Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks and billed for their first two decades as the Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.
Bagdasarian provided the group's voices by producing sped-up recordings of his own, a technique pioneered on the successful "Witch Doctor". Later in 1958, Bagdasarian released the similarly engineered "The Chipmunk Song" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. David Seville and the Chipmunks released several more records over the following decade until Bagdasarian's death in 1972. The franchise was revived in 1973, with the characters' voices provided by his son Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and the latter's wife Janice Karman.
Through the successful franchise, the Chipmunks have become one of the most successful children's artists of all time. It has garnered two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and won five Grammy Awards, having four Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and three certified platinum albums. "The Chipmunk Song" became one of the best-selling singles of all time at 5 million physical copies sold.
The Chipmunks were first depicted in animated form in The Alvin Show (1961). The characters have since featured in several television series and films, as well as other media. In 2019, The Chipmunks received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 1958, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. released a novelty song (as David Seville) about being unsuccessful at love until he found a witch doctor who told him how to woo his woman. Seville had bought a tape recorder and he experimented recording himself at different speeds to create a duet between him and the witch doctor. The voice of the "witch doctor" was in fact Seville's own voice, sung slowly but recorded at half speed on the tape recorder, then played back at normal speed, thereby speeding up the voice into a high pitched squeaky one. Bagdasarian sang in his normal voice, while the witch doctor's "magic" words was in Bagdasarian's own pitched-up, pre-Chipmunk voice. The "magic" words themselves are nonsense: "Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang".[1][2][3]
The song was a hit, holding number one for three weeks in the Billboard Top 100 chart. Nothing makes any reference to chipmunks, but the song is sometimes included on Chipmunk compilations as if the Chipmunks had provided the voice of the Witch Doctor. Bagdasarian did record a Chipmunks version of "Witch Doctor", which appeared on the second Chipmunks album, Sing Again with the Chipmunks, in 1960. Bagdasarian performed the song "live" (with a pre-recorded track of the pitched-up voice) on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Bagdasarian (again as Seville) recorded a follow-up song, "The Bird on My Head", singing a duet with his own sped-up voice as the bird. It also reached the Top 40, peaking at No. 34.[4] While driving in Sequoia National Park, Bagdasarian saw a chipmunk dash in front of him. That moment inspired him to create his chipmunk characters.[5] He again used the same technique to pitch up the voice to create the chipmunks.
After the success of "Witch Doctor", Liberty Records asked Bagdasarian to create another successful novelty record. He then came up with three singing chipmunks who were named, as an inside joke, after executives at Liberty Records. Alvin (named after Al Bennett), Simon (named after Si Waronker), and Theodore (Ted Keep).[6]
The Chipmunks first officially appeared on the scene in a novelty record released in late fall 1958 by Bagdasarian. The song, originally listed on the record label (Liberty F-55168) as "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", featured the singing skills of the chipmunk trio. One phrase in the chorus has Alvin wishing for a hula hoop, which was that year's hot new toy. The novelty record was highly successful, selling more than 4 million copies in seven weeks, and it launched the careers of its chipmunk stars. It spent four weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart from December 22, 1958, to January 12, 1959, succeeding "To Know Him Is to Love Him" at Number 1 on the same chart by the Teddy Bears, a pop group that featured Phil Spector. It also earned three Grammy Awards and a nomination for Record of the Year. At the height of its popularity, Bagdasarian and three chipmunk hand-puppets appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, lip-synching the song. "The Chipmunk Song" appeared on the Chipmunks' debut album, Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks, in 1959, and was repeated on Christmas with the Chipmunks, released in 1962. The song also has been included on several compilation albums.
Bob Rivers released a parody of this song for his 2000 Christmas album Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire which was titled "The Twisted Chipmunk Song". In the song, the Chipmunks are referred to as Thagadore (Theodore), Squeaky (Simon), and Melvin (Alvin).
