Alvin and the Chipmunks

'*Alvin and the Chipmunks* is an American animated media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian in 1961. The group consists of three singing anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, who live with their adopted human father Dave Seville, after their mother, Vinny, left them in his care realizing her children won’t survive the harsh winter journey. The family go on adventures together as the Chipmunks are also a young singing group, while Dave also makes sure they get plenty of care. Along the way, they meet plenty of friends such as the Chipettes: chipmunk sisters named Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor; the Chipettes' adopted human mother Miss Miller, and the Chipmunk's family's pet puppy Lilly.

While this isn’t one of Strider's most favorite franchises, as he vaguely remembers it, he thinks it’s decent. The negative thing Strider says that stays consistent with the franchise is the high pitched voices that come from the Chipmunks. The Alvin Show Strider admits was ok, but it was a 1960s cartoon, and 60s cartoons don’t usually blow him away (with a few exceptions). Strider admits that the 2nd Chipmunks cartoon with the same name as the franchise, including the 3 fully animated movies based on this cartoon, is his most favorite of the cartoons, since it has the best animation (especially in the later seasons & the 3 fully animated movies based on this cartoon), great voice acting (and admits that the voices of the chipmunks are at their least annoying in this cartoon), well written stories, decent comedy, heartwarming moments, and the characters are at their most likable (being lovable, relatable, and sometimes even sympathetic). As for the 3rd cartoon, ALVINNN!!! and The Chipmunks, Strider says it’s a cartoon remake, and while not that great compared to the original shows, he admits that it’s not among the worst cartoon remakes, and that it’s just another cheap CG low-budget snore fest (and it’s not a frightfully bad remake that outright insults the viewers).

Now, as for the live-action remakes, Strider has different thoughts. Little Alvin and the Mini-Munks, the direct to dvd movie that has live-action and puppetry, Strider thought was ok, as it at least had the original voices for the Chipmunks and Chipettes, and even Dave's voice actor played as his live-action counterpart, it also tried to be faithful to the source material, the story and characters were decent, and the puppet designs of the Chipmunks and Chipettes were cute, so Strider appreciated that.

The 20th Century Studios live-action remakes are a different story, but have an interesting fact. That interesting fact is that Strider only considers the 1st TCS live-action remake the worst of the 4 TCS live-action remakes, as the Chipmunks voices are at their worst, most of the live-action acting is bland, there are flavor of the month pop-songs & product placements, most of the characters are bland, the story is simple, but boring, the jokes are at their weakest, and it is unfaithful to its source material, saying that it’s pure manipulation and profiteering upon familiarity at its very worse. While he wasn’t a big fan of the sequels either, Strider at least considered the 3 sequels improvements (since they were not among the worst cartoon live action remakes), since all of the characters became slightly more likable, the comedy was sometimes funny, the CG effects improved (especially by the 4th film), the Chipmunks voices became less annoying, the acting slightly improved, there are less pop songs and product placements, the stories were improving, and those films tried to be faithful to its source material.

## Lists Strider Includes Alvin and the Chipmunks

* *Alvin and the Chipmunks 2007* was #7 in Worst Cartoon Live Action Remakes.
* Alvin, Simon & Theodore (from the 1983 cartoon) were present in *Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue*, which was #2 in Worst Cartoon Crossovers.