Alvin and the Chipmunks (1998 TV series)

***Alvin and the Chipmunks*** is an American animated television series featuring The Chipmunks, produced by Bagdasarian Productions in association with Paramount Television Animation. It was the first incarnation of The Chipmunks to be presented in Dolby Surround. It aired on UPN as part of its UPN Kids block from May 10, 1998 to April 17, 2005.

## Plot

The series focuses three chipmunk brothers, Alvin, Simon and Theodore. The trio have been adopted by and are living with Dave (human). Each episode finds the boys getting into trouble and new and unusual situations.

## Characters

### Main

* **The Chipmunks**: the main characters of the series
	+ **Alvin Seville** (voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.): the oldest brother and leader of the Chipmunks, Alvin is the talented troublemaker of the group.
	+ **Simon Seville** (also voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.): the middle brother (also the tallest), Simon is the intelligent realist and the most responsible of the group.
	+ **Theodore Seville** (voiced by Janice Karman): the youngest brother, Theodore is the cute innocent butterball of the group.
* **The Chipettes**: the Chipmunks' female counterparts and on-and-off girlfriends
	+ **Brittany Miller** (also voiced by Janice Karman): Brittany, the leader and the oldest sister of the Chipettes, is Alvin's counterpart. She is as equally vain and self-centered as Alvin. But like him, she really does care about others.
	+ **Jeanette Miller** (also voiced by Janice Karman): Jeanette is the middle sister of the Chipettes, and she is Simon's counterpart. However, unlike Simon, who stands up to Alvin easily, she does not stand up to Brittany as easily. She is also very smart, which is what she does have in common with Simon. However, she is very shy and clumsy.
	+ **Eleanor Miller** (also voiced by Janice Karman): Eleanor is the youngest sister of the Chipettes, and she is Theodore's counterpart. She shares his love for food and cooking. But she is more athletic, more intelligent, and more likely to stand up to Brittany than Theodore is to Alvin.
* **David "Dave" Seville** (also voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.): the Chipmunks' adoptive father, the Chipettes's guardian, songwriter and manager, Dave's patience is tested nearly every day by Alvin, usually to the point where he yells his trademark yell "ALVIN!!!". Despite all this, he loves all of his boys equally.
* **Miss Beatrice Miller** (voiced by Dody Goodman): the kindly, absent-minded adoptive mother of the Chipettes. She occasionally babysits the Chipmunks and has a crush on Dave, even though she's old enough to be his mother. In her youth, she was part of an all-girl singing group called *The Thrillers*.
* **Clyde Crashcup** (voiced by Shepard Menken during 1998 and by Brian Cummings after his death): a scientist/inventor. Clyde's "inventions" were really items that had already been invented, but with his own personal touches. His "creations" often backfired on him until his silent, level-headed lab assistant, Leonardo (diminutive, balding, and perpetually whispering in Crashcup's ear (provided by Tom Kenny)) saved him from any further self-destruction.
* **Stanley the Eagle** (vocal effects by Frank Welker) - The Chipmunks' pet eagle who occasionally made appearances on the show.

### Minor

* **Samantha** (voiced by Janice Karman) - She is Dave's girlfriend in the series and is heavily inspired by *The Alvin Show* segment, *Lovesick Dave* and the DiC episode, *Dave's Getting Married*. She is also a caricature of her actress.

#### One-time characters

* **The 60s Chipmunks**: The Chipmunks' past selves, or more likely their previous incarnations from *The Alvin Show* back in the early 60s.
	+ **60s** **Alvin** (voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr.): The talented troublemaker of the group.
	+ **60s** **Simon** (voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr.): The intelligent realist and the most responsible of the group.
	+ **60s** **Theodore** (voiced by Janice Karman): The cute and innocent member of the group who likes to eat a lot.
* **60s David "Dave" Seville** (also voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr.): The 60s Chipmunks' adoptive father, songwriter and manager, Dave's patience is tested nearly every day by 60s Alvin, usually to the point where he yells his trademark yell "ALVIN!!!". Despite all this, he loves all of his boys equally.

## Production

### Development

After the *Alvin and the Chipmunks* 80s' series' cancellation in 1990, Bagdasarian broke its partnership with DiC Entertainment. The studio was unsatisfied with the poor-quality animation and its executive meddling. Several years later, Bagdasarian and Karman tried to pitch the series again throughout several different studios. First came Disney. The studio didn't want to do any Halloween specials starring the Chipmunks and Chipettes, realizing it might be too dark for family films and participating in it would damage their plans of making any further feature films, shorts, TV shows, etc. Then came Universal, who rejected their offer on a series but agreed to make two direct-to-video feature films. Sony planned to convince Bagdasarian and Karman to make a Spain-themed movie featuring the Chipmunks and Chipettes, but after seeing the box office failure of 1987's *The Chipmunk Adventure*, the project was abandoned.

Finally there was Paramount. Paramount was not so sharp. They agreed on Bagdasarian's offer to do a reboot, since *The Alvin Show* was off the air a year ago. Paramount Television Animation handled the storyboards, character animation layouts, background layouts and post-production, while Bagdasarian was in charge of voices and music. The animation was outsourced to other overseas studios, even PTA's Canadian subsidiary a few times and Rough Draft Korea for the most part.

