapes even as it simultaneously pulls a reset on the entire Disney universe. Dale himself lurks at his fan-con autograph table, spouting about a Rescue Rangers reboot to anyone who will listen. But as the film itself drives to its conclusion, the entire adventure becomes the very reboot Dale had longed for. (In that, it’s not unlike the recent Scream entry, which built out entire new superstructures onto reboot culture.) And if you want references, director Akiva Schaffer and writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand pour them into every single scene. Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat are DJ’ng at the rap party. Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast is pals with Dale. Seth Rogen is a warrior castoff from Polar Express, Stan’s dad from South Park sits in a sauna at a fat and aging Peter Pan’s Russian bathhouse, and He-Man & Skeletor bicker at a celebrity appearance. (Skeletor’s voice creaks at the proper awful pitch.) What’s even more fun about all of this wackiness is that the references themselves work visually, too, their animation styles perfectly in line with the characters’ various backgrounds. There are a hundred other references. Maybe two hundred. Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers is a cluttered landscape of visual and referential laughs.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers is a fun, goofy ride through a half human, half toon world chock full of iconic character throwbacks, Hollywood references, and zany sight gags.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges