‘Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers’ Under Fire For Mocking Original ‘Peter Pan’ Child Star Bobby Driscoll, Who Turned To Heroin And Died Penniless After Being Dumped By Disney

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is facing criticism for a Peter Pan joke that appears to allude to the poor treatment of one of Disney’s first big child stars.

Despite the lengths they go to in order to protect their wholesome image, it’s no secret that Disney has a dark side. But Bobby Driscoll—who was the voice and the animation model for the studio’s 1953 animated classic Peter Pan—had an experience with the company that was particularly bleak. As a child, starting at the age of 10, he was one of the first child actors to land a Disney contract. In addition to Peter Pan, he also had roles in Song of the South (1946), So Dear to My Heart (1949), and Treasure Island (1950). He even won an Oscar, a special Academy Juvenile Award. For those years, Driscoll was Disney’s sweetheart. But then, unlike his forever-young character, Driscoll grew up. And Disney dropped him like yesterday’s trash.

Some say a severe case of puberty-induced acne prompted Disney to sever its contract with Driscoll in 1953. According to biographer Marc Eliot, who wrote about Driscoll in his 1993 book Walt Disney: Hollywood’s Dark Prince, it was more due to the general hatred of child actors from RKO head Howard Hughes. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Eliot said, “When Howard Hughes bought RKO, he, in effect, became the owner of the Disney studio. He controlled the money and he hated Bobby Driscoll. He hated Hollywood kids. He thought they were precocious, weren’t real, and were incredibly annoying. He didn’t want Bobby Driscoll to be with Disney anymore.”

Whatever the reason, Driscoll was suddenly and rudely dropped from Disney when he was 16 years old, and, reportedly, was even banned from re-entering the studio. That same year, Driscoll moved out of his parents’ house to New York City to study acting. It didn’t go well. Despite some TV roles, Driscoll never recovered from his traumatic experience as a child actor. In a 1961 magazine article titled “The Nightmare Life of an Ex-Child Star,” an adult Driscoll wrote, “I was lonely most of the time. A child actor’s childhood is not a normal one. People continually saying ‘What a cute little boy!’ creates innate conceit. But the adulation is only one part of it.… Other kids prove themselves once, but I had to prove myself twice with everyone.” In that same article, Driscoll described his marriage dissolving and becoming virtually homeless.

Four years later, a 31-year-old Driscoll was found dead on a New York City park bench, surrounded by beer bottles. He died from hardened arteries, a side effect of heroin use. His own mother didn’t know he had died until a year-and-a-half after he was found, and the public wasn’t alerted to his death until the re-release of Song of the South in 1972.

It’s an unambiguously tragic story. And if you know Driscoll’s story, it makes the jokes about Peter Pan in the new Chip ‘n Dale movie a lot less funny. Sure, the new live-action/animation hybrid film takes a lot of shots at a lot of Disney properties, as well as a few non-Disney properties (like Paramount’s scrapped “Ugly Sonic” Sonic the Hedgehog design). But in the context of Driscoll’s treatment at Disney, the presence of an old, overweight, hairy Peter Pan—who goes by the name “Sweet Pete” and runs an illegal bootleg operation after being tossed aside by the studio—feels just a tad insensitive.

“You know, I got my big break when I was just a kid. I got cast in the biggest movie in the world as the boy who wouldn’t grow up: Peter Pan,” Sweet Pete (voiced by Will Arnett) explains to the chipmunks. “I’d never been so happy in my entire life. Then I got older. And they threw me away like I was nothing.… I was scared, desperate, and all alone,” says Sweet Pete. “So I decided to take the power back and make my own bootleg movie. I called it Flying Bedroom Boy. And guess what? It worked. I made lots of money, so I recruited other toons to star in more movies. And bangarang, now I run my own bootleg movie studio. Now I get to decide who’s a star, and who gets thrown in the trash.”

Just in case you might think that this was all a coincidence—that writers Dan Gregor and Doug Mand weren’t aware of Driscoll when they wrote this particular meta-joke in a movie made out of meta-jokes—as Sweet Pete is talking, a film clip rolls of a teenage Peter Pan looking in the mirror at a budding mustache, and, yes, some acne spots on his chin. It feels like too specific a reference to be a coincidence. Decider reached out to Disney for comment as to whether the Peter Pan reference in the Chip ‘n Dale movie was an intentional nod to Bobby Driscoll, but did not hear back before the time of publication.

The punches don’t stop there. While Dale (voiced by John Mulaney) expresses sympathy for this bitter, broken-down Sweet Pete, he nonetheless becomes the movie’s villain, whom the chipmunks must defeat to rescue their kidnapped friend. And like any Disney villain, he gets his comeuppance in the end. Over the credits, as a cheery pop cover of the Rescue Rangers theme song plays, we see a fake ad for a documentary titled The Boy Who Grew Up, featuring a distraught, disfigured Peter Pan on the movie’s poster.

Viewers of the movie pointed out the reference on Twitter, calling out the film for making a joke in poor taste, with one user calling the joke “disgusting.”

That said, other Twitter users felt the movie was doing a good thing for Driscoll’s legacy—giving Driscoll’s story the exposure it deserves.

If Disney child actors have taught us anything, it’s that the magic of childhood never lasts forever—even in Never-Never Land. Perhaps someday Driscoll’s story will be told on the big screen, and not in the background of a meta-verse kids’ movie.