Chip 'n Dale

Chip and Dale (also spelled Chip 'n' Dale) are a cartoon duo of anthropomorphic chipmunks created by The Walt Disney Company, who debuted in the 1943 short film ''Private Pluto''.

Concept

The characters were first drawn by Bill Justice and introduced in the 1943 Pluto short ''Private Pluto'', directed by Clyde Geronimi. In the short, they fight with Pluto about whether they can store their nuts in a military base cannon. Three years later, director Jack Hannah decided to use them as co-stars in Donald Duck shorts. Hannah said:

Of the two, Chip is portrayed as being safe, focused, and having a mind for logical scheming. Dale, by contrast, is more laid-back, dim-witted, and impulsive, and has a very strong sense of humor. Originally the two had a similar appearance, but as a way to tell them apart, some differences were introduced: Chip has a small black nose and two centered protruding teeth, whereas Dale has a large dark red nose and a prominent gap between his front teeth. Chip is also depicted as having smooth hair on top of his head while Dale's tends to be ruffled.

In most cartoons, they are paired with Mickey Mouse, or most often, Pluto and Donald Duck, whom they usually battle when they see an activity they do out of curiosity or when they try to get food without getting caught by them. They were given their own series in the 1950s, but only three cartoons resulted under their name: ''Chicken in the Rough'' (1951), ''Two Chips and a Miss'' (1952) and '' The Lone Chipmunks'' (1954). The duo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film three times in four years: in 1946 for ''Squatter's Rights'' (against Mickey and Pluto), in 1947 for '' Chip an' Dale'' and in 1949 for ''Toy Tinkers'' (both against Donald Duck). In the 1980s, they became the lead characters of a half-hour television series, '' Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'', in which they have adventures as leaders of a detective agency.

Their names may be a pun on the name of the 18th-century cabinet maker and furniture designer Thomas Chippendale, as suggested by Bill "Tex" Henson, a story artist at the studio.

List of Chip 'n' Dale shorts

Chip and Dale appear in the following 23 animated short films.

Home media

* ''The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale'' – Includes ''Two Chips and a Miss'', ''Chicken in the Rough'', ''Chips Ahoy'', ''Donald Applecore'', ''Up a Tree'', and ''The Lone Chipmunks'' plus various song scenes in between cartoon shorts sung by Chip and Dale.
* ''Classic Cartoon Favorites, Vol. 4: Starring Chip 'n' Dale'' (DVD)– Includes ''Chicken in the Rough'', ''Chip an' Dale'', ''Out of Scale'', ''Two Chips and a Miss'', ''Food for Feudin, '' Working for Peanuts'', ''Out on a Limb'', ''Three for Breakfast'' and ''Dragon Around''.
* ''Nuts About Chip 'n' Dale'' – Includes ''Food for Feudin, ''Trailer Horn'' and ''Two Chips and a Miss''.
* ''A Tale of Two Chipmunks'' – Includes ''Chicken in the Rough'', ''Chips Ahoy'' and ''The Lone Chipmunks'' (Also released on Laserdisc as a double feature along with "The Unsinkable Donald Duck").
* ''Disney Cartoon Classics Vol. 9: Starring Chip 'n' Dale'' – Includes '' Working for Peanuts'', ''Donald Applecore'' and ''Dragon Around'' plus short scenes in between the cartoon shorts narrated by Jiminy Cricket, and is the only animation where Donald addresses the chipmunks by their names.

Comics series

Chip and Dale also had their own comic book title, first from Dell Comics with ''Four Color Comics'' #517, 581, and 636, then their own title, ''Chip 'n' Dale'', for issues #4–30 (1955–62), which was then continued by Gold Key Comics with #1–64 (1967–80), and later under its brand Whitman with #65–83 (1980–84).

TV series

''Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers''

In 1989, Chip and Dale became the title characters in a new animated television series, '' Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'', in which they formed a detective agency with new characters created for the show: female mouse inventor Gadget Hackwrench, muscular adventuring Australian mouse Monterey Jack and Zipper the fly. While in the original shorts, the duo is frequent troublemakers who are concerned only with themselves, in ''Rescue Rangers'', they are crime fighters who help the less fortunate.