The Chipmunks first appeared in comic book form on Dell Comics' Four Color Comics series, issue #1042 (cover-dated Dec. 1959). Alvin, Theodore and Simon were depicted as somewhat realistic, nearly identical anthropomorphic rodents with almond-shaped eyes. When Herb Klynn's Format Films made a deal to develop the Three Chipmunks for animation, the old designs were rejected and new versions of the characters were created. Liberty Records eventually re-issued the early albums with the "new" Chipmunks and it was this new version of the Chipmunks that was used when Alvin's own title was released by Dell in 1962.
The first television series to feature the characters was The Alvin Show. By this period, the Chipmunks looked much like their modern incarnations. Also, an animated portrayal of Seville was a reasonable caricature of Bagdasarian himself. The series ran from 1980 to 1999 and was one of a small number of animated series to be shown in prime time on CBS. It was not a prime-time ratings success and was subsequently canceled after one season. Ratings improved significantly in syndication.
In addition to Alvin cartoons, the series also featured the scientist Clyde Crashcup and his assistant Leonardo. Those characters did not feature prominently on any of the later series. Crashcup made a single cameo appearance in A Chipmunk Christmas, and in an episode of the 1983 TV series. The television series was produced by Format Films for Bagdasarian Film Corporation. Although the series was broadcast in black and white, it was produced and later re-run in color. Twenty-six episodes each were produced for the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Clyde Crashcup" segments, along with 52 musical segments.
The final Chipmunks album in the project's original incarnation, The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, was released in 1969. After Bagdasarian's death in 1972, the Chipmunks' careers stalled until NBC showed interest in the original show (the network carried Saturday morning reruns of The Alvin Show as a midseason replacement in 1973) and the following year, Excelsior Records released a new album of contemporary songs performed by the Chipmunks. That album, Chipmunk Punk, featured Bagdasarian's son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., doing the voices of the characters. That album and the continued reruns of the series proved to be popular enough to warrant further new records as well as new television productions, and on December 14, 1981, the Chipmunks and Seville returned to television in the NBC Christmas special A Chipmunk Christmas, produced by the Bagdasarians with Chuck Jones as a creative consultant. It also inspired a companion record album. The following year, two more albums were released (Chipmunk Rock and The Chipmunks Go Hollywood).
In 1983, a second animated television series for the group, produced by Ruby-Spears Productions, was released. Titled simply Alvin and the Chipmunks, the outline of the show closely paralleled the original Alvin Show. The series lasted eight production seasons until 1990. The first season introduced The Chipettes (three female versions of the Chipmunks): Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor with their human guardian, the myopic Miss Beatrice Miller (who debuted in the 1986 season). The show's success led to the release of a soundtrack album in 1984, Songs from Our TV Shows.
After 1988, the show was renamed just the Chipmunks to indicate that there were now two groups of them. Also introduced was the boys' "Uncle" Harry, who may or may not have been a relative. The show reflected contemporaneous trends in popular culture; the Chipmunks sang recent hits, and wore contemporary clothing. One "documentary" episode spoofed John Lennon's 1966 infamous comment that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus", by recalling how the Chipmunks had fallen in popularity after Alvin boasted they were "bigger than Mickey Mouse". In 1985, the Chipmunks, along with the Chipettes, were featured in the live stage show, Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Amazing Computer. In 1987, during the fifth season of the television show, the Chipmunks had their first animated feature film, The Chipmunk Adventure, directed by Janice Karman and Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and released to theaters by The Samuel Goldwyn Company. The film featured the Chipmunks and the Chipettes racing around the world while being involved in a jewel-smuggling operation.
In 1996, Universal Studios purchased the rights to the characters. In 1998, Sony Wonder and Columbia Records released The A-Files: Alien Songs and Greatest Hits: Still Squeaky After All These Years on September 21, 1999. The purchase of the rights to the characters by Universal resulted in the Chipmunks' 1999 reappearance, in the form of the direct-to-video movie Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein, released on September 28, 1999. Five new songs were composed for the film and were made available via a soundtrack released by MCA Records. Later that year, The Chipmunks' Greatest Christmas Hits was released.
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