Over the past decade, Disney has been successfully reinventing and modernizing their classic animated characters. After showcasing a new incarnation of Mickey Mouse and creating the hit DuckTales series, Disney is turning its attention to Chip and Dale. The iconic duo is returning to the small screen in the upcoming Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life series for Disney+.

During an exclusive interview with CBR ahead of the show's Jul. 28 premiere, Series Director Jean Cayrol revealed his deep-seated love for the original Chip n' Dale shorts, the trick to modernizing them for new audiences, and what makes the Disney characters so enduring.

RELATED: Disney Exec Says to Expect More Console Games With Mickey, Minnie & Co.

Chip ‘n’ Dale Park Life 3

Chip and Dale first appeared in the 1943 animated short, "Private Pluto." Since then, the pair have been frequent stars of Disney animation, starring in everything from light-hearted shorts to the more action-centric Chip n' Dale: Rescue Rangers. Cayrol shared what he wanted to do differently with the upcoming Disney+ series, stating, "Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life is really based on those old short animated cartoons. We also tried to bring that into a more modern environment, [into the] 21st century... Really, we didn't also really want to watch them again and again because Chip 'n' Dale: Park Life is not just a copy or a parody of these shows because they are very beloved. I love them. Everyone loves them."

The light-hearted nature of the shorts still finds room for Chip and Dale to laugh, fight, and explore their world together. An element that particularly excited Cayrol to explore with the new shorts was their lifestyle. The series director shared, "We had some question from the past, something we wondered for years. Like well, when they live together, how do they behave? Do they have a small, tiny sofa to sit on? Or do they really eat acorns for every meal? Is that it? And we actually dug back to these questions with the team in Disney and rewrote that a lot. And trying to answer that, we also tried to develop their personalities to make them very different apart from each other."

RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Disney Junior's New Spider-Man, Mickey Mouse Shows Land Premiere Dates

"Actually that was very helpful for a writing perspective for them to have specific personalities," he continued. "Everything is rooted in realistic, in a way, domestic issues -- because we want the audience to relate to the characters as much as possible. Because in the old cartoon, the episodes were seen from the point of view of an adult, of Donald Duck for example, of a human. But now, we're really at chipmunk scale and we're really with them. But actually, they have problems that we can all relate to like, 'Oh, I want to change the painting on the wall. Oh no, I don't. Who's going to cook tonight? I don't want to.' But as we are doing a visual slapstick comedy, in most cases, those tiny problems evolve in crazy cartoon madness."

The series forgoes dialogue completely in the episodes previewed to CBR, with the storytelling instead being conveyed by the impressively expressive and fluid motion of its characters. When asked if there was ever any consideration of adding dialogue to the series, Cayrol revealed that the silent nature of the series was always the case, stating, "Xilam Animation in Paris, the company for which I'm working [with], is really specialized in 2D nonverbal slapstick comedy. We did Oggy and the Cockroaches and we are in the eighth season... So we know how to handle that."

"From the beginning, Disney wanted to do a nonverbal slapstick comedy," he added. "So that's why they came to us to ask to do the show really. And I come from a very traditional ancient way of doing animation with paper and pencils and camera and that kind of stuff. And that was a blast when Xilam said to me, 'we're doing Chip 'n' Dale, you're doing Chip 'n' Dale, and we're doing that 2D animation.' Explaining how he still utilizes classic animation practices, Cayrol joked, "When I talk to trainees in the studio, it's like, 'Yeah, we used to have paper. And the studio used to smell like pencils.' And they don't believe me."

RELATED: Disney Reveals Updates to Jungle Cruise Ride in BTS Video

Chip 'n' Dale Park Life

The series, like much of modern Disney animation, loves to pay homage to the storied history of the animation studio. Right from the get-go, the show's opening title sequence references Pluto -- who appears in an early short -- as well as brief cameos by Donald Duck and Clarice the Chipmunk, a relatively obscure character from earlier shorts. "I don't want to spoil too much," Cayrol explained. "But we talked about Pluto from the very beginning because he's an essential part of the dynamic between Chip 'n' Dale and Pluto. Those shorts are special. So we knew we wanted to have him in a few episodes.

"But we also have Clarice. She used to be in the [shorts from the forties.] She appeared in two shorts, and she was the love interest chipmunk," he added. "She has a flower in her hair... She is in the show, but she's not the love interest anymore. Our Clarice is a bad-ass independent chipmunk living above Chip 'n' Dale. And basically, she is the ultimate chipmunk. She's good at everything. She can jump super high. She can take the last acorn on the branch. And she's basically everything Chip and Dale will never be able to achieve."

Chip and Dale are almost eighty years old at this point and still frequently held up as favorites of the Disney animated canon. Looking back at the legacy of those characters and what makes them so enduring, Cayrol said, "I think, well, obviously they're cute and adorable and that's a part of it. But I think there's more. Chip 'n' Dale have flaws. And actually, a lot of great Disney characters in my mind are great because they have flaws. They can be jealous of each other. They can have secrets. They can be anxious. They can be lazy or scared or argue about who's going to eat the last acorn in the cupboard. And that's what makes them so relatable characters. And I'm pretty sure that's why people for almost a century loved them, is that even if they are just tiny chipmunks, everyone can relate to Chip or Dale -- or both!"

KEEP READING: Which Movie REALLY Ended The Disney Renaissance?