Alvin and the Chipmunks began as a 1958 novelty song written and performed by Ross Bagdasarian, who also created the nonsensical hit song The Witch Doctor. Five decades years later, the Chipmunks franchise is kid-friendly and critic-proof.
“It was a gimmick,” Ross Bagdasarian Jr. says now of his father’s original version of The Chipmunk Song, which won Grammy Awards, including for its technical innovation (Bagdasarian pitched his own singing voice up to create the Chipmunks’ singing voices). “But then it was the character under it that appealed to people — and that is what has carried on 52 years later. With The Chipmunk Song, the difference you had was personality.”
Both Alvin and Dave Seville, Bagdasarian Sr.’s alter ego and the song’s other protagonist, certainly had personality. Bagdasarian catapulted the Chipmunks to fame in the recordings, personal appearances and then a cartoon show in 1961 before dying of a heart attack in 1972. Lovingly, his son and daughter-in-law, Janice Karman, have treasured and nurtured the father’s furball legacy.
Originally, that meant new recordings in the late 1970s, then a 1981 Christmas special, then a new cartoon series from 1983 to 1990. Most recently, after lawsuits to protect the legacy rights, the California couple helped to launch a series of movies. Each of the hybrid movies combines live action people with digital animals. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel comes to DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday. Extras include tongue-in-cheek sessions with voice actors pretending not to know how the Chipmunks are created.
“These movies to us are really about being careful shepherds of what is being done with the flock,” Bagdasarian says on a Canadian promotional visit with Karman. The couple obviously loves mischievous Alvin and his two Chipmunk brothers, Simon and Theodore. “Where are they being led?” Bagdasarian asks rhetorically. “Is that the right place for them? Is that the right attitude? Is that the right body language and gesture? All of those things matter. All of those things are telling you something about your characters.”
Not everyone likes where the filmmakers have taken Alvin and the Chipmunks. Just as it happened with the 2007 original, director Betty Thomas’ Squeakquel was hammered by critics. But both are hits. The first earned $331 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. The Squeakquel pushed the take to $442 million, mostly by dramatically increasing foreign boxoffice outside of the United States and Canada. There will be a third in the series. It has just been green-lit by 20th Century Fox Studios.
The goal for the Chipmunks in the movies is simple, Karman says. “They have to be likable. That is the thing that Ross and I guard like crazy parents.”
Karman, a screenwriter, singer and voice actress, was instrumental in re-working both the look and personalities of the Chipmunks during the 1980s. Simon and Theodore underwent dramatic revisions. All three Chipmunks changed physically, and did so again for the new movies. Karman also created the Chipettes and did their voices and their singing before The Squeakquel.
Karman and her husband guard the personality of Alvin more than any other. In terms of cheeky attitude, he is the same now as he was in the original Chipmunk Song. Karman says she tries hard not to let the movies turn Alvin into a smart-alec or become smarmy. “If you don’t feel Alvin’s emotion, if you don’t feel his vulnerability, if you don’t feel that he cares when he hurts Dave, then he is an unlikable character. And then we are no longer on board with him.”
Adds Bagdasarian: “And then he just becomes a jerk. It is so easy to disconnect from a character like that. We want people to care what happens to them and understand where they’re coming from.”
Chipmunks to go 3D
Having already been transformed from old-fashioned cartoon characters into digital creations, Alvin and the Chipmunks are going even more high-tech next time.
“We’re already starting on the next one,” says Ross Bagdasarian Jr., who is the co-guardian of the 52-year-old franchise created by his actor-songwriter father, “but it will be in 3D!”
Bagdasarian and his wife, Janice Karman, both say it is exciting for them to be experimenting with new technology after making two mainstream movies in 2007 and 2009. The second one, dubbed The Squeakquel, debuts on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday.
“For us,” Bagdasarian says, “we’re definitely looking forward to it because here are are personally 32 years later with the franchise (which they revived 6 years after Bagdasarian Sr. died). For Janice and I, the last three decades have always been about: ‘What can we do that is new and fresh?’ As soon as we feel that we are doing the same old thing, then obviously we don’t want to do it any more because we want people to enjoy it.”
3D technology, he says, “is obviously something that we don’t know much about yet and we’re excited about learning some new form and putting the characters into it. 3D is actually being treated as an artistic addition to filmmaking and that is very different than some little gimmick.”
That means, Bagdasarian says, the next Chipmunks movie will need more than Alvin “throwing a nut at the audience” for the 3D visual effect. “This is not the 1950s again. This is something that, in the hands of really interesting filmmakers, can be something really great.”
