The commercial availability of Nd:YAG "microchip lasers" has breathed new life into the venerable dye laser. These so called microchip lasers are diode laser pumped and passively q-switched with typical Nd:YAG gain medium dimensions of 1 mm on a side. Their 1.06 micron output can be frequency doubled or tripled to produce 532 and 355 nm pump beams for small dye lasers. These pump beams have high beam quality, energies of microjoules, pulsewidths of a nanosecond or less, and repetition rates of 1-10 kHz. Adding tunability with the dye laser provides ideal characteristics for applications such as the fluorescence of proteins. I will review some of the complications of pumping with such small energies and short lifetimes and also the advantages. I will also present results for a microchip pumped dye laser in the Littman configuration.