Accidentally Correct Zoology: In "Prehysterical Pet", Steggy frequently shifts from quadruped to biped. It is now known stegosaurs could rear up on their hind legs to feed from small trees and high-growing plants, although they were still strict quadrupeds.
Tress MacNeille plays both Chip and Gadget, as well as most of the female one-shot characters.
Jim Cummings voices Monterey Jack (second voice, replacing Peter Cullen), Fat Cat, Prof. Nimnul, Wart, and nearly every other male character with a speaking role.
Corey Burton voices Dale, Zipper, and both Mole and Snout from Fat Cat's gang.
Rob Paulsen voices most of the supporting roles and one-shot characters who aren't voiced by Cummings. Most notably he voices both Detective Drake and Percy, Klordane's dimwitted henchman, in the five-part pilot.
Happens in Finnish dub between Monty and Dale, but then again Dale's voice is pitched up. Also happens again with Cheddarhead Charlie and Monty, but the former having raspier tone.
Peter Cullen provided the voices of both Officers Kirby and Muldoon, meaning Those Two Guys are the same guy for once.
Alan Oppenheimer voices both Plato and Klordane in the pilot, ultimately meaning he ends up defeating himself in the climax.
Contrary to popular belief, Chip and Dale are never stated to be brothers in the show. The conceit comes from (pre-Rescue-Rangers) 1950s-1970s comic books, in which they share the same sister, grandfather, and nephews ("Zip 'n Zap").
Celebrity Voice Actor: Kathleen Freeman as Ma in "Short Order Crooks"; Deborah Walley as Buffy Ratskiwatski ("Out of Scale"), Lahwhinie ("Gadget Goes Hawaiian"), and Foxglove ("Good Times, Bat Times"), Carol Channing as Canina LaFur ("A Chorus Crime" and "They Shoot Dogs, Don't They").
Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: Whoever wrote the official German descriptions for the show and the episodes in particular had no idea what they were about. At all. Zipper is sometimes described as female although we could probably name two episodes which could show them otherwise even without any audio), Monty is sometimes named by his English name, sometimes by his German name, Gadget is sometimes named by her German name, sometimes by Gosalyn's German name (which she was definitely not given in any language), and so forth.
Happens in Polish dub with Canina La Fur and Zsa Zsa Labrador, both voiced by male actors.
The Danza: Dev Ross as the TV aerobics trainer Dev in "Battle of the Bulge".
Divorced Installment: The series was originally pitched as a Spin-Off of The Rescuers and be about the further adventures of Bernard and Bianca, but Jeffrey Katzenberg rejected it, as work on The Rescuers Down Under was beginning in the feature department.
Dolled-Up Installment: After the proposal for a spin-off of The Rescuers was rejected, series creator Tad Stones retooled his pitch into a completely original concept called◊ Metro Mice◊. Chip's role (and wardrobe) was originally filled by an Indiana Jones-type mouse named Kit Colby and Monty was a kangaroo rat named Colt Chedderson. Other Ranger characters included a far-sighted eagle named Eagle Eye, a chameleon named Camilla and a Martial Arts-savvy, baseball-crazy cricket named Chirp Sing. An older-looking version of Gadget was also present, along with Zipper, who looked more or less the same as he'd be in the series proper. Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg liked the concept, but wanted to continue the formula of making new shows out of established Disney characters, so Kit was replaced with Chip from Chip 'n Dale, with Dale getting added to the main cast as his sidekick and half of the new characters getting dropped.
A rather interesting case happens in the Spanish dubs, both Latin American and European: There's two Latin American Spanish dubs, both sporting the same voice cast. The only main difference is that the second one was done especifically for Spain in order to accomodate Dale's name in Spain (Chop), through the rest of the names used in the Latin American Spanish dub remained. However, a new dub done in Spain with Spaniard voice actors for that country was made in 1998, through the names used in the Latin American version are also used.
In Japan, there's two dubbed versions: A official one used by Disney in home video releases, and also the one used in the Disney+'s Japanese feed as well as the sequel, and one used on TV Tokyo, with its own voice cast.
For no apparent reason, the shot of Chip acquiring his hat in Part 2 of the pilot is missing from reruns, the DVDs, andDisney+, making it seem as though the hat just randomly materialized on his head.
