Accidental Aesop: While "The Case Of The Cola Cult" is completely unambiguous with its depiction of cults and shady forms of groupthink, it can also be read as a satire of aggressive marketing. The titular cult owes its entire existence to a commercial that outright says that the only way to feel like you belong in the world is to buy a particular brand of soda.
"The Last Leprechaun" has a scene where Darby tries to convince Dale to help him by offering to be captured. Unfortunately, as Nothing But Cartoons points out while reviewing the episode, it looks like something else.
What exactly caused his massive grab of the Jerkass Ball? He was the one who coined the "No Case Too Big, No Case Too Small" catchphrase the team has, so what exactly would cause him to act out like that? A series of small cases with nothing really big in between? Something really big happened followed by a bunch of smaller cases? Paranoia from all the major villains going dark for a while? A combination of all three?
When he warmed up to Midge, was it because the latter showed herself to be brave and willing to help, such as when she went back for his hat instead of escaping to freedom with the other birds? Or was it because helping her turned into a big case anyways, so he was willing to drop his temporary jerkassery? After all, he did get what he wanted in the end, so him deciding to be nicer could have simply stemmed from the fact he was satisfied.
Anvilicious: "The Case of The Cola Cult" is completely unambiguous with its satire of cults, right down to its title and the fact that the cult members literally refer to themselves as a cult (few real-life cult members actually do this and the ones who do are usually defectors/survivors).
Canina LaFur. Some fans think she's fine or at least enjoys Carol Channing's performance of her, others think she's a vain, unfunny Damsel Scrappy.
Fat Cat's Quirky Miniboss Squad. For some they're far more entertaining and colorful than he himself is, and for others their antics are too repetitive.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In episode "A Fly In The Ointment", when Zipper returns into Rangers HQ while being in Nimnul's body, Monterey briefly wears a monocle◊ so that he could see the body switch. Given that Monty isn't even nearsighted, that was a really bizarre moment.
Diagnosed by the Audience: The fanbase has pretty much unanimously agreed that due to her struggles with social cues and tendency to have high knowledge in some areas while being utterly clueless in others, Gadget is somewhere on the Autism Spectrum.
Die for Our Ship: Poor Sparky. While he isn't usually outright hated, because he gets a Ship Tease with Gadget in the episode he appears in his existence has been known to make quite a few Chip/Gadget or Dale/Gadget shippers uncomfortable.
Draco in Leather Pants: Lawhinie was shown to be a selfishBitch in Sheep's Clothing in their sole appearance who has no issues blackmailing Gadget into passing a series of dangerous challenges for her so that she can be queen of her tribe, threatening the lives of the other rangers or leading Chip and Dale on so they don't figure out she's not Gadget. Yet pretty much any fanfic with her in it has her acting just as sweet as she pretended to be, usually with a Heel–Face Turn if she doesn't just start acting that way.
Foxglove the Bat, despite appearing in only one episode, has an enormous cult following, eventually earning her own website which still exists to this day (though it hasn't been updated since 2000).
Just like Foxglove, Lawhinie appeared in one episode but gets an impressive amount of spotlight in fanfics and fanart.
Fandom Rivalry: Fans of this show tend to harbor a resentment towards Bonkers for replacing Rescue Rangers in the time slot on The Disney Afternoon and thereby kicking it out of North American free TV once and for all.
Fandom-Specific Plot: Oneshot characters joining up with the Rangers is beyond common. It could be just about any of them, but the most consistent ones are Foxglove, Tammy (who ends up being the team nurse as seen above), and Sparky.
Fanfic Fuel: Most prominently, the scenes in "To the Rescue, Part 3" when Monty and Gadget talk about Geegaw, leaving the viewer with more questions than answers, and the end of "Good Times, Bat Times" which leaves the Dale/Foxglove pairing unresolved.
Chip Maplewood and Dale Oakmont was coined by Michael Demcio in Rhyme and Reason; it's been used by pretty much every fanfic writer ever since.