The post-production of the first season began after PTA had made the first 13 episodes. Sound effects had to be added and voices and music had to be mixed at PTA's sound services, as well as editing the episodes. Although the Ruby-Spears episodes were still the same to begin with, Paramount improved its style with their use of high-quality fluid and lifelike Disney-style animation.

Paramount animation heads Nancy Farwell wasn't pleased with the quality of the Ruby-Spears style writing because it was filled with cartoonish and surrealistic humor (which was unusual in real life), reminiscent of *The Alvin Show* and the Fleischer cartoons of the early 1930s. She felt the animation did not exhibit a distinct style envisioned for the show. At the time there were only a few choices for animation style. Usually, the producers would follow the style of either Disney, Warner Bros., or Hanna-Barbera. Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons had a universe that was bendy and the characters seemed to be made of rubber. The producers wanted a realistic environment in which the characters and objects could not do anything that was not possible in the real world, despite the Disney-style animation. One example with the animation being cartoonish was that the doors behaved liked rubber when slammed. The style of Hanna-Barbera featured the use of cartoon sounds, which they did not want either.

The animation remained the same while not resorting to limited animation like DiC, but started to take a noticeable downgrade in quality when the second season began production. The writers began to use more original and realistic plots, although Dave retains his trademark yell "ALVIN!!!" in some episodes. The wildly inconsistent writing was toned down in favor of emulating other high-quality cartoons at the time.

### Writing

Writers from *ToonMania* and *Life of the Noveltoons*, such as Alexandra Farwell, Julian Reilly, Dianne Dixon, Jack Enyart, Matt Utiz and Ellinor Pullen, wrote the episodes for the show along with Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and his wife, Janice Karman. Two writers from *Tiny Toon Adventures* and *Animaniacs*, Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver, were brought in to the series as well.

### Animation

Animation for the series was outsourced to various studios, such as Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS Entertainment) (first season only), Wang Film Productions, Koko Enterprises, most notably PTA's Canadian subsidiary (intro and second season's Halloween special only) and Rough Draft Korea.

*Alvin and the Chipmunks* was made with a higher production value than standard television animation; the show had a higher cel count than most TV cartoons. The *Alvin and the Chipmunks* characters often move fluidly, and do not regularly stand still and speak, as in other television cartoons. The drawing count was 25,000 drawings instead of the usual 10,000, making it unique that the characters would move more fluidly.

### Music

The music was composed by Tom Chase and Steve Rucker. It was strongly influenced mostly by the Murakami-Wolf Swenson episodes of the original series.

## Merchandise

### Toys

* Action figures were made and came out during the start of the second season.

### Tie-ins

* Golden Book stories were made based off the series.
* A series of comic books based off the series was made by Paramount Comics.

## Trivia

* The show is the result of the Chipmunks and Chipettes reverting to their late 80s/early 90s character designs. Also, Tom Chase and Steve Rucker returned to compose the music for the series.
* The show recreates elements from the Chipmunks' first TV incarnation, *The Alvin Show*, albeit new 90's style elements were added to rehash the entire show. Plus, the MWS/DiC closing credits sequences were re-used, but were heavily edited for the new episodes.
	+ Paramount produced a new opening sequence, featuring the song *We're the Chipmunks*, with better animation quality and timing and the use of the late 80s/early 90s character models, of which was done by PTA's Canadian subsidiary.
	+ Clyde Crashcup, Leonardo, Stanley the Eagle and Sam Valiant returned in this reboot. Both Clyde Crashcup and Leonardo's designs were updated to look more realistic and fit in more of the late 80s/early 90s style the series once had. Also, both Sam Valiant and Stanley the Eagle were streamlined by DiC animator, Bruno Bianchi.
	+ Unlike the DiC episode *Dave's Getting Married*, Samantha does not have any children of her own and is considered to be single and is also Dave's girlfriend in the series. Her appearance and voice is a caricature of Janice Karman as well.
* Paramount wasn't the first option to pitch the series. Other options included Walt Disney Television for ABC, Saban Entertainment for Fox Kids, Columbia TriStar Television (through Adelaide Productions) for syndication and Universal Cartoon Studios for Fox Kids. These options were rejected in favor of said studio, but Universal was assigned to do two direct-to-video feature films.
	+ There were reasons, Disney feared that the use of darker and edgier tones in the Chipmunks Halloween specials were not family-oriented at all, and participating with Bagdasarian in it would damage their plans of making any further feature films, shorts, TV shows, etc.
	+ Sony tried out with the Chipmunks and Chipettes on a new feature starring them in the country of Spain. But after seeing the failure of *The Chipmunk Adventure*, the project was abandoned.
* The series was originally intended to be cancelled after one season, like *The Alvin Show*. But after seeing high ratings of the show, it was renewed for six more seasons.
	+ There was going to be an eighth season continuing the *Chipmunks Go To The Movies* trilogy for DiC, but never came around because Bagdasarian and Karman felt that the show already had run its course.
* A CGI version of the franchise named *ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks* would later premiere on Nickelodeon ten years after this incarnation's series finale which took place 20 years into the future, entitled *Still Squeaky After Twenty Years*.