"The Pied Piper Power Play" was largely re-cut to remove a deaf-mute character named Mouseo—a parody of Harpo Marx—that Disney execs felt was a negative stereotype. At least half the story is changed by his removal. He returns in the Disney+ version of the episode. There was also a removed scene—brought back in Disney+—where Dale tries to hypnotize Monty with his acorn pendulum and then Monty eats it.
Toon Disney rather awkwardly recut episodes to change where they fade out for commercial breaks. These, unfortunately, were the cuts used for the DVD.
"A Lean on the Property," whose plot revolves around leveling skyscrapers, was pulled from reruns for several years after 9/11. It was later reinstated on Disney+, and was even included among all the episodes aired on May 20, 2022 on Disney XD as promotion for the movie.
Many of Gadget's angry lines in "Dirty Rotten Diapers," in which the Rangers take on a midget criminal posing as a baby, were redubbed when the censors feared they would bring about complaints of child abuse: "Trash the brat!" was changed to "Trash the bum!" and "Let's shake that baby 'til he rattles!" was changed to "Let's shake that bum 'til he rattles!" Ironically, this was one of the few examples of bowdlerization that Toon Disney didn't keep, instead airing the original cut.
The original airing of "Puffed Rangers" had a rather jarring amount of Yellow Peril jokes, including crooked Japanese auto executive villains who spoke in stereotypically Asian English and some tactless lines about China and Chinese culture. Not surprisingly, it was deemed so racist upon revisitation that the villains' lines were redubbed to be less stereotypical and many of the jokes were either also redubbed or outright removed.
At the end of the intro on some episodes of the remastered version, the show's logo forms with the picture of Chip and Dale zooming up to the screen. Then the words "Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers" zoom out from the top and bottom respectively and a flash appears.
Executive Meddling: As mentioned above, the show was originally going to be a spinoff of The Rescuers, but Jeffery Katzenberg didn't want it interfering with production on The Rescuers Down Under. It was then heavily retooled into a completely original cast, but Michael Eisner only wanted established Disney characters to headline their shows, so it was retooled yet again into a Chip n Dale reboot instead.
Fake Nationality: The Rangers meet characters from all over the world and of varying nationalities. The relatively small cast is 100% American.
Fandom Life Cycle: The Rangerdom has always been dedicated, but rather small and rather obscure, never going beyond early Stage 2. In the early to mid-'90s, in the times of the Usenet, the general Disney Afternoon fandom was carried by Rangerphiles who ran the newsgroup alt.fan.disney.afternoon, the DAFT mailing list and the Where the Fun Begins fanzine. However, the show was overshadowed by DuckTales (1987), Darkwing Duck and even TaleSpin in popularity, and nowadays, even many fans of these shows don't know that a CDRR fandom exists in the first place. Add to this some nasty generalizing prejudices against the Rangerdom of which being focused on Gadget pornnote Those who are deep enough in the fandom to call themselves "Rangerphiles" actually oppose porn of show characters is the most harmless, and even people who do discover the existence of a CDRR fandom steer clear of it. By the early 2010s, more and more Rangerphiles began to drift away towards other fandoms, mostly the Bronydom, dragging the fandom further back to Stage 1. It's unknown whether the prejudices are the reason why there hasn't been the long-needed Newbie Boom yet, or whether it's because Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) seems to deliberately mock the original show to the point of trolling its own loyal fans.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: As mentioned above, several episodes' original cuts haven't aired since their original broadcast, and while the show got a DVD release of its first two seasons, with the entire series later getting added to Disney+, it hasn't been reran on television, network or cable, for decades.
Finally completely averted, as a Blu-ray set containing the complete series was released on February 15, 2022.
In 1989, McDonald's released a set of four race cars with interchangeable parts. These consisted of Chip, Dale, Gadget, and Monterey.
In 1997, Long John Silver's released a set of four pencil topper figures based on shows from the Disney Afternoon despite the block having ended that year and its shows having ended their runs several years prior. Dale got his own figure, as did Scrooge McDuck, Baloo, and Goofy.
The Merch: The long out of production, extremely sought after, and thus outrageously expensive "Gadget Plushie", a figurine manufactured by Applause that isn't even made of plush. If you're lucky enough to acquire the whole set of four, you'll pay at least 90% of the price for Gadget alone and the other 10% for the guys.