Foxglove becoming the literal Sixth Ranger since she's already Dale's girlfriend.
Gadget's coffee addiction.
Tammy as a nurse, established in Of Mice and Mayhem. It may have become canon, depending on how canonical one views the BOOM! comics.
The death of Gadget's mother (who went unmentioned in the series, and has been given many different names) and father (who was only mentioned in the pilot). There's been countless theories created by the fandom, but pretty much everyone agrees that Gadget's mother died well before Geegaw. The latter is usually considered to have been killed in a plane crash.
When Lawhinie appears in Fan Fic, she's related to Gadget (usually her long lost twin sister) more often than not.
The classic Disney short Two Chips and a Miss is considered to be canon to the series, as it not only more closely resembles the setting and characterizations of Rescue Rangers than any previous shorts but is the only Chip 'n Dale short in which none of the other classic Disney characters appear.
The one great debate is not about whom Gadget shall be together with. It is about whether ("pro") or not ("anti") Gadget shall be together with Chip. No matter whom she'd end up with, if anyone, if not with Chip. The majority of fans, by the way, seem to be in favor of Chip/Gadget.
Dale/Foxglove, though prior to the premiere of "Good Times, Bat Times", Dale and Gadget were the major Fan-Preferred Couple.
You'll notice not many people ship Gadget with the One-Shot Character Sparky, a lab rat and basically Gadget's equivalent to Dale's Foxglove; a one-episode Ship Tease. This is basically the pairing pros and antis can both agree to dislike.
Fanwork-Only Fans: This applies not only, but especially to some North American fans. From 1993 when the show ended its syndication run and disappeared from free TV to at least 2006 when season 1 was released on DVD, they were completely disconnected from the show unless they had cable. What they had instead was Fan Fiction, starting early in The '90s with the utter masterpiece that is Rhyme and Reason. CDRR fanfic mostly follow the same premise of small animals fighting crime, but it's free from Disney's content constraints and the 20-minute time limit, so it can go a lot further than the show, even whilst staying within a PG rating like most CDRR fanfics do. Even the official comics that came out in the meantime couldn't even try to hold a candle to Of Mice and Mayhem. So it's no wonder that some Rangerphiles show much more enthusiasm for the fan works than for the show itself.
Genius Bonus: Monterey Jack is obsessed with cheese. Monterey Jack is also the name for a blend of cheese from Monterey, California.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Judging from the fanart from that particular country, a sizable portion of the Rescue Ranger fandom comes from Russia. A slightly disturbing subset of Russian Rangers fandom literally worships Gadget. No, this is not a joke.
This is a good thing as the Russian CDRR Headquarters keeps static copies of several well-known fansites alive.
He Really Can Act: While Tress MacNeille and Corey Burton's respective resumes give plenty of credence to their voice acting abilities, their roles as Chip and Dale deserve extra credit for still managing to give emotional and articulate vocal performances while speaking in slow-motion (since the recordings had to be sped up in post to achieve the "chipmunk" sound).
To the Rescue; Monty's throwaway line "Crikeys! I gotta do something about these cheese attacks." isn't really humorous considering that in the movie Monty is still addicted to cheese.
"A Lean On The Property": Fat Cat recruits moles to undermine the foundations of New York City skyscrapers, collapsing several. This episode was abruptly removed from rerun broadcasts after 9/11, though it can now be viewed on Disney Plus.
In the episode "Parental Discretion Retired," Monterey Jack gives an aside to the audience that his father, Chedderhead Charlie, "taught [him] everything [he] know[s]." A few shows later, Jim Cummings, who voiced Chedderhead, would replace Peter Cullen as the voice of Monterey for the remainder of the show, using the same voice he'd done for Chedderhead. Guess he really did teach Monty everything he knew!
In "A Wolf in Cheap Clothing", Jim Cummings voices a Tasmanian devil. A couple of years later, Cummings would become the voice for theTasmanian Devil (as in, the Looney Tunes character).
