Things In Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers You Only Notice As An Adult

When people hear the phrase "Chip 'n Dale," what do they think of first? The opening narration of the "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" movie initially jokes that first thing that comes to mind is the 18th century cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale, before slyly acknowledging what most adults in the audience are actually thinking: the Chippendales male strippers. A photo of Chippendales dancers is shown, with the narration referring to "these guys." The cartoon chipmunks come third in the ranking of associations.

If this immediate reference to Chippendales isn't enough, the film takes the joke further by revealing that the "play" Dale has been bragging about working on is heavily implied to be a Chippendales-style strip show. Schaffer describes this particular adult humor as "right on the line of what would be acceptable." It acknowledges something a lot of adult viewers will be thinking while (hopefully) safely going over kid viewers' heads.

Including adult animation characters in a PG-rated Disney movie is surprising enough, but it's a real shock to see an adults-only underground comix character show up in "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers." Mr. Natural, the wacky mystical guru character created by underground cartoonist Robert Crumb, has never shown up in animation like the other cameo characters in the movie have, so his cameo would have been unpredictable even if R. Crumb wasn't the last artist you'd ever associate with Disney.

Crumb was a major figure in the underground comix movement of the 1960s and '70s, in which independent cartoonists bypassed the Comics Code Authority entirely to publish anti-commercial X-rated countercultural satires. Mr. Natural has been described as being perhaps the only likable character in all of Crumb's oeuvre. In "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers," he's one of the toons operating on the black market on Main Street and is voiced by Schaffer.

One of the more controversial parts of "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" involves the central villain "Sweet Pete" — a middle-aged, out-of-shape Peter Pan (voiced by Will Arnett). His backstory in the movie is that, once the animated actor playing "the boy who never grew up" hit puberty, nobody in Hollywood wanted anything to do with him (it's never really explained why some cartoon characters age in this movie while others don't).

It's possible this was meant as a generalized commentary on the way child stars have been historically mistreated in Hollywood. Some viewers, however, have felt extra uncomfortable with this characterization due to similarities with the story of Bobby Driscoll, the actor who voiced Peter Pan in the original 1953 film. Driscoll's contract with Disney was dropped the same year that "Peter Pan" was released, and the former child star struggled with drugs and crime before dying in 1968 at age 31.

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The plot of the "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" movies centers around various cartoon characters being kidnapped and "bootlegged" — turned into off-brand versions of themselves to appear in lousy rip-offs. This is parodying the likes of GoodTimes Entertainment, Video Brinquedo, Dingo Pictures, and The Asylum, all companies infamous for making horrid direct-to-video movies with titles just similar enough to blockbusters to try and trick confused buyers.

Many of the bootlegged toons appear as hybrids of multiple different characters, which allows for plenty of Easter egg hunting in the scene where the bootlegs are freed. Chip himself is hit by a laser in the bootlegging machine and given a "Snoopy ear" for part of the film. That the process of bootlegging in the film is portrayed as a parallel to human trafficking makes the joke especially dark and may raise some intriguing questions about what exactly is being said in relation to Disney's stringent enforcement and regular extensions of copyright.

In psychology, "the uncanny valley" refers to the phenomenon wherein robots, computer-animated characters, or other humanoid likenesses reach a point where they almost look like the real thing but have enough glaring flaws to make that realism creepy. In "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers," The Uncanny Valley is an actual place where these creepy CG toons live, "where everything looked real, but nothing looked right." This setting allows for some of the funniest inside jokes in the film.

Amongst the bizarre characters living in the Uncanny Valley, particularly noteworthy ones include a couple of cats from the infamous 2019 "Cats" movie and Bob the Dwarf, a Seth Rogen-voiced motion-capture character who could have stepped straight out of Robert Zemeckis' 2007 "Beowulf" movie. Bob's inability to move his eyes, one of the main flaws of early motion-capture films like "The Polar Express," is the subject of many jokes throughout the movie.

Right in its opening scene, "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" establishes it aims a bit more adult than the typical children's movie with its musical selection of "Friendship" by Tenacious D. The song itself is cute enough to fit the opening montage of the two chipmunks' childhood friendship, but Tenacious D, a comedy rock/metal band consisting of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, is a group known for absurdly explicit content. The version of the song in the movie uses cleaned-up lyrics, but needle-dropping the D nonetheless establishes the film's edgy alt-comedy bonafides.

Further musical selections indicate there must have been some serious metalheads involved in the production. When Chip walks home and takes off his earbuds, for example, viewers  briefly hear the lyrics "Console yourself, you're better alone!" from the song "Laid to Rest" by Lamb of God. Of all the bands you might expect to lend their music to a Disney+ release, Lamb of God surely doesn't rank high on that list.

This is topical reference both recent enough and highly publicized and joked about enough that there's a good chance older kids actually will get this one, but it's still insider-y enough (not to mention hilarious enough) to put on this list of things adults are most likely to fully appreciate. Yes, that horrifying, tooth-filled original design for Sonic in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" is back in "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers," voiced by Tim Robinson from "I Think You Should Leave."

"Ugly Sonic," as he calls himself in the film, a distinct character from the normal Sonic — where normal Sonic "gotta go fast," Ugly Sonic "gotta go slow." Unlike so many other characters who appear as brief cameos, Ugly Sonic actually plays a significant role in the film's story, showing up at two different pop culture convention scenes and eventually helping save the day alongside the FBI. "Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers" may be making fun of the horrible artistic decision-making that led to the original Ugly Sonic design to begin with, but it also oddly gives the most respect this frightening rodent has ever received.