Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,462
edits
Alvin and the Chipmunks (animation): Difference between revisions
copyedits, link fixes
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (→Alvin And The Chipmunks provides examples of:: -> tropelist) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (copyedits, link fixes) |
||
Line 1:
{{work}}
[[File:alvin-and-the-chipmunks.jpg|frame|Left to right: Theodore, Alvin and Simon.]]
This '80s [[Animated Series]] is about a suburban singing trio of chipmunks and their adoptive human father, Dave Seville, based on a series of songs by Ross Bagdasarian. Revival of the 1960s [[Animated Series]], ''The Alvin Show''.
Line 7 ⟶ 6:
The history of the chipmunks begins in the 1950s. Songwriter Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. had his first success as a singer when he released a catchy little tune titled "Witch Doctor" under the stage name "David Seville". The success of "Witch Doctor" was mostly due to the simple but cute sound technique (doubling playback speed) he used to render the voice of the Witch Doctor for the song's nonsensical refrain, "Ooh-eee-ooh-ah-ah ting-tang walla-walla bing-bang".
Bagdasarian decided to capitalize on this success by assigning the voice technique to a trio of singing chipmunks -- brainy Simon, gluttonous Theodore and [[High School Hustler]] Alvin -- for the best-selling Christmas tune "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", in which an increasingly annoyed David Seville's attempts to keep his chipmunk singers on-message served as a [[Framing Device]], and led to Dave Seville's trademark [[Catch Phrase]], [[Say My Name|"Alvin? Alvin? ALLLLLLLVIN!"]]
In 1961, after releasing several albums as "Dave Seville and the Chipmunks", Bagdasarian was able to persuade Format Films and [[CBS]] to launch a prime-time cartoon, ''The Alvin Show'', based on the exploits of the Chipmunks in addition to the misadventures of inventor Clyde Crashcup (who invents pretty much everything that already exists), which ran for only one season on CBS due to low ratings. (Competition from [[NBC]] juggernaut ''[[Wagon Train]]'' was a factor, but the main reason for the low ratings was production delays which were largely caused by disagreements between Bagdasarian and Format Films over acceptable character designs for The Chipmunks. In addition, Bagdasarian insisted that ''The Alvin Show'' skip the addition of a laugh track, against the wishes of CBS.) A number of further Chipmunk albums were released, but interest eventually died down and Bagdasarian retired in the late '60s. ''The Alvin Show'' did get replayed on NBC at mid-season of the 1978-79 season (where TV listings billed it as ''Alvin And The Chipmunks'') followed by a syndication run and another on Nickelodeon in the early 1990s.
Line 18 ⟶ 17:
The show ultimately vanished from the airwaves in the 1990s, save for a couple of direct-to-video movies that downplayed the music angle in favor of generic Holiday plotlines. In the last couple of years however, a [[Alvin and the Chipmunks|live-action adaptation]] with computer-generated (and realistically sized) chipmunks and Jason Lee as the new David Seville, has revived the characters somewhat. So much so, in fact, that it has spawned two sequels, at least one of which averts [[Sequelitis]].
----
{{tropelist}}
Line 23:
* [[Animation Bump]]: For the animated movie, Bagdasarian Productions picked up a lot of the Disney animators who were laid off after ''[[The Black Cauldron]]'' flopped.
* [[Anthropomorphic Shift]]: The Chipmunks went from [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/chip1.jpg looking like actual chipmunks] to [http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs7/i/2005/164/8/0/Alvin_and_the_Chipmunks_1_by_Eunice_P.jpg looking only sorta like chipmunks] and [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/Alvin_and_the_Chipmunks2007.jpg back again].
* [[Art Shift]]: Compare the character designs for the Ruby-Spears episodes to ''[[The Movie|The Chipmunk Adventure]]'' and the [[
** Ironically however, it seems more effort was put into the animation of the Ruby-Spears episodes, the supporting and one-shot characters look more human, and more detail was put into the backgrounds and layouts, while the Mukarumi-Wolf-Swenson and [[
** Compare them all to the original cartoon designs of the 1961 series, from Format Films (an L.A. studio started up by Herbert Klynn and Jules Engel and various other UPA expatriates).
* [[Attack of the Political Ad]]: The episode "May the Best Chipmunk Win": at one point, Alvin rides around the playground in a wagon pulled by a donkey, while Simon and Theodore proclaim, "Don't be a donkey, vote for Alvin!" THEN, in comes Brittany, riding on the back of a elephant asking for votes.
Line 181:
* [[Theme Tune Roll Call]]: Alvin, Simon, The-o-dore! Doot, doot, doo-doo-doo-doot...
* [[This Is No Time for Knitting]]: One Halloween special has Simon listing off things they need to save Alvin, [[Buffy-Speak]] style. Theodore goes to the snack table, ''to get the items Simon was asking for''.
* [[Three Shorts]]: ''The Alvin Show'' followed the A-B-A format, with Clyde Crashcup as the middle segment. The Ruby-Spears episodes of the 80's series are all two shorts except for four (both [[Backstory]] episodes for the Chipmunks and the Chipettes, the episode introducing Miss Miller, and the Cinderella episode), while the [[
* [[Time Travel]]
* [[Tomboy and Girly Girl]]: Eleanor and Brittany.
Line 193:
** Also justified in the episode of the '80s cartoon which shows how the Chipmunks came to live with Dave -- they were babies, and much smaller, and Dave was torn to pieces when he thought they'd been eaten by a snake at the zoo.
* [[Wise Beyond Their Years]]: Simon (who nevertheless gets a lot of [[Not So Above It All]] moments to remind us he's still a kid), and to a lesser extent all the Chipmunks and Chipettes except Theodore.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Prime Time Cartoon]]
| |||