"A Chorus Crime" is all about tap-dancing penguins, fifteen years before Happy Feet.
"A Chorus Crime" also introduced Canina LaFur, an upper-class celebrity poodle voiced by Carol Channing, who starred as Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly!. Another Disney production, Oliver & Company, which came out roughly a year before this show, also included an upper-class celebrity poodle by the name of Georgette, who was voiced by Bette Midler. In the 2017 revival of Hello, Dolly!, Midler went on to portray Dolly herself.
In episode "Mind Your Cheese and Qs" Chip says that one of these days Monty's cheese attacks are going to cause big trouble. Come to Boom! Studios comic when Fat Cat uses the A.R.S ray on the Rangers, Monty's cheese attack actually saves them all.
In "Dale Beside Himself," the Rangers watch a movie that is clearly supposed to be a spoof of Aliens. 29 years later, and Disney purchases 20th Century Fox, meaning they now own the entire Alien franchise.
With his white lab coat and curly orange hair, Prof. Nimnul kind of looks like a middle-aged Dexter.
Similarly, one short, orange, bespectacled and lab coat-wearing dinosaur scientist character briefly seen in "Prehistoric Pet" kind of looks like a proto-Alphys.
Desiree's lover Errol looks, acts, and sounds an awful lot like Pinstripe Potoroo.
Fast forward 20 plus years, and the theme song line "No case too big, no case too small!" brings to mind the slogan of another heroic team of small animals.
In "A Fly in the Ornament", a teacher scolds at one of her students for writing a story about a man waking up as a fly (which she gives an A+ after spotting Zipper in Nimnul's body), teasing if the student's been reading Spider-Man comics. Nearly a decade later, Disney owns Marvel.
Tom from "RoboCat" is a robotic cat made partially from a toaster, being programmed by placing a video game cartridge in its slot. Retro video gamers with mechanical expertise have been able to make fully functional video game systems, such as the Nintendo Entertainment System from a toaster. One such console has appeared in The Angry Video Game Nerd starting with the Action 52 episode.
Winifred from "Good Times, Bat Times" would not be the last red haired witch with that name to come from the House of Mouse, as Hocus Pocus would come out three years later where the main villain was also a red haired witch named Winifred.
One episode of the series is titled "Chipwrecked Shipmunks", involving the Rescue Rangers being stranded on a seemingly-deserted island which has a hidden treasure. In 2011, the third live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks movie would be subtitled Chipwrecked and feature a similar concept.
Ho Yay: Dale during the drag act in Adventures of Squirrelsitting. He's clearly enjoying his disguise and is flirty with both Chip, Monty and even Fat Cat.
Monty: I'm sorry, pallies. But Gadget needs some cover.
Dale: No problem! (winks and rotates his shoulder)
And this piece from Out of Scale:
Monty: Why, Dale, what a lovely dress.
Dale: (unamused) Oh, shut up.
Song of the Night ‘n Dale has the scene where Zipper goes inside of the fake nightingale and the gas inside makes him pass out. When Monty picks him up, Zipper gives him a loving look and kisses him right on the lips.
Iron Woobie: Monterey Jack in episode "Love is a Many Splintered Thing", not only he didn't get to marry Desiree years ago but when she returns she just uses him for criminal deeds and breaks Monty's heart again. He also crosses this in "To the Rescue" pilot; he loses his house because of Fat Cat and hears in part three that his best friend Geegaw is dead.
Chip is an interesting case. While there aren't necessarily any canon episodes that woobify him (mostly it's Dale or Zipper getting The Woobie treatment), the Fanon really seems to enjoy painting him as one. Sure, he's a bossy Control Freak who can come off as overbearing at times but fics like What's Past Is Past and Plots really do a good job at breaking him.
From the show itself, Sewernose de Bergerac. While he does threaten to eat the rangers as well as several theater actors and patrons, it's hard not to feel bad for him. He was taken from his home at a young age and when he seemingly found a new one as a pet, he was flushed once he got too big. Not to mention that his dream of being an actor is a Tragic Dream as he's an alligator and frightens any human that sees him. In addition, his only source of company are two hand puppets, one of which he makes insult and demean him, hinting that he might be either self-loathing or have some mental problems.
