Everybody knows who Chip and Dale are. Well, at least everyone who even remotely knows a thing or two about Disney characters. The two chipmunks first appeared in "Private Pluto" from 1943 but it wasn't until 1947 that the little guys were actually given their names. Since then have become staple characters right along with Mickey, Donald and Goofy and have found their way into several cartoons.

In March of 1989 the pair got their own TV show with a wild cast of characters and a new adventure in every episode. Following the success of Ducktales, the shows were often aired back to back. The formula for both series was a little different, yet somehow familiar. Even though it tried to emulate Ducktales, it never really had the same overall quality. It seems only fitting though that since Scrooge McDuck's show just found its way onto DVD, that Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers would as well.

Ever since these shows stopped having new episodes made, I hadn't actually seen them until the recent arrival on DVD. After watching Ducktales I could honestly say that the show was every bit as good as I had remembered. My childhood infatuation had seemed warranted and I had just as good of a time watching it now as I did back in 1987. Unfortunately after sitting through the first batch of episodes from Rescue Rangers, I can't exactly say the same.

I don't mean it to sound that bad I guess, I had a great time reliving many of these episodes again. It's just that the plots, dialogue and overall concept are much more geared towards kids in the 80s than much of the timeless appeal that Ducktales offered. The bulk of these first twenty seven episodes is high quality entertainment, but man, there are some that made me groan and want to hide my head in shame.

In case you are totally unfamiliar with what the show is all about, let me debrief you. Chip and Dale are just as cute, cuddly and full of high pitch voice acting as they have always been. Instead of saving a tree from Donald's axe or messing around with Pluto though, this time they are out to solve mysteries and rescue those in need. Basically, because the police force is so inept at doing their job, it's up to a pair of chipmunks and their mousey friends to take the case.

Instead of running around naked (like they did in the past), Chip got dressed up like Indiana Jones and Dale walked around in a Hawaiian shirt. The outfits worked with their personalities and helped a lot for newcomers to get to know them and separate the two. There are three other main characters that join them and they each found their origins with the start of this show.

Gadget is a female mouse who is also the resident genius and inventor of the group. She's more than just a romantic distraction for Chip and Dale though since she proves her worth by being MacGyver-like with her contraptions. Thanks to her the team has an airplane to fly in and she comes up with several other gizmos as the show progresses.

A friend of Gadget's father, Monterey Jack finds his niche with the squad as basically the gung-ho muscle type guy. He's a tough as nails mouse from down under who is often fearless, but loses all senses when he sees or smells cheese. That often leads to the group having to chase after him because he tends to go completely blind with dairy lust. He is often paired with a fly called Zipper that speaks complete gobbledygook, but has more brainpower than your typical insect.

Every week the team faces different villains and challenges. More often than not, what is going down is thanks to the diabolical workings of Professor Norton Nimnul or Fat Cat. These two characters pop up several times though there are many enemies that appear and fade away just as quickly.

The episodes that are on this first volume set don't really follow any form of continuity. The show was very formulaic to begin with though, so it's not surprising that each episode is stand alone with little or no references to past adventures. The team essentially finds out about something that was stolen, or someone that has been kidnapped, and gets to work on solving it so the world is a happy place again.

There are some truly great episodes from this set such as "The Case of the Cola Cult", "Robocat", and "Adventures in Squirrelsitting", though in my opinion those are the best ones that this release has to offer. Strangely enough the "To the Rescue" five part story arc that sets up the series is absent from this box set. Similar to Ducktales' missing adventure "Treasure of the Golden Suns", fans of the show will be sorely disappointed and newcomers may be wondering how exactly the whole thing got started in the first place. Overall though there are plenty of fine episodes here and even though kids may enjoy it more than adults with fond memories of the show, it's still worthy of being a part of your collection.

All twenty seven episodes are presented on three discs in exactly the same manner that Ducktales was. Nine episodes are present on each disc and even though there are chapter skips, there is no scene selection. Overall the set presentation is pretty simplistic with some character artwork and easily accessible menus.

You don't have to be a crime solving chipmunk to know going in that given the production date of the show that these DVDs are presented with a 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio. I'd like to come out and say that the image quality has been thoroughly cleansed and the transfer is marvelous, but frankly I can't. It really jumps from episode to episode in terms of how well the picture looks. One episode will look fine with only some minor amounts of grain and speckle while another will be riddled with it to the point that it looks like a poorly managed VHS tape.

Taking that one step further, it should be pointed out that even individual segments of episodes vary greatly. You can expect to see some blurriness or shimmer pop up in on scene, but disappear completely in the next. After sitting through Ducktales, which featured much better video quality, it's confusing how this set didn't get the same treatment.

Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers was presented with a Dolby Digital mono soundtrack. Needless to say you aren't going to get high end quality out of an audio track like that. For what it is though the sound quality is fairly decent, but just like the video, how good it is changes from episode to episode and scene to scene. Some portions come across clean and free of distortion while others sound muffled almost with all sound being pumped out at the same volume. To be fair, this wasn't the greatest sounding show to start things off with, so there was little that the DVD could do to spruce things up. It's still a better alternative to worn out VHS tapes from sixteen years ago and each episode comes with optional English subtitles for the hearing impaired.

Someone better call Chip and Dale because it looks like Fat Cat stole all of the bonus material from this box set. I was disappointed with the Ducktales release for having nothing to offer, so I wasn't too shocked to see that Rescue Rangers followed in kind.

I loved Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers when I was younger, but revisiting it now years later, leaves me with a few thoughts like "I can't believe I used to watch that." There are times that the show can be a lot of fun though and its target audience (young kids) will no doubt fall in love with it if they haven't seen it before. There are some very good episodes here, but there are also many that aren't so hot. You need to take several things with a grain of salt when sitting down to watch it and be sure to put everything in perspective.

As far as the DVD itself goes, the image and sound quality is widely varied with some poor grades. No extra material hurts things as well, but fans will honestly just be happy to have these episodes out on DVD. That being said, the omission of "To the Rescue" is pretty upsetting and I hope that in later sets, those five episodes will be released. Overall if you were a fan of the show when it originally aired, but maybe grew out of it, you might want to give this set a rental first. Otherwise if you still sleep in Chip and Dale pajamas or have kids who enjoy Disney stuff, I'll give this set a recommendation.

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