Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers Has the Best Marvel Easter Eggs

This article contains minor spoilers for Chip N’ Dale: Rescue Rangers.

The Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers movie is full of Easter eggs and references to not just everything under the Disney banner but a wide assortment of entertainment brands. The way it accomplishes this is a Who Framed Roger Rabbit? style plot where all animated characters are really actors, which leads to several sequences taking place at a convention center.

Of course this being a Disney film you’d expect some references to one of the biggest entertainment juggernauts around, Marvel, but Rescue Rangers doesn’t go for an easy reference of fans simply walking around in Captain America cosplay. No, Rescue Rangers goes for the deepest of deep cuts.

Early on in the film, Dale, who’s been making a living at conventions, tries to pep himself up by chatting to fellow guests around him. One of them is none other than a relatively obscure Marvel superhero, Tigra, specifically from the short-lived animated series, The Avengers: United They Stand. If you don’t remember that show we’ve got all the information you need about it right here. (Fun fact, it sort of predicted Phase 4 of the MCU!)

In that series, Tigra (aka Greer Grant Nelson) was a member of a new generation of Avengers with the unsurprising abilities of a tiger. In the Rescue Rangers movie, it seems Tigra never got much acting success outside of the short lived series, the banner at her booth features nothing but photos from the short-lived series and the inviting statement, “Meet the Were-Woman In Person!”

While an odd choice, Tigra does make for the perfect sort of Z-grade celebrity you might see at a convention these days. She even has a variety of 8x10s to sign! In the original series, she was voiced by Lenore Zann, who more famously played Rogue in the ‘90s X-Men cartoon series. Probably owing to the fact Zann is now a Canadian politician, writer and actress Liz Cackowski voices Tigra in Rescue Rangers.

Tigra’s appearance is especially fascinating considering that in 2019 it was announced she was set to star in the Hulu animated series, Tigra & Dazzler. This was supposed to tie-in with MODOK, Hit-Monkey, and the cancelled Howard the Duck series but was scrapped by 2020.

Could Tigra’s appearance in Rescue Rangers be some sort of clue to what she might have looked like in her cancelled series? Probably not, since she’s closely designed to look like her Avengers: United They Stand version, but anything is possible!

The other big Marvel reference is one you won’t need to do any deep dive research for. During a climatic chase scene, Chip and Dale run past none other than Paul Rudd! He’s doing a signing and cheerfully informing fans that originally Ant-Man was called Aunt-Man.

“My superpower was being really charming to aunts.”

Sadly in the Rescue Rangers verse the title was changed to Ant-Man, though in the closing credits we do see a poster for the fictional film: Paul Rudd in his Ant-Man costume, minus the helmet, poses with several aunts. The press quote on it says, “Aunt-Man is irresistible!” and it’s got four stars! It’s even received an “official film festival selection” award. Maybe in this universe Paul Rudd finally got to make it!