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To The Rescue Part Two
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To The Rescue Part Two
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Our nimble heroes avoid becoming street pizza, clinging to
an obliging overhanging light. As the light pole starts to swing, Chip sagely
advises, “There’s got to be a way down.” Dale comes back with one of his better
lines, “I know there’s a way down, but I don’t want to take it!” The light pole
gives way and the two chipmunks fall and land in a municipal waste receptacle.
This landing turns out to be good timing, as they observe Fat Cat and the Goon Squad leaving the cat food factory via a secret exit hidden by a fire hose. This particular exit never comes into play again in the series, making me wonder why the Rangers never took advantage of it. Another of the Great Unanswered Questions.
Nonetheless, Chip and Dale didn’t have time to sit and
ponder, as they watch the bad guys hitch a 
ride via a pizza delivery 
truck. Chip
and Dale at first use a spare tire to chase the crooks, then they get bounced
out and right into an expensive car. Here we learn why chipmunks were never
given driver’s licenses ;-)
After a merry chase through the city, the ensemble stops
at a local Chinese Laundry. Note the name: DIMSUN Laundry. That of course is
also the name of the emperor in “Song of the Night ‘n Dale”. I wonder if he was
franchising, or more likely it would have been his nefarious sister Su Lin.
Someone really ought to tell him about that.
Fat Cat and his goons meet up with an old cat with a very
strange-shaped head inside the laundry, who directs them the laundry’s rear
section. Like Fat Cat’s casino, this place is also a gambling 
establishment,
where cats are betting on the outcome of fights between Siamese Fighting Fish. (Note:
Siam is the old country name for Thailand). Again, we see 
money exchanged,
lending further credence to the idea that the animal culture has its own
monetary system.
Meanwhile, Chip’s gone and berated Dale for his
tomfoolery, upsetting the fun-loving chipmunk. Chip, now solo, is determined to
get the ruby back and has created a makeshift fishing rod to do just that. He watches
while Fat Cat sweet-
talks the Siamese Twins. These two felines are a wink at
the original Siamese Twins in “Lady and the Tramp”. The two cats repeat each
other, talking just out of sync, making them slightly challenging to understand
at times. But Fat Cat has no problem understanding them, or the reason he’s
there.
“Mister Fat” has come to purchase the talents of Juice
Lee, number one Siamese Fighting Fish. The fish’s name is a parody of the
legendary Bruce Lee, kung-fu artist
extraordinaire. Juice Lee is able to defeat a tank full of piranhas, showing
his mastery of the fighting arts. Chip again tries for the ruby, but snags one
of the Twins’ dresses instead. It looks bad for him, 
but then Dale comes surfing
to the rescue! This shows Dale’s good nature, when he could have easily left
Chip to be cat chow. And here we have one of the great mysteries of the
series—Chip’s hat.
One moment the chipmunks are in this washing machine and
Chip has no hat. The next they’re out and there it is on his noggin. You can
just make it out in this blowup to the left. From there on, it’s on his head
like it was always meant to be there. Stranger yet, Dale makes no comment on
the hat! This would lead to the possibility that Chip already had the hat but
had it stashed away in his jacket. But if he did, why did he? He wore it
constantly after this incident, so it makes no sense that he’d decide all of a
sudden to start wearing his favorite hat. Another of the Great Unanswered
Questions.
The fedora-wearing chipmunk and his friend follow Fat Cat
to a cargo ship down at the docks. Here we see Fat Cat’s plan in action. Juice
Lee takes care of the seamen guarding the cargo ship. Meanwhile Fat Cat’s
arranged for a suction pump to suck all of the fish out of a nearby boat and
into “his” ship. One must cite Fat Cat for shortsightedness here—clearly the
cargo ship wasn’t abandoned and there were bound to be more humans showing up.
Stowing his stolen fish there was a pretty bad choice from the start. But it
got even worse when he decided to tangle with the next character to appear.
In the cargo ship’s hold we find the traveling “home” of one
Monterey Jack, Australian adventuring mouse. This is the only 
time we see
Monty’s own preferences in terms of living quarters and decoration, for it’s
quite likely that Gadget handled those things at their treehouse headquarters.
Zipper is traveling with him as well, and at this juncture the fly acts more
like a faithful dog than someone who would 
be a full-fledged Ranger
later on. We also see why Monty chose this ship to travel on when he pulls out
a crowbar and exposes a huge amount of cheese. Monty has the first of many,
many cheese attacks here—the mouse’s Achilles Heel. We also learn Monty’s
overriding philosophy, “There’s only one thing I like more than cheese…nothing.”
