Chip an' Dale is a 1947 animated short film (6 minutes) from Disney, directed by Jack Hannah.
Donald Duck is staying in a cabin in the woods. It's winter, there's snow everywhere, and Donald is cold, so he goes out to chop some firewood. He chops down a dead old tree and hauls it back into the cabin to serve as a log for the fire.
Unbeknownst to Donald, the dead tree was the home of chipmunks Chip 'n Dale, and also the place where they kept their store of acorns for the winter. The chipmunks blow out Donald's fire and attempt to sneak out with the log, but Donald sees them and takes the log back. A war breaks out between the duck and the chipmunks.
Third Chip and Dale cartoon, and the first to give the chipmunks a name.
Tropes:
- Call-Back: Dale is about to kick Donald when Chip gives him a Dope Slap and pulls him into a more productive tactic. At the end Dale finally gets his chance, and kicks Donald in the rear.
- Delayed Reaction: Donald catches Chip and Dale carrying the log, so he picks it up and takes it back. Chip notices it first as he feels the air and finds nothing there; Dale still thinks he's carrying the log as he passes Chip by, until Chip kicks him in the rear for being so stupid.
- Dope Slap: Dale is winding up to give Donald a kick when Chip, the more practical one, whacks Dale upside the head. Instead they start dumping snow on the fire from the chimney.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: This is the first cartoon to physically differentiate the two chipmunks, giving Dale a bigger nose (still black and not red at this point) and buck teeth. He's also drawn slightly taller than Chip and with sleepy eyes. Subsequent cartoons would make the two chipmunks the same size and downplay Dale's sleepy eyes.
- Escalating War: Things escalate between Donald and the chipmunks until Chip and Dale roll a gigantic snowball into the cabin, which swallows up Donald completely.
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Chip stands on Dale's shoulders to look through the window. As he clears the frost off the glass, Dale appears next to him, also clearing the glass to look inside. It is then that Chip realizes he's standing in midair and drops to the ground.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Even in the forest in the depths of winter, Donald still doesn't wear pants. Lampshaded when he sticks his butt up against the fire to warm it.
- Human Snowball: Chip throws a small snowball down the hill, and it gets bigger as it rolls down to Donald's cabin. By the time it reaches the front door, it's big enough to bowl Donald over, coming out the back door with Don's butt sticking out.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Poor Donald. He was cold! He didn't even chop down a live tree!
- Literal Ass-Kicking
- Chip does this to Dale when Dale sees Chip waving, and waves back—and fails to realize that the two of them are no longer carrying the log.
- Dale gives a swift kick to Donald's butt at the end, when Donald is stuck in the snowball with only his hindquarters sticking out. He had tried earlier, but Donald was standing up at the time and Dale couldn't reach, and then Chip slaps him for not helping him get the log back.
- Name and Name: Chip an' Dale, the cartoon that named the chipmunks.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Chip and Dale trotting off to the horizon, with their log in tow.
- Partially Civilized Animal: Chip and Dale run around on all fours and live in a tree trunk eating acorns, but they also display the ability to walk upright as well as a human level of cunning.
- The Unintelligible: Since the chipmunks' voices were sped up, it was often difficult to decipher what they were saying. Most of this is due to most of their dialogue in the early shorts being reused from their debut in Private Pluto, and weren't really given proper lines until years later.