And then there are the episodes "Adventures in Squirrelsitting" and "Good Times, Bat Times" where even more people are here for Tammy and Foxglove respectively.
"Love is a Many Splintered Thing" because of Desiree D'Allure.
Memetic Mutation: "Break Time" features a a pic of Gadget smoking a cigarette and her jumpsuit stripped halfway down to reveal a sports bra underneath. This pic has been redrawn and parodied countless times upon its discovery.
Dale is best described as a playful puppy dog trapped in the body of a fuzzy, adorable chipmunk. His softer temperament than Chip makes him seem cuter in comparison.
Gadget is beyond adorable thanks to her cute and wholesome appearance, her kindhearted personality, and her Endearingly Dorky quirks, all of which are major factors as to why she is immensely loved by the Disney fanbase in general.
Foxglove is an adorable little pink bat with a soft little voice and who's very protective of her friends. Every scene where she's flirting with Dale is precious.
Moral Event Horizon: Fat Cat crosses it in 'Adventures in Squirrelsitting' when he threatens to drop Tammy and Bink to their deaths if he doesn't get the Maltese Mouse and even when he gets what he wants he drops them. Thankfully, Chip and Dale are there to save them.
More Popular Spin-Off: The original Chip n' Dale cartoons are considered some of the more disposable of the Classic Disney Shorts. Rescue Rangers, meanwhile, is considered one of the best animated shows of the late 80s/early 90s.
Narm Charm: Many of the crimes the Rangers had to deal with were, frankly, absurd. It begins with Nimnul building a giant laser for Aldrin Klordane, and its entire role in Klordane's plot being...to cook a giant jello mold to cause an earthquake underneath a bank vault. As opposed to robbing the bank with a giant laser cannon. The plots don't really get any more serious from there.note With such nefarious crimes as Fat Cat using the "sound of the ocean" one hears when putting a hermit crab shell to their ear in order to trick fish into jumping out of the ocean and into holding tanks.. On the other hand, the very premise of rodents solving crimes in the human world is ridiculous enough in of itself that the silliness worked very well, and was part of the series' offbeat charm.
Foxglove from "Good Times, Bat Times". Foxglove has an entire website devoted to her (and now dedicated to her voice actress, the late Deborah Walley).
Tammy and Bink from "Adventures in Squirrelsitting".
Queenie from "Risky Beesness".
Sparky from "Does Pavlov Ring a Bell?"
Lawhinie from "Gadget Goes Hawaiian."
Geegaw Hackwrench from "To the Rescue, Part 3" isn't even really a character, he is only ever shown on a picture. Yet, despite his unknown fate and total personal absence, he is quite popular in the fandom.
DTZ from "Dale Beside Himself"
Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Raise your hand if you had no idea that Chip and Dale's wardrobes were based on Indiana Jones and Magnum, P.I., respectively, until you were well into your adult years.
Popular with Furries: The fandom contains a lot of furries, many who consider the cartoon their Gateway Series. Especially Gadget who is a fan-favorite (Disney was honestly surprised with her popularity).
Shipping: Chip/Gadget, Dale/Foxglove, et al. If there's even one hint of a ship in the series, someone's supported it somewhere in the fandom.
Ship-to-Ship Combat: The debate over the Chip/Gadget ship led to two flame wars known as the Ranger Wars (one in 1997 and the other in 1998), and it will probably never be settled.
Smurfette Breakout: Yup. Gadget. Even twenty years after the show ended, there's still a Gadget themed roller coaster at Disneyland. Disney admits that they had no idea she would be such a hit.
Stuck in Their Shadow: Buzz from "Does Pavlov Ring a Bell?". He is Nimnul's other lab animal and more important to his plot then Sparky is as he is the one brainwashed into doing the actual stealing. Yet he is constantly forgotten about in fanfics, especially in ones where Sparky ends up joining the Rangers.
