Chip and Dale emerging from a pile of peanuts, from Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers

Chip 'n Dale are two fictional, animated chipmunks created by The Walt Disney Company.

Their names are a pun based on the name "Chippendale" (see Thomas Chippendale).

They first appeared in the cartoon Private Pluto where they antagonize the dog Pluto, but they didn't get their names until their second appearance where they antagonize Donald Duck. Chip is the (slightly) more intelligent one with the black nose, and Dale is the one with the red nose and gapped teeth.

They eventually got their own animated series, titled Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers in 1989. In that show they teamed up with two mice named Gadget Hackwrench (a female inventor mouse whom Chip and Dale are both attracted to) and Monterey Jack (an Australian muscle mouse who has a fear of cats and a constant craving for cheese), and a fly named Zipper. Their usual adversaries include a cat crime boss named Fat Cat and his henchmen: an alley cat named Mepps, a lizard named Wart, a mole named Mole, and a rat named Snout. They also encounter an mad scientist named Professor Norton Nimnul.

Chip 'n Dale eventually reverted back to their original personalities as they occasionally appeared on Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse.

A recurring schtick often mistakenly attributed to Chip 'n Dale is the characters' alleged use of politeness: "after you..." "no, I insist, after you!" This gag, based on the early-1900s Alphonse and Gaston comic strip, is actually used by another studio's Chip 'n Dale-like characters: Warner Bros' Goofy Gophers.

External Links

Their entry in the Disney Archive (http://disney.go.com/vault/archives/characters/chipdale/chipdale.html)