Ch-ch-ch-Chip ‘N Dale! Rescue Rangeeeers! I doubt anyone saw this coming! As Disney continues to dump high-quality animated films, including Onward, Luca, and Turning Red, directly onto Disney+ instead of theaters (okay, Turning Red got a limited theatrical release, buuuut…), one such title, which was not heavily promoted or even anticipated, Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers, scored a major accolade — the Emmy Award for Outstanding Made For TV Movie. That’s not Outstanding ANIMATED Made For TV Movie. Just plain Outstanding TV Movie, winning over several live-action films! Chip ‘N Dale is the first animated movie (well, mostly) to win this prize. It’s also the first Disney movie ever to score this accolade in its 56-year history.
Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers beat Ray Donovan: The Movie, Reno 911! The Hunt for QAnon, Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas, and HBO’s The Survivor, the last of which, like Chip ‘N Dale, was also originally intended to be released theatrically.
Chip ‘N Dale is a meta sequel to the syndicated cartoon which ran for three seasons from 1989 until winter 1990. The film version has been compared to Who Framed Roger Rabbit? due to its mixture of animation and live-action, as well as its incorporation of animated characters from different studios and eras, including He-Man and Skeletor from Filmation’s He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Paramount’s Sonic the Hedgehog (actually the “ugly” version before its actual release), and even MC Skat Kat from Paula Abdul’s 1989 music video “Opposites Attract” (Abdul also appeared in the same scene in Chip ‘N Dale).
The Chip ‘N Dale movie included traditional 2D animation (for Chip) and 3D CGI animation (for Dale). That was a plot point. There were also elements of claymation and even puppetry, mixing nearly every form of animation.
Chip ‘N Dale: Rescue Rangers, both this award-winning film and the original cartoons, are available on Disney+. Did you see this movie? Is it worthy of the Emmy for Outstanding Made For TV movie?