Unfortunately for Monty, his cheese dinner is interrupted by
Chip and Dale falling on him. They’d been hiding when Mepps pulled the rope
that was their cover, dragging them along. They fell right on top of the
Aussie, making him none too happy. He catapults Chip and Dale on top of another
crate, which opens up an unusual chain of events. We see Chip lose all sense of
wanting to find the ruby and “reverts” to the old mischief-plotting Chip. This
could be an argument that this Chip and Dale are 
the classic Chip ‘n Dale
after all.
The chipmunks splat him with a cheese wheel, which Monty
takes real offense at—wasting cheese after all is sacrilege to him. He chases
the chipmunks into an empty crate and proceeds to wallop them out of camera
view. The chipmunks come back, 
push a piano, and really
flatten Monty this time. One might think Monty would be mad at this point, but
he senses a kindred spirit in these two and says, “You know, I’m beginning to
like those guys!”
Monty calls a truce just before Chip and Dale could use a
forklift on Monty—good thing, or they might have punctured the ship’s hull and
caused a whole other set of problems. Just as their alliance is formed, Fat Cat
raises Monty’s makeshift house out of the cargo hold, making room for the fish
that are to go in there. The Goon 
Squad proceeds to suck the
fish out of the other boat, while Monty manages to salvage a ship-in-a-bottle
from his possessions. The foursome “sail” on the ship, reminding one instantly
of the classic Chip ‘n Dale short “Chips Ahoy”.
A note here: If Monty only salvaged this ship, which promptly
sank, where did he get the family scrapbook and other knick-knacks he showed
the Rangers in “Parental Discretion Retired?” A possibility would be that he
traveled home during some off-time with the Rangers. Another could be that
Gadget helped him salvage some of his possessions—of course for the scrapbook
to have survived it would have had to have been wrapped in a water-tight
substance. Monty’s never shown that kind of forward thinking.
Monty promptly climbs the cargo ship’s anchor chain,
leaving Chip and Dale to deal with an angry Juice Lee. The Siamese Fighting
Fish ends up slicing Fat Cat’s suction pump tube, allowing the chipmunks to
suck him into it. Up on deck, Monty is fighting with Fat Cat. 
Interesting to
see the two of them close up like this—I think they made Monty a little big
compared to the crime kitty here. Their war of words stops when Chip and Dale
swing in on the end of a hook and chain, knocking Fat Cat into the cargo hold
with the fish.
Fat Cat climbs out in time to see Chip, Dale and Monty swing
back and strike his suction pump, reversing it. All the fish go sailing into
the air, the reverse pressure of the pump sending them back into the original
boat’s hold. 
Juice Lee is expelled also, ending up in someone’s drinking glass
where they put their false teeth—smile pretty now! (Another note: As you can
see up above, that first boat the fish went back to had a hole in it. Why
didn’t it sink?).
In the middle of their swinging around, Chip, Dale and Monty
manage to knock the ship’s controls on half astern. They didn’t notice it at
the moment, but they will.
Fat Cat threatens the
do-gooders, then suddenly turns tail and runs. Zipper squeaks a warning to
Monty, and the guys turn around to find the ship apparently heading for 
certain
disaster. This part has to be commented on, because it’s one of the biggest
bonehead mistakes of the whole series. First, they were at anchor dockside. Now
granted, they had moved some, but the last shot (below) shows them in open
water next to a buoy! That’s pretty far-fetched. To make it even more
far-fetched, the controls were set at full astern—backwards! And yet the ship
is clearly going forward. And the ship somehow regrew one of its anchors! Tanka,
that’s one for the books right there. (Btw, at the start of part three, the speed
control has magically moved to “Slow Ahead”).
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Evaluation: I give this episode a 3/5 of the Acorn Scale. Like the first episode, a lot happens in a short time and frankly it has to. Looking in hindsight, you can clearly see how the writers were setting the audience up for accepting Fat Cat and his Goon Squad as legitimate foils for Chip and Dale. The Siamese Twins added a nice touch to this episode, I thought, and I would have liked to have seen them again. Of course, Monterey Jack and Zipper did their share, and the show wouldn’t have been the same without them. One thing the writers have to be patted on the back for is realizing that Chip and Dale couldn’t carry the show alone—they would do okay for pure comedy but a semi-serious show needs more interaction.
out of 5