Chip and Dale (also spelled Chip 'n' Dale) are a cartoon duo of anthropomorphic chipmunks created in 1943 by The Walt Disney Company.^[5][6]

The characters were first drawn by Bill Justice^[6] and introduced in the 1943 Pluto short Private Pluto, directed by Clyde Geronimi. In the short, they fight with Pluto about whether they can store their nuts in a military base cannon. Three years later, director Jack Hannah decided to use them as co-stars in Donald Duck shorts. Hannah said:

I believe Gerry Geronimi did a picture with two impish little chipmunks that just squeaked and chattered with a speeded-up soundtrack but no words. He used them with Pluto… I wanted to use them with the Duck but with a little more personality in them. So we decided to put words into their mouths but speed 'em up so you could just barely understand them… We gave them both the same personality—but something was missing. Bill Peet came up with the suggestion of making one of them a little goofball to give them two different personalities. Immediately I saw the advantage of that and took the suggestion.^[7]

Of the two, Chip is portrayed as being safe, focused, and having a mind for logical scheming. Dale, by contrast, is more laid-back, dim-witted, and impulsive, and has a very strong sense of humor. Originally the two had a very similar appearance, but as a way to tell them apart, some differences were introduced: Chip has a small black nose and two centered protruding teeth, whereas Dale has a large dark red nose and a prominent gap between his buckteeth. Chip is also depicted as having smooth hair on top of his head while Dale's tends to be ruffled.

In most cartoons, they are paired with Mickey Mouse, or most often, Pluto and Donald Duck, whom they usually battle when they see an activity they do out of curiosity or when they try to get food without getting caught by them. They were given their own series in the 1950s, but only three cartoons resulted under their name: Chicken in the Rough (1951), Two Chips and a Miss (1952) and The Lone Chipmunks (1954). The duo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film three times in four years: in 1946 for Squatter's Rights (against Mickey and Pluto), in 1947 for Chip an' Dale and in 1949 for Toy Tinkers (both against Donald Duck). In the 1980s, they became the lead characters of a half-hour television series, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, in which they have adventures as leaders of a detective agency.

Their names may be a pun on the name of the 18th-century cabinet maker and furniture designer Thomas Chippendale, as suggested by Bill "Tex" Henson, a story artist at the studio.

Chip and Dale appear in the following 23 animated short films.

• The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale – Includes Two Chips and a Miss, Chicken in the Rough, Chips Ahoy, Donald Applecore, Up a Tree, and The Lone Chipmunks plus various song scenes in between cartoon shorts sung by Chip 'n' Dale
• Classic Cartoon Favorites, Vol. 4: Starring Chip 'n' Dale (DVD)– Includes Chicken in the Rough, Chip an' Dale, Out of Scale, Two Chips and a Miss, Food for Feudin', Working for Peanuts, Out on a Limb, Three for Breakfast and Dragon Around
• Nuts About Chip 'n' Dale – Includes Food for Feudin', Trailer Horn and Two Chips and a Miss
• A Tale of Two Chipmunks – Includes Chicken in the Rough, Chips Ahoy and The Lone Chipmunks (Also released on Laserdisc as a double feature along with "The Unsinkable Donald Duck")
• Disney Cartoon Classics Vol. 9: Starring Chip 'n' Dale – Includes Working for Peanuts, Donald Applecore and Dragon Around plus short scenes in between the cartoon shorts narrated by Jiminy Cricket, and is the only animation where Donald addresses the chipmunks by their names.

Chip 'n' Dale also had their own comic book title, first from Dell Comics with Four Color Comics #517, 581, and 636, then their own title for issues #4–30 (1955–62), which was then continued by Gold Key Comics with #1–64 (1967–80), and later under its brand Whitman with #65–83 (1980–84).^[8]

A hybrid live-action/computer-animated film, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, was released in 2022, with animation of the characters provided by Moving Picture Company and their voices by John Mulaney and Andy Samberg.

Chip 'n' Dale were planned to appear as a cameo in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. They were supposed to be in the scene called "Acme's Funeral". However, the scene was cut from the final film. Storyboard artwork for this sequence survives, where they can be seen alongside characters such as Goofy, Horace Horsecollar, Clarabelle Cow, Tom Cat, Jerry Mouse, Herman and Katnip, Popeye, Bluto, Felix the Cat, Porky Pig, Petunia Pig, Sylvester the Cat, Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn, Casper the Friendly Ghost and Droopy.^[16]

They can also be spotted in the 1983 featurette Mickey's Christmas Carol where they are seen dancing to the music inside Fezziwigs. They also appear at all the Disney Parks as well. Chip 'n' Dale occasionally appeared in the television series Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse.

Chip and Dale are part of the Walt Disney Animation Studios characters that take a group photo at the end of the 2023 short film Once Upon a Studio.^[17]

The classic voices of Chip 'n' Dale were mostly provided by Jimmy MacDonald, Dessie (Flynn) Miller and Helen Silbert. The earliest voices were provided by female office staff, without credit. In Private Pluto, the chipmunks' speech was created by speeding up sound clips of normal speech. In a number of the shorts that followed, many of these same sound clips were used again, though later shorts used dialogue specifically recorded for that short.

At one point in Winter Storage, Chip and Dale get into an argument while being caught in a trap. When the scene switches to an outside view of the box (with Donald Duck sitting on the box), the dialogue being heard is actually a sped-up segment of the voice-over narration (done by John Brown) from the Goofy short A Knight for a Day.

Since 1988, Chip and Dale have been voiced by Tress MacNeille and Corey Burton respectively, although MacNeille has provided the voice for both in Mickey Mouse Works and House of Mouse. John Mulaney and Andy Samberg voiced the two in the Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers live-action film.^[18] In the film, the high-pitched voices of the television series were explained as an act by the otherwise normally speaking chipmunks.

• Complete list of Disney animated shorts