Take That, Scrappy!: In "Le Purrfect Crime", there is a beatnik mouse whose rambling gets on the main characters' nerves. He ends up getting thrown off the Eiffel Tower by Maltese de Sade.
"Good Times, Bat Times" appears to set up Foxglove as a new member of the team, however she ended up as a One-Shot Character (though this eventually got a follow-up in the Boom! comics). This is especially significant, as more than any other one-shot love interest, her arrival stood to substantially alter the character dynamics, particularly the romantic triangle between Chip, Dale, and Gadget.
Despite becoming an honorary Rescue Ranger, Flash is never seen again.
In Part 4 of "To the Rescue" the Rangers break Plato out of the pound with the help of the Pound Underground, a two dog team dedicated to freeing dogs from the pound. Despite promising to work together again someday, Frenchie and K. Sera are never seen again.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Because of the episodic nature of the series, (and Western animation in general at the time) a number of plots were never followed upon that had potential for exploration:
Several plot points from "To The Rescue" focused on Gadget, Monterey, and Geegaw:
The full story of what happened between Monterey and Geegaw in Zazibar. All that's mentioned in the episode is that it involved cheesebread.
Thanks to Never Say "Die" Gadget merely says she "lost" her father about a year before, but doesn't outright confirm he's dead. Many fan fic writers have picked up on this thread by revealing Geegaw actually survived, but in the show itself he ultimately goes unmentioned over the rest of the series rather than the circumstances of his death/disappearance being explored.
Gadget's behavior bears a lot of hallmarks suggesting she could be on the Autism Spectrum, particularly a higher-functioning form such as Asperger's. The show merely presents it as the way Gadget is, but could have provided groundwork for a deeper exploration of such disorders and their effects on people and their loved ones. Especially as shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Monk have since demonstrated that it's possible to balance comedy around such characters, while still being respectful and sympathetic to the potential serious impact these disorders present.
The Rangers have two recurring villains who operate gangs in the same city, Fat Cat and Rat Capone. Yet despite being opposing species (cat vs. rat) and opposing mobs, we never once saw them appear together in one episode. One wonders what a Mob War between the two with the Rangers caught in the middle could have been like.
Zipper and Monterey Jack have been friends for a long time, but how they became friends wasn't shown. Only implicated that it was after Geegaw since Zipper doesn't know him or Gadget in the pilot.
Foxglove still manages to be very cute for a bat, all without being a Humanoid Female Animal (looking at you, Rouge).
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Dale gets this in a couple of episodes; we're clearly meant to see him as being in the wrong, but he's never malicious about it and often suffers so much for relatively minor offenses that it's hard not to feel sorry for him. One of the biggest examples is in "Kiwi's Big Adventure"; while it is wrong that he lies about his toe being broken, he is not really being a complete jerk either. Chip on the other hand gets super jealous about Dale getting attention from Gadget.
Chip is meant to be the more sensible of the titular duo and, indeed, the brains of the entire Rangers operation. Most of that sensibility comes in the form of impatience and even insensitivity, and he tends to dole out far more physical abuse to Dale than he deserves. Chip's most unsympathetic moment is in the episode Pie In The Sky; he outright refuses to help a little sparrow named Midge, just because her case "isn't a big case". The worst part is that Chip never really gets punished for his downright jerkass behavior.
