John Mulaney And Andy Samberg's 'Chip 'N Dale' Movie Sounds Weird As Hell
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Disney's Chip and Dale began their life two barely coherent little critters best known for pestering Donald Duck and talking like amphetamine addicts on helium. We're pretty sure nobody asked for an action-adventure series about the two as private detectives before Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers debuted in 1988, and yet the show became a multimedia franchise and is fondly remembered today. Well, history is repeating itself because nobody sure as hell asked for a meta-comedy starring John Mulaney and Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Andy Samberg as washed-up celebrity chipmunks, and yet here we are.
According to the official description, the movie is set in a world where humans co-exist with cartoons, and to drive the point home, the trailer shows us cameos for the two best-known examples of that genre: Roger Rabbit and that rapper cat who was definitely having sex with Paula Abdul in her "Opposites Attract" video.
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Three decades after their show went off the air, Chip (Mulaney) is working as an insurance salesman while Dale (Samberg) tries to relive his glory days by meeting nerds at conventions. He even had "CGI surgery" to look like one of those unholy abominations in the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies.
Walt Disney Pictures
Ironically, it looks like this project started as an Alvin-esque kid-oriented CGI/live-action hybrid in 2014 before some Crazy Ex-Girlfriend writers and Samberg's Lonely Island group (Hot Rod, Popstar, Dick in a Box) got involved, and things got all self-referential and weird.
Oh, but the trailer doesn't even mention the weirdest part of the plot: the reason Chip and Dale reunite in the movie is in order to save a former co-star, presumably Gadget, from the evils of "video piracy." Because, as we all know from watching those warnings on Disney tapes and DVDs as kids, pirating videos turns you into a villain (whereas heroes spend decades using their money and political influence to change copyright laws to their benefit).
Then again, none of this is as weird as the groups that are actually holding Gadget hostage in real life: disturbingly prolific Rule 34 artists and the Russian cult that worships her as a goddess. Maybe they'll deal with both at the same time on the sequel?
If nothing else, this movie will be notable for finally acknowledging the fact that Disney cribbed Chip and Dale's outfits from Indiana Jones and Magnum P.I., a mind-blowing piece of trivia that goes viral on every social media website every three months or so.
On the one hand, this does look like a pretty fun movie. But on the other, do we really want it to succeed given the serious possibility that it could lead to, say, Jonah Hill as Darkwing Duck or Louis C.K. as Baloo from TaleSpin? Think carefully before you watch it.
Follow Maxwell Yezpitelok's heroic effort to read and comment on every '90s Superman comic at Superman86to99.tumblr.com.
Top image: Dominick D/Wikimedia Commons, Walt Disney Pictures
