TODAY IN SEPTEMBER 1962

   It's September, so that means new television season! These are the Saturday Morning schedules that debuted today in 1962.

CROSSOVER: ALLLLLLLVINNNNNNN!

 

            Time travel stories are a frequently used story trope; either in a dream sequence, a fantasy, or for real. The 1980s Alvin and the Chipmunks not only used this concept, but also decided to have some fun with the notion that it was a reboot. See, the Chipmunks didn’t just meet their younger selves when they went back in time. No, their younger selves happened to be the versions last seen on television in 1961 on The Alvin Show.

1980s Alvin tries to talk some sense into 1950s Alvin.

            For the final season where the show was renamed The Chipmunks Go to the Movies, they abandoned original stories in favor of having adventures based on popular films. “Back to Our Future” written by Dianne Dixon, based on Back to the Future, saw inventor Clyde Crashup (Matt Hurwitz) arrive in the present to tell the Chipmunks that Alvin (Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.) in the past has decided to give up on music and pursue a more mundane career. He takes the 80s Chipmunks back to 1957 (the year they were created) so Alvin (also Bagdasarian) could try and talk some sense into himself. To help things along, they send the 1957 Chipmunks to the future to see how things turned out if they stuck with music, but they end up enjoying the future and fame and want to stay. The 80s Chipmunks find themselves having to now convince them to go home or else they’ll end up losing their careers—and lives—to their past selves.

The 1950s Chipmunks play for their right to stay in the present.

            Along with Clyde and the Chipmunk character designs, the episode went all-in on emulating the animation style of The Alvin Show with the backgrounds. The present Chipmunks themselves pointed out to the audience how flat everything looked. They even brought back “The Alvin Twist” as the song the two generations of Chipmunks used in a battle of the bands between them.

THE ALVIN SHOW

 

THE ALVIN SHOW

(CBS, October 4, 1961-September 12, 1962)

 

Bagdasarian Film Corporation, Format Films

 For the history of Alvin and the Chipmunks, check out the post here.

 

            With the popularity of Ross Bagdasarian’s creations, Alvin and the Chipmunks, riding high with hit songs and album sales, the time had come to expand the brand onto television in a more permanent basis. Bagdasarian teamed-up with Format Films, who redesigned the Chipmunks into more physically distinguishable and cartoonish characters, and created storyboards for a pilot episode to shop around to the networks. CBS ultimately bought the concept and commissioned the creation of the show. It would be broken up into three segments: the first was a standard Chipmunk misadventure, featuring Alvin, Simon, Theodore and their hapless guardian, Dave Seville (all Bagdasarian). In keeping with what made the characters so popular, that would be followed by a song segment, and then a second song to close out the episode. Additionally, the Chipmunks would appear in commercials for their primary sponsors: Jell-O and Post Cereals, both owned by General Foods. In between the two songs was an original creation: scientist and inventor Clyde Crashup (Shepard Menken, impersonating Richard Haydn’s Edwin Carp character) and his sidekick who only spoke by whispering in his ear, Leonardo. Clyde would tend to invent something that already existed but with his own flair added. And, usually, those inventions would backfire.

The Sevilles: Dave, Alvin, Theodore and Simon.

            The Alvin Show, named for the most popular character in the group, debuted on CBS on October 4, 1961. Bagdasarian would handle the music along with Charles E. King and Ken Lowman, with direction and arrangement by Johnny Mann. The series ran in black and white for two seasons in primetime before moving to the Saturday morning line-up and being colorized. By the end of the 60s, the individual Chipmunks segments were combined and the show was sold into syndication as Alvin and the Chipmunks, making its way to NBC Saturday mornings in 1979. Ultimately, a new series would emerge through Bagdasarian’s son, Ross, Jr., and daughter-in-law, Janice Karman. Clyde and the original animated Chipmunks would make appearances on that show. In 1994, Nickelodeon acquired the broadcast rights for The Alvin Show and re-aired them in their original form, less one song to make room for commercials. They also incorporated various segments into their own program, Weinerville. To date, only a few episodes and segments have seen release to home media, and the program itself has not been broadcast since Nickelodeon dropped it.

