The Rescue Rangers consisting of stern, no-nonsense chipmunk leader Chip (Tress MacNeille), laid back goofball Dale (Corey burton), muscular but cheese crazed Aussie mouse adventurer Monterey "Monty" Jack (Peter Cullen and Jim Cummings), team mechanic/inventor genius mouse Gadget (Tress Macneile), and their mostly mute housefly friend Zipper (Corey burton) solve cases that are too small to get the attention of the police and do everything from helping both humans and animals finding stolen or missing items to thwarting plans of villains such as criminal mastermind Fat Cat (Jim Cummings) or mad scientist professor Norton Nimnul (Jim Cummings).
Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers was the fifth show Disney produced for televison following the success of Gummi Bears, DuckTales, and The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, as well as the failures of The Wuzzles and the one off pilot turned telefilm Fluppy Dogs. Initially planned as a companion series for DuckTales alongside two other projects Talespin and Double-O Duck (which would be retooled as Darkwing Duck), the series initially was pitched as being based on The Rescuers but was rejected due to Disney in development on the theatrical sequel The Rescuers: Down Under. The series was then retooled as an unrelated concept called Metro Mice featuring a new team lineup with early versions of Gadget and Monterey Jack, as well as a scrapped chameleon character and Indiana Jones-esque mouse Kit Colby. While the concept was better received, the kit Colby character was not and Jeffrey katzenberg and Michael Eisner suggested the established chipmunk duo of Chip 'n' Dale for the leads. The show was a solid success upon release becoming briefly becoming the top cartoon in Syndication, and alongside staples like Talespin and Darkwing Duck helped to give The Disney Afternoon the clout it so enjoyed. At its core Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers is a pretty standard sleuthing show that owes much of its existence to precursors like Scooby-Doo and its various imitators (and also the Nancy Drew/hardy boys mysteries but beside the point), but it's in the creativity of its animation and characters the show really succeeds.
If you remember the Chip 'n' Dale shorts where the duo had abrasive encounters with Donald Duck or Pluto the dog, their personalities are kept pretty intact with only the addition of details such as Chip's Indiana Jones inspired jacket and fedora or Dale's Hawaiian shirt which was a reference to Magnum P. I., and yes, I'm serious about both those points. New characters such as Monterey jack with him serving as the team's muscle fits with the 80s era in which the show was produced as you can see clear influence on the character with American fascination with Aussie "bushman" culture that came about from the likes of such films as Crocodile Dundee. While Monterey jack is undeniably inspired by America's Aussie craze of the time, he's given enough personality that he feels like his own creation rather than a reskin of popular trends of the time, Gadget is also quite fun playing the very MacGyver esque tech genius of the team whose inventions made of discarded household trash or appliances create some memorable devices like submarines, zeppelins, cars, or other assorted gizmos that serve the exact needed purpose to get the team. We also have Zipper, who serves in a similar capacity to the Recue Rangers how Slimer served the Ghostbusters in The Real Ghostbusters, only with Zipper being much more endearing and less abrasive.
The plots of Rescue Rangers are pretty standard for the type of show this is, unlike the pulp adventure inspired approach by Ducktales or slice of life adventures in The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Rescue Rangers has a lot in common with the various Hanna-Barbera sleuth shows produced during the 70s in an attempt to capture the success of Scooby-Doo, while it's a well worn formula that has often been the subject of parody the fact that it's formula isn't bad because just because something is formula doesn't make it bad, but laziness with that formula is. Rescue Rangers while it uses a well-worn formula, it sprinkles in enough details to keep it engaging with a world that's illy but also not afraid to get legitimately threatening or unnerving at certain points with episodes "Pound of the baskervilles" featuring strong gothic atmosphere that pays homage to Sherlock Holmes adventures or "The Case of the Cola Cult" which took a relatively taboo topic of cults and tried to explain it and their dangers to viewers of the time. It's little details and extra bits of effort that made the show a cut above the Hanna Barbera schlock that recycled that formula, that and of course the animation which par for the course for Disney Television was putting out higher than average quality in comparison to other syndicated cartoons of the era such as Rankin/Bass or Dic.
Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers doesn't stray far from the formula established by children's sleuth shows, but thanks to creativity in both the writing, characters, and world created it manages to refresh it and make it feel new again. The animation is as expected really strong and puts many other syndicated cartoons of the era to shame, and there's a fun sense of comradery among the central cast of characters that makes them fun to join on adventures.
