A Vintage Chip ‘n Dale Cartoon Ended Like a Tarantino Movie
Before they were solving crimes in Tom Selleck-themed outfits, Chip ‘n Dale were just two regular old cartoon chipmunks who showed up in the odd Disney project. The duo’s very first appearance came in 1943’s Private Pluto, in which Chip and Dale take on Mickey Mouse’s pet dog and, arguably, the military-industrial complex as a whole.
But some early films starring the lovable rodents were, in retrospect, surprisingly dark. Obviously, there are a number of old Disney shorts that seem pretty weird today, like the one in which Donald Duck has a nightmare that he’s a literal Nazi. Or 1929’s “The Plowboy,” in which Mickey Mouse tortures several farm animals and commits sexual assault.
In 1946, the yet-to-be-named Chip and Dale appeared for the second time in a short called “Squatter’s Rights,” this time with Pluto and Mickey, The cartoon marked the return of Mickey Mouse, following an absence during World War II, and found Chip and Dale once again battling Pluto, who has invaded the cabin they were holed up in.
The ultimate resolution of this squabble is oddly violent, and borders on being downright graphic. While Pluto is chasing the chipmunks, he accidentally gets his nose stuck in the barrel of a shotgun. He manages to extract it, but the gun goes off and lands on his head, rendering him unconscious. Naturally, Chip and Dale then proceed to cover the dog in ketchup (okay, technically it’s “catsup”), making it look like poor Pluto just took a shotgun blast to the chest and is bleeding out on the cabin floor. When Mickey returns, he discovers that his canine best friend has been reduced to a bloody mess, so he scoops him up, and runs away in search of help — thus allowing Chip and Dale to continue loafing around the cabin.
All of which is pretty intense for a Disney cartoon. Like, sure, we all know it’s ketchup, but we still get images of an apparently gore-soaked Pluto, which presumably wouldn’t fly today. Of course, everyone watching at the time had just been through a world war. Still, as filmmaker Ted Geoghegan pointed out on social media, we probably won’t be seeing this cartoon on Disney Plus “any time soon.”
Chip and Dale finally received their familiar names in their next short, simply titled “Chip an’ Dale.” This time they came very close to murdering Donald Duck with a giant snowball. Although at least they managed to resist the urge to manufacture a grisly crime scene using condiments.
In retrospect, it’s surprising that anyone ever trusted these two chipmunks to run a private detective agency.
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