Is Sweet Pete Peter Pan?
Peter Pan appears as the villain Sweet Pete in the 2022 Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers film. However, he’s no longer the boy who would never grow up.
Instead, he’s a middle-aged former child star who’s a little out of shape. As progression for the popular Disney character’s story, it’s a fun look at what might have been, and is generally not going to be considered canon for Peter Pan.
However, the character has faced some backlash due to the resemblance between Sweet Pete’s story and that of Bobby Driscoll, the former child actor who voiced Peter Pan in the classic 1953 Disney film.
Driscoll struggled to find work in the years that followed his Disney success. He had a difficult time at school, and began taking drugs.
Over the years, he was charged with various criminal offenses, and spent time in rehab. In 1965 he moved to New York, and a few years later, in 1968, he died of heart failure as a result of drug use.
It seems that there are too many parallels between Driscoll and Sweet Pete for this character to sit comfortably. There’s no indication that this was intentional, but whether or not it was an oversight, or if viewers should be ready and able to separate the character from the actor, is all debatable.