Gadget Hackwrench

''Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers'' is an American animated adventure comedy television series created by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove and produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It featured established Disney characters Chip 'n' Dale in a new setting. After the episode "Catteries Not Included" aired on August 27, 1988, as a preview, the series premiered on The Disney Channel on March 4, 1989.''Disney A to Z: The updated official Encyclopedia'', Dave Smith p 101 The series continued in syndication in September 1989 with a two-hour special, ''Rescue Rangers: To the Rescue'', later divided into five parts to air as part of the weekday run." On September 18, 1989, the series entered national syndication. It often aired on afternoons along with ''DuckTales'', and beginning on September 10, 1990, as a part of the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon. The final episode aired on November 19, 1990.

Reruns aired on The Disney Afternoon until 1993. Subsequently, reruns were shown on The Disney Channel starting in 1995, and on Toon Disney upon that channel's launch in 1998 but were removed a decade later. The entire run became available (as one season) as part of Disney+ as of its launch on November 12, 2019, fully remastered in high definition. The series was initially released on Blu-ray on January 25, 2022, via Disney Movie Club, then everywhere else on February 15, 2022.

A live-action/animated metafictional follow-up film of the same name was released on Disney+ on May 20, 2022. From May 20, 2022, Disney XD reran the show to promote the film.

Premise

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

Episodes

Except for the five-part set of episodes made from the pilot movie, each 22-minute episode of the series was self-contained. Plot points introduced in each episode stayed in the episode and any character development didn't appear to continue through to future episodes. Most of the episodes followed a similar format, wherein the next case was presented at the start of the episode, then the bulk of the episode had the sleuths gathering clues and investigating the situation. In the last few minutes of the episode, the case was resolved, usually in dramatic fashion and the final moments would have a humorous wrap-up scene between the Rangers.

Characters

Main

* Chip (voiced by Tress MacNeille) is the leader of the Rescue Rangers. Similar to Indiana Jones, he wears a fedora and a bomber jacket and frequently uses a rope to lasso or swing to other spots. Chip is fearless, optimistic and mature, and has a strong sense of moral standards, to the point that he is sometimes teased for “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. However, deep down, Chip does care for Dale and, at times, he also lets himself go and joins Dale in some mischief. He and Dale have a crush on Gadget.
* Dale (voiced by Corey Burton) 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 happy-go-lucky, 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 (ironically, Monty finds it disgusting that Dale can’t control himself over candy). He frequently finds himself being knocked on the head and insulted by Chip when he says or does something foolish, but despite that, Dale still cares deeply for Chip and never holds a grudge against him. 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 (voiced by Peter Cullen and Jim Cummings), 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 the first season, along with twenty of the first episodes of the second season excluding the five-episode pilot. Cummings voiced him in the pilot, along with twenty-two episodes of the second season, and the third season.
* Gadget Hackwrench (voiced by Tress MacNeille) is a young blond-haired mouse who is the team's pilot, mechanic, and inventor who wears purple coveralls with blue goggles on her head. The daughter of inventor and aviator Mr. 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''.
* Zipper (voiced by Corey Burton) is a tiny bluish-green housefly and a longtime friend and sidekick of Monterey Jack, and he is unwaveringly loyal to his friends. With his tiny size and flying abilities, Zipper often handles little jobs that the rest of the Rescue Rangers can't. 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.

Allies

* Officer Kirby and Officer Muldoon (both voiced by Peter Cullen) are the two police officers commonly seen in most episodes arriving to arrest the criminals the Rescue Rangers stop from escaping with their ill-gotten loot. Kirby is the strong, muscular African-American officer that normally drives their squad car while Muldoon is the skinny Caucasian officer that rides shotgun. Both serve as patrol officers under Sergeant Spinelli out of their precinct where they work with many other officers and detectives as seen in the pilot "To The Rescue", including retiring police detective Donald Drake and his K-9 Plato.
* Detective Donald Drake and K-9 Plato (voiced by Rob Paulsen and Alan Oppenheimer) are soon-to-be retired members of the police force in the series pilot "To The Rescue" as Chip and Dale are good friends of Plato. After Drake and Plato, aided by Kirby and Muldoon, recover the Clutchcoin ruby necklace from Aldrin Klordane's henchman Percy, Klordane and his pet Fat Cat, who Drake and Plato presumed drowned a year earlier, frame Drake and Plato for the theft of the necklace, forcing the police captain to have Drake and Plato stripped of their badges and incarcerated. Thanks to Chip and Dale and the newly formed Rescue Rangers, Drake and Plato's innocence is proven, and they are permitted to retire as intended, with Plato giving his police badge to the Rescue Rangers as a reward for their heroism. Their names are references to fellow Disney characters Donald Duck and Pluto, whom the chipmunk duo has had histories within the shorts and later projects.
* Sergeant Spinelli (voiced by Jim Cummings) is Kirby and Muldoon's superior officer at their precinct and oversees most cases that the station deals with that don't fall under the jurisdictions of the other branches of the department or are overseen by the captain. He is sometimes on scene with Kirby and Muldoon when they arrest the bad guys the Rescue Rangers stopped. The series pilot "To The Rescue" shows him as one of the commanding officers for the precinct's SWAT team.

Villains

* Fat Cat (voiced by Jim Cummings) is a felonious, obese grey tabby cat and one of the Rescue Rangers' most frequent antagonists

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