HISTORY OF ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS

Ross Bagadarian Sr., aka Dave Seville, with his creations.

            Ross Bagdasarian Sr. was a singer-songwriter, record producer and actor who often performed under the stage name “Dave Seville”, inspired by his Air Force post in Seville, Spain during WWII. After composing a few hit songs for other performers, Bagdasarian signed up with the then-new Liberty Records in 1955 where he recorded several novelty records of his own. His biggest hit came in 1958 with “Witch Doctor”. Bagdasarian experimented with speed control on a $200 tape recorder that he had bought and used a sped-up recording of his voice to represent the titular witch doctor. “Witch Doctor” became a Billboard number-one single for three weeks, selling 1.5 million copies and rescued Liberty from the brink of bankruptcy. Bagdasarian followed it up with “The Bird on My Head” where he sang a duet with his sped-up voice as the titular bird, however it only peaked at #34 on the charts.

The original Alvin & the Chipmunks with Dave on their first album cover.

            Bagdasarian decided to apply his new technique as the voices of regular characters in his songs, coming up with the first virtual band. He conceived of three anthropomorphic chipmunk brothers: trouble-making Alvin, intelligent Simon, and giddy and shy Theodore—all named after the executives of Liberty. The Chipmunks were the apprentices and adopted sons of his Seville persona, who also served as their manager. The first song released by the Chipmunks was “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late)”, which followed the storyline of Seville conducting the Chipmunks in the recording of the song. Of course, Alvin frequently caused trouble by going off script, resulting in Seville having to yell “ALVIN!” several times. All of the voices were provided by Bagdasarian and played on top of each other as the Chipmunks sang together.

The Chipmunks in puppet form.

            “The Chipmunk Song” was a hit, becoming Bagdasarian’s second #1 single, selling 4.5 million copies in seven weeks (ironically, it was featured on the “Rate-A-Record” segment of American Bandstand and received the lowest-possible score). It would break The Hot 100 chart several times between 1958 and 1962, and remained the only holiday-themed song to chart at #1 until Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” in 2019. While the song was at its peak, Bagdasarian appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with Chipmunk hand-puppets designed by Bob Clampett to perform the song. The song was later re-released on the Chipmunks’ debut album, Let’s All Sing with the Chipmunks in 1959. Along with a couple of original songs, the album featured Chipmunk-ized covers of other songs that would become a franchise staple.

A page from the Dell comic.

            The design for the Chipmunks initially had them looking fairly realistic, except that they wore clothing with their initials in order to make them distinguishable. This style was used in their first comic book outing for Dell Comics’ Four Color Comics #1042. When the concept was adapted for animation for the first time in The Alvin Show in 1961, the designs were heavily modified by Format Films to look more cartoonish. Although their faces were still similar, they were given distinctive body types, with Alvin being the shortest, Theodore slightly taller and chubbier, and Simon the tallest and leanest. They were all now depicted as the size of human children with floor-length shirts of distinctive colors. However, Alvin’s retained his “A” initial and was given a ball cap while Simon wore glasses. The Seville character also received an upgrade, becoming a fair caricature of Bagdasarian. The new designs were used on reissues of previous Chipmunks albums and on future albums going forward.

The re-release featuring the new character designs.

            The Alvin Show, named after the most popular character of the group, featured one short Chipmunk adventure and two musical numbers. Another adventure segment featured the original character Clyde Crashcup (Shepard Menken), a scientist who invented things that already existed and whose experiments tended to fail, and his assistant Leonardo (who only whispered in Clyde’s ear). The series wasn’t a ratings success and was cancelled after only a single season of 26 episodes. CBS reran the series on Saturday mornings shortly after its cancellation where it fared slightly better. 

The final original Chipmunks album.

            1969 saw the release of the 12^th and final original Chipmunks album, The Chipmunks Go to the Movies. It featured cover versions of songs from six movies, with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang being the most represented. Bagdasarian would die of a heart attack three years later in 1972, seemingly putting an end to the Chipmunks’ careers and the franchise he created. However, renewed interest in The Alvin Show and a joke by a radio DJ led to a resurrection.