{"id":25825,"date":"2018-02-16T05:57:34","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T10:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/?p=25825"},"modified":"2019-01-21T02:32:14","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T07:32:14","slug":"disney-afternoon-mystery-minis-rescue-rangers-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.oafe.net\/blog\/2018\/02\/disney-afternoon-mystery-minis-rescue-rangers-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Disney Afternoon Mystery Minis - Rescue Rangers review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disney took a real risk when they created DuckTales<\/a><\/i> - the show was expensive to produce, and there was no guarantee syndicating it would recoup all the costs. When it proved to be a hit, Disney moved to capitalize, next creating Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\"Funko<\/p>\n

Introduced in 1943, Chip and Dale were originally just a pair of nearly identical chipmunks who caused trouble for Mickey, Pluto, and especially Donald Duck. (When they were given proper names instead of just being plot devices, they also got some physical differences so you could tell them apart.) Chip is the leader of the pair, the thinker, the planner, the one who considers the consequences of his actions. He has a black nose (like a chocolate chip<\/b>) and when his mouth is open, has two prominent incisors. His Rescue Rangers<\/i> design takes its cues from Indiana Jones, with a fedora and a leather jacket. For this Mystery Mini<\/i>, Chip is standing with his hands on his lapels, but a paint error has left the tuft of fur on his chest colored the same as the trim on his jacket. Whoops!<\/p>\n

Dale is the follower, the goofball, the happy-go-lucky one who trusts that everything will just work out. He's the grasshopper to Chip's ant. He has a red nose and a large gap between his teeth, plus he gets a bit of ruffled fur on his head, while Chip's stays smooth. His personality remainded the same for Rescue Rangers<\/i>, but he did put on some clothes. Almost the bare minimum of clothes, really: a Hawaiian shirt. While Chip dressed like Indiana Jones, Dale dressed like the man who almost was<\/b> Indy, until scheduling conflicts got in the way: Tom Selleck as Magnum PI. Dale is also holding onto his lapels, like a cool guy, and his mouth is open in a big smile, while his eyelids are half closed, because he's kind of a dope.<\/p>\n

Chip and Dale share their name with the famous male strippers, and no, it's not because they all don't wear pants: the Chippendales dancers took their name from the furniture at the night club where the revue got its start; Chip and Dale also got their name from the furniture designer, because it could be split in two and still be recognizable (cf. Mac and Tosh, Looney Tunes' overly polite Goofy Gophers.)<\/p>\n

Infuriatingly, Chip and Dale are both available in a 1:6 ratio, meaning there are two of them in every case. Two? Why! That is way<\/b> too many ostriches<\/s> Chips and Dales. The only mitigation is that none of the exclusive cases - at TRU, Hot Topic, or GameStop - have any Chips or Dales at all, so maybe it all evens out in the long run.<\/p>\n

Monterey Jack is the team's muscle, not only able to do things the other rodent members of the team couldn't do, but also sometimes things full-grown humans wouldn't be able to do. How does that work, just from a leverage point of view? He's a mouse. Even the largest mouse is still simply a mouse. Well, he's an Australian mouse, so that probably means he has a stinger on his tail and enflamed venom sacs, but still. [Ha ha ha! Everything is deadly in Australia! --ed.] Monty wears as much clothing as Chip and Dale combined, with a teal turtleneck sweater, a tan overcoat, and a leather cap with goggles. Because nothing says \"adventurer from the burning desert of the Outback\" like a sweater and overcoat. His mustache is supposed to be red, but here it's nearly the same brown as the rest of his fur.<\/p>\n

This Mystery Mini<\/i> is two in one, because Monterey Jack comes with his little sidekick, Zipper. Zipper is a bluish-green housefly with large yellow eyes and a red sweater, and since he's so small even by Rescue Ranger standards, it wouldn't make sense to release him by himself. He's smiling widely, and is sitting perched on Jack's raised right arm.<\/p>\n

Since the arm is just glued in at the shoulder (and the nose is just glued into the face), it would have been neat if Funko had made a chase variant with Monty in the midst of a \"cheese attack,\" with swirling eyes and a twisted mustache, and him holding a chunk of cheese in his right hand instead of carrying Zipper. Of course, Monterey Jack is already a 1:72 figure, so a chase would have been even worse.<\/p>\n

Gadget Hackwrench is not the typical '80s cartoon girl: she's the team's smartest member, with a \"mind-bashingly high\" IQ, and builds all their equipment, usually from whatever garbage they can find lying about. She's also easily bored and tends to pay attention to her own interests more than anyone else, so she doesn't have to serve as \"the mom\" to all the boys on the team. It also explains why she seems oblivious to the fact that Chip and Dale keep fighting for her attention (Monterey Jack, by contrast, seems to look on her like a daughter, since he was friends with her dad). And so an entire generation of kids developed crushes on intelligent, quirky girls.<\/p>\n

Gadget's personality was based on Jordan Cochran from the movie Real Genius<\/i>, but not her appearance. Gadget was present in the original pitch for the show (which wouldn't have featured Chip or Dale, but rather a mouse named \"Kit Colby<\/a>\"), and the only difference between that version and the one we eventually got is that her fur would have been white, rather than pink. Wait, pink? is that skin? If not for her purple jumpsuit, would Gadget be completely nude? Her sandy-colored hair is more brown here than it was on the cartoon, where it favored yellow. She wears a blue pair of goggles instead of a hair bow, and is hugging a wrench that's nearly as large as her entire body. She's available in a 1:36 ratio, so every three cases.<\/p>\n

<i>And now, some more OAFEry:<\/i><\/H5>