In this series, the personality differences between the two are more pronounced, with Chip as the serious, heroic leader and Dale as the quick-witted, hard partying reluctant hero. Additionally, they wear clothes in this series which reflect their personalities; Chip wears a leather jacket and fedora (much like Indiana Jones), while Dale wears a Hawaiian shirt (much like ''Magnum, P.I.'').

''DuckTales''

Chip and Dale, based on their ''Rescue Rangers'' iterations, made an appearance in the 2017 TV series ''DuckTales''. Making their debut in the season 3 episode, "Double-O-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!", Chip and Dale are depicted as ordinary chipmunks used as lab rats for an intelligence ray developed by the organization F.O.W.L. After becoming much smarter and anthropomorphic, they teamed up with two mice and a fly to escape their confines as well as help Launchpad McQuack defeat one of F.O.W.L.'s agents. They also make a cameo appearance alongside the other Rangers in the series finale, "The Last Adventure!".

''Chip 'N Dale's Nutty Tales''

Chip 'n Dale star in a CGI preschool short series, spin-off of ''Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures''.

''Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life''

The characters have a French-American animated series called ''Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life'', which was released on Disney+ on July 28, 2021, which was co-produced by The Walt Disney Company France and Xilam Animation. Unlike other iterations of the characters, the series is non-verbal, similarly to other shows produced by Xilam. The series portrays Chip and Dale's adventures living in a park where they often interact with Clarice, Donald Duck, Pluto, and other mostly Duckburg-centric Disney characters. The chipmunks are portrayed in only semi-humanized form, much as in late-1940s cartoon shorts.

Film

A hybrid live-action/animated film, '' Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'', was released on May 16, 2022, with animation of the characters provided by Moving Picture Company and their voices by John Mulaney and Andy Samberg. The film was released as a Disney+ original.

Other appearances

Chip and Dale were planned to appear as a cameo in the 1988 film ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'', but were cut from the final film.

Chip and Dale make minor appearances in ''Mickey's Christmas Carol'', ''Mickey Mouse Works'', and ''House of Mouse''.

Chip and Dale appear as supporting characters in the ''Kingdom Hearts'' video game series. Introduced in ''Kingdom Hearts'' (2002), they make subsequent appearances in ''Kingdom Hearts II'' (2005), '' Kingdom Hearts Coded'' (2008), ''Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep'' (2010), and ''Kingdom Hearts III'' (2019). In the ''Kingdom Hearts'' universe, Chip and Dale are depicted as the engineers of the Gummi Ships and the Gummiphone, which can respectively traverse between worlds and communicate across them.

Chip and Dale are part of the Walt Disney Animation Studios characters that take a group photo at the end of the 2023 short film ''Once Upon a Studio''. They also appear during the end credits along with Spike the Bee, another recurring rival of Donald Duck.

Voice actors

The classic voices of Chip and Dale were mostly provided by Jimmy MacDonald, Dessie (Flynn) Miller, and Helen Silbert. The earliest voices were provided by female office staff, without credit. In ''Private Pluto'', their voices were created by speeding-up sound clips of normal speech. In a number of the shorts that followed, many of these same sound clips were used again, though later shorts used dialogue specifically recorded for that short.

At one point in ''Winter Storage'', Chip and Dale get into an argument while being caught in a trap. When the scene switches to an outside view of the box, the dialogue heard is a sped-up segment of John Brown's narration from the Goofy short '' A Knight for a Day''.

Since 1988, Chip and Dale have been voiced by Tress MacNeille and Corey Burton respectively, although MacNeille has provided the voice for both in ''Mickey Mouse Works'' and ''House of Mouse''. John Mulaney and Andy Samberg voiced the two in the ''Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'' live-action film. In the film, the high-pitched voices of the television series were explained as an act by the otherwise normally speaking chipmunks.

See also

* Complete list of Disney animated shorts
* Goofy Gophers

References

External links

Chip 'n' Dale Online
* (Chip)
* (Dale)

Chip
on IMDb

Dale
on IMDb

Disney Archive Entry

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chip and Dale

Animated duos
Anthropomorphic squirrels
Comics about anthropomorphic squirrels
Comics about talking animals
Comics set in forests
Dell Comics titles
Disney comics characters
Donald Duck universe characters
Fictional characters from Calisota
Fictional chipmunks
Fictional duos
Animated characters introduced in 1943
Film characters introduced in 1943
Comics characters introduced in 1955
Gold Key Comics titles
Male characters in animation
Male characters in comics
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