Missing Episode: For several years, "A Lean on the Property" was banned in the USA post-9/11 due to its plot about leveling skyscrapers. It was eventually made available for streaming and online purchase.
No Export for You: The Season 2 DVDs and most of the merch available in the USA can hardly be acquired anywhere in Europe (or anywhere else in the world) other than on eBay.
In French, there was at least three long Rescue Rangers comic stories that were relased in early 90's by Disney Club; La légende du Silverhorn, L'ombre du Croisé and Le Sommeil hanté. Sadly, none of them have been relased in USA or even translated into English.
Tress MacNeille and Corey Burton replace Judith Searle as the voices of Chip and Dale in this series. They would assume the roles since then, continuing to voice them in numerous projects.
Monterey Jack was voiced by Peter Cullen in Season 1. Beginning with the five-part origins episode "To The Rescue" until the end of the series, Jim Cummings voiced him. According to series creator Tad Stones, it was agreed among the whole staff that Cummings was much funnier during table reads, so he took over the role (humorously enough, Cummings' Monterey voice is the exact same one he'd use for Monterey's father Cheddarhead Charlie in "Parental Discretion Retired". Turns out he did teach Monterey everything he knew!).
Camembert Kate was voiced by Tress MacNeille for her brief appearance in "Parental Discretion Retired", but Fran Ryan took over the role when she returns in "A Lean on the Property".
Out of Order: In a bizarre example, the series on Disney+ is the correct order, and the complete 2022 Blu-ray release is not.
It doesn't really help that both the production order and the different airing order are anything but chronological. The pilot is in the middle of both orders because it was re-cut from the 1988 TV movie when the show was already running. The whole show doesn't have any official chronological order to begin with.
Playing Against Type: Peter Cullen, who tends to play deep-voiced characters (be it heroes or villains), voices the recurring characters Mepps (one of Fat Cat’s henchmen) and Officer Muldoon, both of which have rather high, scratchy voices. Even more noticeable after Jim Cummings took over his main role as Monterey Jack.
"Gorilla My Dreams" shares a title with a 1948 Looney Tunes short.
Star-Making Role: Served as Tress MacNeille's first staring role in a cartoon, propelling her into A-list voice actress status with her role as Chip in particular being her longest running continuous voice role.
The character known as Sewer Al, an alligator with a love for books, was meant to be a recurring informant and sometimes adversary to the Rescue Rangers in the show, but he never made it past the series bible. According to Word of God, he came off as too formidable an adversary for the Rangers to have to regularly contend with due to his great strength and great intelligence. Despite this, the character showed up in at least two different storybooks based on the show, one coloring book, and in the Disney Adventures comic series, switching between being an enemy and ally in the latter. Sewernose from "A Case of Stage Blight" is possibly an Expy for Sewer Al, but with his love of literature replaced by a love for theater.
Write What You Know: As the show's staff was based out of the greater Los Angeles area, a few Hollywood and Burbank landmarks are either mentioned (Lankershim Blvd/Cahuenga Blvd) or appear (Bob Hope Airport) from time to time.
"Slipping Through the Cracks" has quite a few similarities to the popular fanfic set in The Nowakverse. Namely, the primary antagonist is a paler, Unknown Rival of Gadget, complete with Stalker Shrine, who wants to destroy the Rescue Rangers due to her jealousy over Gadget getting the love and support she never did.
When the Rangers need medical attention, they are tended to by Tammy, who was inspired by the Rangers to become a nurse so she could help others. This idea first appeared in Of Mice and Mayhem, one of the most beloved pieces of fan content produced in the Rangers' fandom.
Foxglove is the Sixth Ranger to the comics, which appeared in many fanworks before the comics released.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: While both arcs have been reprinted as part of the Disney Afternoon Giant, the two compilation books only lasted one print and can now go for just undera thousanddollars on resale sites.
What Could Have Been: The short-lived series under Disney's own imprint was supposed to have lasted longer than just 19 issues. The final issue of the comic even featured solicitations for an unpublished twentieth issue that would have featured the return of the Techrats from earlier in the comic.
◊ Metro Mice