In "It's a Bird, it's a Plane, it's Insane, it's Dale!" we're clearly meant to side with the other Rangers when Dale gets a big head about being a superhero and goes all Innocently Insensitive, calling them "the little guys" and dismissing their importance... but it gets a little harder to sympathize with them when you remember that they tend to be similarly dismissive and patronizing towards him on a regular basis, especially Chip. It doesn't help either that all through the episode they've been acting like jerks note The only Ranger that isn't jerk to Dale in this episode is Zipper.; first they ignore him when he tries to tell him about their superpowers, even as they decide to recruit "Rubber Bando" to the team. Then when "Rubber Bando" is clearly not interested and tell them to leave him alone, they disregard his wishes and pull him out of hiding to force him to talk to them... and then when they find out that the superhero was Dale all along they completely forget how gung-ho they were about having a superhero on the team and just treat Dale even more dismissively than normal, to the point where they're openly annoyed and bored when he tells them about his newfound powers. They proceed to move into Ungrateful Bastard territory when they're incapacitated by a couple of crooks and Dale not only saves them but takes down the crooks singlehandedly — instead of thanking him, they're upset that he didn't leave any action for them and lapse into self-pity because that one incident clearly means they're unneeded. When Dale is later framed and has to hide from an angry mob, it's supposed to come across as him getting a well-deserved lesson about getting a big head, but truly they just come across as passive-aggressive, petty, and malicious -- he's freaking out and fearing for his life, and they're enjoying making him beg.
Values Dissonance: The show has a disturbing amount of Yellow Peril, first with the Siamese cats whom Fat Cat meets in Chinatown in the "To the Rescue" five-parter, who are only slightly less offensive than Si and Am, and again with Chow Li and Genghis Cat from "Puffed Rangers," the latter of which was deemed so racist that many scenes from the episode have been permanently edited out.
Gadget can have amazing Woobie appeal when she loses confidence in her piloting or inventing skills, such as in "To the Rescue" and "The Case of the Cola Cult".
Dale counts considering how much he's made fun of and is hurt in the process. He gets hit with this in "Double O Chipmunk" and gets hit with it even harder in "Le Purrfect Crime" where Chip scolds him to the point where he's in tears.
Pity poor Sparky the lab rat. He genuinely believes his owner Professor Nimnul is a good guy, only wants to use science to help people, develops a crush on Gadget... and has no memory of the awful things he does while under Nimnul's control. He's pretty horrified when he sees the results of his actions, and although it's played mostly for laughs, in hindsight it must pain him deeply to learn he's been used for evil purposes and that the man he admired was evil.
Zipper in some episodes, especially in "Zipper Come Home".
Flash The Wonder Dog. He's a skittish and neurotic animal actor who gets framed for awful crimes just because of his species.
The unnamed bear from the "Bearing Up Baby" episode. He's just a sweet and lonely bear who wants a friend but throughout the episode, he's a Badly Battered Babysitter who ends up getting chased by a bunch of angry, armed hunters who see him as a legit threat. The tears that poor bear sheds when he has to give up the baby just makes you want to give the guy a hug.
Ku-Ku the gorilla from the episode "Gorilla My Dreams" spends most of the episode crying over her missing kitten and committing robberies for Fat Cat so he won't hurt Dale.
Tom, the titular "Robocat". All he wants is fur and someone to love him. But his trusting and naïve nature get him tricked and brainwashed by Fat Cat.
Woolseyism: Monterey Jack's accent is different in foreign dubs and his faux-Aussieisms are replaced with something else.
Anti-Climax Boss: While the first game as a whole isn't too hard, a number of the bosses (including Fat Cat) barely move at all, and are highly predictable.
Even Better Sequel: The second game isn't as well known due to being released so late in the NES's lifespan, but it improved on the first in nearly every way possible, from graphics, to gameplay, to having a story that would not be out of place in a multi-part TV episode.
Game-Breaker: In the second game, proper use of the fastball special makes most bosses incredibly easy.
That One Level: The final level of the first game greatly cranks up the difficulty. Most of the level takes place on conveyor belts that mess with your character's speed and make it difficult to move, which is especially troublesome during points where you have to make some difficult jumps with your moment hampered. There are no stone blocks for you to carry around constantly to protect yourself with. Not to mention that the enemies in the second half of the level have the ability to fire projectile weapons, and if they do they can destroy your boxes if you attempt to hide in them, which will leave you defenseless. Be prepared to die at least a couple of times before you finally reach Fat Cat.
, it looks like something else.
