Chip 'n Dale

Chip 'n Dale are Disney cartoon characters, a pair of mischievous chipmunks. Chip is the relatively smart (albeit more neurotic) one; Dale is the less smart one with the tendency to do the clumsiest or least sensible thing possible at any given moment.

Their initial turn in the spotlight came in the Classic Disney Shorts, usually giving Donald Duck a reason to demonstrate his famous Berserk Button. (You probably remember that one cartoon where Donald was an apple farmer.) In the late 1980s, they were dusted off and given revised characters, more comprehensible voices and their own TV show, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.

Their name may be a pun on the famous 18th-century furniture style. It certainly isn't anything to do with the Chippendales Dancers, who they predate by many, many years.

See also Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers for tropes that refer to them specifically in said cartoon.

Not to be confused with Warner Bros.' Goofy Gophers, Mac and Tosh. (Mac and Tosh are the ultrapolite ones.)

Tropes

 * Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering??
 * Breakout Character
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Dale.
 * Cross-Dressing Voices: Chip was once voiced by Tress MacNeille.
 * Escalating War: Usually against Donald, who had no problem utilizing cruel pranks of his own against them. Their bouts against Pluto were more one sided, though he could still bite back at times.
 * Grumpy Bear: Chip, who is often irritated by Dale's stupidity and occasionally responds with violent discipline.
 * Heterosexual Life Partners: However, some comic stories indicate that they're brothers, sharing the same relatives.
 * Invincible Heroes: Though they took blows in most of their shorts, they were the victors in all of their appearances (or at least came to a stalemate or truce in exceptions).
 * Iron Butt Monkey: While Chip and Dale often made the winning blow, they were often portrayed as almost as bumbling as their adversaries and usually took as many blows as they dished out.
 * Karmic Trickster: In the shorts where Donald is the one who starts trouble.
 * Loveable Rogue: More often just after food and shelter, they do have a mischievous side however.
 * Love Triangle: With Clarice in Two Chips and a Miss and Gadget in Rescue Rangers.
 * Overly Polite Pals: In the first animated shorts (not on the ReTooled Series, where they acted more like Vitriolic Best Buds), they act this way towards each other.
 * Screwy Chipmunks
 * Divergent Character Evolution: In the earliest shorts, Chip and Dale were identical in looks and mannerisms. Eventually, Dale gained his red nose, buck teeth, and goofier personality to set him apart from Chip.
 * Speaking Simlish: In the classic shorts, they spoke in varying forms of heavily-accented, barely understandable English, to complete gibberish. Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers has them speaking normal English.
 * Spin-Off: Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
 * The Golden Age of Animation
 * Trademark Favorite Food: Acorns, or nuts in general. Though their discovery of peanuts certainly turned them off of acorns in the short Working For Peanuts.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds