This Week In Retro: Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (1990) (Patreon)

June 8, 1990: Chipmunks, not strippers.

by Diamond Feit

This may sound incredulous given the company's long history of producing entertainment, but I can remember when Disney's grip on mainstream pop culture felt tenuous as best. Sure, Disneyland turns 70 this year and Mickey Mouse will celebrate his centennial in 2028, but during their many decades of commercial success, there were phases where Disney had little to offer me.

One such dry spell came in the 1980s when cheap cartoons flooded American airwaves and all my favorite on-screen characters just happened to have ties to toy lines and comic books. Even though I grew up aware of Mickey and Donald and all their cohorts, their antics couldn't compare to the action-packed adventures I saw on TV each and every day after school. My parents might have taken me to see The Black Cauldron or The Great Mouse Detective in theaters but I remember pleading to see The Transformers: The Movie.

Before Disney righted the ship and churned out annual hit films in the 90s, they tried classing up the small screen with higher-quality animation than typical syndicated fare. Nothing embodies this strategy better than DuckTales, a 1987 debut that starred Donald Duck's impossibly wealthy Uncle Scrooge. I only knew Scrooge as a miserly old coot who tormented the poor in Mickey's Christmas Carol, but DuckTales sent him on one globetrotting escapade after another. The show took off, leading to spinoffs, a movie, and an action platformer made by the action-platformer experts at Capcom.

Two years later, Disney promoted two more ancillary Donald Duck adversaries to protagonist status with the premiere of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers. This program aired directly following DuckTales in my area, easily convincing me to remain seated and have another cookie rather than do my homework. Along those same lines, following DuckTales' strong reception, Capcom launched Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers on the NES 35 years ago this week.

The cartoon Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers turns the two titular chipmunks into heroes for hire that do their best to fight injustice and help the needy. The team includes Chip and Dale as co-leaders, mechanic/inventor Gadget, seasoned explorer Monterey Jack, and trusty housefly Zipper. While their personalities sometimes clash, the five accomplish more together than they could apart. More importantly, they value each other as friends and colleagues even when one member's mistakes might get the rest of the Rangers into trouble.

The game Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers flattens the show's concept into a more straightforward experience, focusing on Chip and Dale as co-leads. Keiji Inafune, already known for his work on the Mega Man series, drew the sprites that capture the characters' appearance from the show—including fine details like Chip's hat and Dale's red nose.

Gameplay-wise, Chip and Dale operate identically, running and jumping around the screen with an agility suitable for their species. Unlike real chipmunks, however, they can pick up and throw objects that they find lying around such as small crates, fruit, bombs, and bouncy rubber balls. Since throwing is the only way to damage enemies, every boss battle provides a free ball for the taking.

Besides Chip and Dale, the remaining Rangers play limited roles in the game. Finding cheese will summon Monterey Jack who, operating in a trance-like state due to his addictive personality, smashes through barriers in order to grab a bite. Zipper acts as a power-up à la Stars in Super Mario games, temporarily granting the chipmunks invincibility. As for Gadget—the only female member of the Rangers—she gets kidnapped to drive the plot forward, although she offers periodic hints and tips because she "scouts ahead" according to the English manual.

Given the show's theme of teamwork, the game gains a lot of goodwill by letting two people play together as Chip and Dale. Better still, co-op in Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers has a manic Mario Bros. energy as it allows players to help or hinder their partner. Tossing an object at another player can briefly stun them, although they can also catch and toss the projectile right back if they see it coming. Chip and Dale can even pick up and throw each other directly into harm's way should one player wish to start a real-life fistfight.

I'm too old to have strong opinions about DuckTales or Rescue Rangers as TV programs, but I remember my initial reaction to Capcom's video games since they arrived less than a year apart. Despite the involvement of all-star producer Tokuro Fujiwara in both titles, DuckTales far outclasses Chip 'n Dale thanks to its overall challenge level and how the game better retains the spirit of the cartoon.

DuckTales translates Scrooge's travels into five distinct stages which players can explore in an order of their choosing. Each stage has distinct themes, enemies and a boss that create a sense of cohesiveness; I have no plans to visit the Himalayas or the Amazon but DuckTales convincingly communicates to me what kinds of animals might try to kill me should I venture there.

Rescue Rangers has a map screen like that in Capcom's Bionic Commando for NES with nearly a dozen Zones linked by fixed paths. Players still get to choose their own course but can just as easily skip several Zones to get to the end quicker. Also, while the Zones do have certain themes, they lack any names and many of the creatures feel randomly assigned. Why does Zone B take place in a kitchen infested with aliens?

In DuckTales, Scrooge feels dynamic to control. He can smack things with his cane or bounce on it like a pogo stick, leading to a variety of platforming and combat scenarios. It's not necessarily drawn from the source material but it's fun and takes a bit of practice to master. Scrooge's habit of collecting gems and other precious treasures, however, befits his passion for hoarding money as a billionaire.

In Rescue Rangers, Chip and Dale throw crates and collect flowers. Why crates? Probably because they're easy to stack and read as interactive objects to players. Why flowers? I couldn't tell you. Neither of these actions represent the characters or the cartoon—striking me as arbitrary—as if Capcom took one look at Super Mario Bros. 2 and said "that'll do."

Looking back at both games with an adult eye, I still prefer DuckTales but I appreciate the effort Capcom made to give Rescue Rangers distinct traits. Unlike Scrooge McDuck who lives in a world built around his dimensions, Chip and Dale are tiny chipmunks. Their game reflects this with foes and obstacles scaled up to accentuate their small stature. The last boss is a cat sitting at a desk yet he towers over our heroes, showering them with his cigar ashes like an erupting volcano.

It bears repeating that two people can enjoy Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers at the same time, a feature that vastly improves the lifespan of any title due to the unpredictable nature of semi-cooperative gameplay. Having an extra player also opens new strategies if you and your partner take advantage of the chipmunks-throwing-chipmunks function; co-op speedruns of Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers outperform solo speedruns by a significant amount of time.

If this column made you nostalgic for your NES or watching cartoons in your living room, I have good news: Digital Eclipse rereleased DuckTales, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, their sequels, and two other Capcom games from that era in The Disney Afternoon Collection in 2017; the package remains available on modern platforms as of this writing. You're welcome to try both games and tell me I'm too rough on Chip and Dale—or admit that I'm right.

Both DuckTales and Chip 'n Dale likewise had recent-ish revivals in animated form, though I once again give Uncle Scrooge the edge as casting David Tennant in the lead role just makes perfect sense. A 2022 Rescue Rangers movie instead picked two Saturday Night Live alumni to play the chipmunks and had the cartoon duo interacting with live performers in a Who Framed Roger Rabbit-like scenario. I found it underwhelming and, given a choice, I'd sooner play a 35-year-old video game than rewatch that already-dated movie.

Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but xer work and opinions exist across the internet.