Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers – The Crazy Cameo That’s the Best Gag in the Movie

This article contains spoilers for Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers.

You’d need to go through the Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie frame by frame to see all the Easter eggs and references to the wide world of entertainment. Everything from deep cut Marvel properties to Hasbro toys are on display, but there’s one cameo that eclipsed all others.

The plot of Rescue Rangers is much akin to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where your favorite animated characters are in fact Hollywood actors. Several scenes of the film take place at a convention where some of pop culture’s lesser stars are sitting at booths and selling 8×10 signatures of themselves. Lead character Dale tries to psych himself up that he won’t be on the convention circuit forever and he gets support from the most surprising of characters.

Across the aisle is none other than, as the movie refers to him, Ugly Sonic. Oh yes, that’s right: the original Sonic the Hedgehog movie design that was revealed in the very first trailer for that picture in 2019. The one that was so universally reviled that the film was delayed so the filmmakers could redesign the title character. The odd proportions. The needless detail. The scarily realistic teeth, hence some calling him Teeth Sonic and cries for Paramount to “release the Teeth Cut.” (Okay, maybe that was just me.) In the film Ugly Sonic is portrayed by Tim Robinson, best known for I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson, and he plays him with a smokers voice and a constant cough.

In the universe of the Rescue Rangers movie, Ugly Sonic (which apparently is his real name) lives in the fallout of being fired from the Sonic movie. When he tries to make Dale feel better he claims that soon everyone will like him for who he is.

“Not like last time when the internet got a hold of one look at my human teeth and burned the place down.”

The movie stresses the horrifying nature of his teeth. Multiple gags in the movie are centered on slowly zooming in on the teeth and how much they disturb the other characters. Ugly Sonic isn’t worried about that though. He’s got a reality show in works where he does ride alongs with the FBI. He says the show will be titled Ugly Sonic, Uglier Crimes.

Dale doesn’t believe him and you understand why. Around Ugly Sonic hangs a bunch of odd fan art of him with way too many muscles. It’s a spot on representation of the kind of weird art you sometimes see at cons, even weirder that Ugly Sonic himself is selling it. He’s also got a CD that’s simply titled, “The Love Coach.” The movie doesn’t specify if this is Ugly Sonic giving motivational chats about relationships or deeply soulful love ballads accompanied by smooth jazz.

Ugly Sonic’s appearance isn’t a one-off gag either. He shows up several times in the movie, at one point quipping to Chip and Dale, “You want me to go fast? That’s Sonic’s thing. Ugly Sonic’s thing is going SLOW.”

This appearance of Sonic’s first movie design is completely baffling and delightful. I have no idea why Paramount agreed to it, and Sonic the Hedgehog movie director Jeff Fowler says he had no idea it was happening. We spoke to Fowler before Rescue Rangers was publicly released (more on that discussion next week), and he chuckled when told about it.

“I can’t wait to see it,” he said, “I did not know about it but it sounds really fun and hilarious.”

No matter what heights the Sonic movie’s achieve there will always be the darkness of “Ugly Sonic” looming behind them. Perhaps his appearance in the Rescue Ranger’s movie is Paramount’s way of openly acknowledging it and laughing about it. If so, that’s genius.