Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers’ director is proudest of a very tiny cameo

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers, animated characters live alongside live-action humans — and not just Disney characters. Andy Samberg voices the animated chipmunks. The film follows their reunion years after they had their last show. Rescue Rangers The show was cancelled. Their search for the missing star of the show leads them to Hollywood where they encounter cartoon characters from every era of animation. Virtually every image of Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers is packed with Easter eggs and visual references, from Seth Rogen’s Pumbaa from the “live-action” CG Lion KingRemake My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic’s Mane Six running across a convention floor.

But one of the director’s favorite cameos — and certainly the one he’s proudest of — is a smaller hat-tip that might get lost amid the bigger, flashier references. This homage also goes to the creator of this film. Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers television show, Tad Stones.

“He co-created with another guy named Alan Zaslove back in the ’90s,” explains director and Lonely Island member Akiva Schaffer. “Alan was much older, like the mentor, and he has since passed away at an old age. Tad is alive and well. And I got to Zoom with him a bunch and ask tons of questions.”

Not only are they creating, Chip ’n Dale: Rescue RangersStones wrote and produced music as well Darkwing DuckOther Disney programs, such as “Disney World,” were also produced by him.Buzz Lightyear’s Star CommandThe HerculesAnd AladdinAnimation TV spinoffs. He’s worked on a number of direct-to-video Disney sequels, such as Aladdin 2 The Return of Jafar And Aladdin and King of Thieves.

Stones doesn’t make a physical appearance in the movie. Instead, his cameo comes in the form of a phone call, a tiny little reference that might go unnoticed unless you’re intimately familiar with the voices of late-1980s and early-1990s animators.

“In the movie, there’s a moment when [Chip and Dale]Are in [their] young Hollywood times and they’re trying to get their career started, and they get the phone call,” Schaffer tells Polygon. “And there’s a voice on the other end that’s like a Disney executive saying Chip and Dale: How would your show be? And that’s Tad [Stones]’s voice.”

Chip ’n Dale: Rescue RangersDisney Plus will be available on May 20,