Musicians - The Chipmunks

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	Musicians - The Chipmunks

The Chipmunks are a fictional musical group, created by Ross Bagdasarian. The group consists of three singing chipmunks—Alvin, the mischievous troublemaker, who quickly became the star of the group, Simon, the tall bespectacled quiet one, and Theodore, the chubby, impressionable one—who are "managed" by their human "dad" and confidant, David "Dave" Seville. In reality, "David Seville" was Ross Bagdasarian's stage name.

After first being brought to life in Bagdasarian's 1950s novelty recordings under the name David Seville and the Chipmunks, the characters were an unprecedented success, and the singing Chipmunks and their manager were given life in several animated cartoon series and motion pictures. At the present time, the characters are perceived as cartoon characters that also released some accompanying music (which is the inverse of their early existence), but it is not certain whether this is a compliment to Bagdasarian's intentions or runs contrary to them.

The voices of the group were all performed by Bagdasarian, who sped up the playback to create the most-distinctive higher pitched squeaky voices. This process wasn't entirely new; Bagdasarian had also used it for a previous novelty song project "The Witch Doctor", but it was so unusual and well executed it earned the trio two Grammy Awards for engineering. Although the characters were fictional, they did release a long line of "real" albums and singles, with "The Chipmunk Song" becoming a #1 hit single in the United States. After his death in 1972, the voices of the Chipmunks were subsequently recorded by his son, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., and his wife, Janice Karman, in all future incarnations to date. The Chipmunks themselves are named after the executives of their original record label, Liberty Records: Alvin Bennett (the president), Simon Waronker (the founder and owner), and Theodore Keep (the chief engineer).

History

"The Witch Doctor"

In early 1958, Ross Bagdasarian released a novelty song, under his stage name David Seville, about being unlucky at love until he found a Witch Doctor who told him the "magic words" to woo his woman. The entire song was done by Bagdasarian in his normal voice, except for the "magic" words, done first in Bagdasarian's sped-up, pre-Chipmunk voice, then in a duet between his sped-up voice and his normal voice. The words, of course, are nonsense: "Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang".

The song was a major hit, sitting at Number 1 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three weeks during the spring, and the Witch Doctor's "magic words" were being sung by kids everywhere. Although nothing in the song makes any reference to chipmunks, the song is now sometimes included on Chipmunk compilations, as if the Chipmunks themselves had provided the voice of the Witch Doctor... which, technically speaking, was true.

"The Chipmunk Song"

The Chipmunks first officially appeared on the scene in a novelty record released in late fall 1958 by Bagdasarian. The song, known at first as just "The Chipmunk Song" and later subtitled "Christmas Don't Be Late", featured the singing skills of the chipmunk trio. The novelty record was highly successful, selling more than 4 million copies in 7 weeks, and it launched the careers of its chipmunk stars. It spent four weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart from December 27, 1958 to January 19, 1959. It also earned three Grammy Awards and a nomination for Record of the Year. At the height of its popularity, Bagdasarian and three chipmunk hand-puppets appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, lip-synching the song.

Imitations

While the series was being prepared for broadcast, an imitation, the Nutty Squirrels, beat them to the market, but was less successful, despite catchy scat singing.

The Alvin Show

The first television series to feature the characters was The Alvin Show. The cartoon gave more distinctive looks and personalities to the three chipmunks than just their voices. The cartoon portrayal of David Seville was a reasonable caricature of Bagdasarian himself. The series ran from 1961 to 1962 and was one of a small number of animated series to be shown in prime time, on CBS. Unfortunately, it was not immediately successful and was cancelled after one season, only to find new life in syndication.

In addition to Alvin cartoons, the series also featured Clyde Crashcup and his sidekick Leonardo. Those characters did not feature prominently on any of the later series. Crashcup made a single cameo appearance in an episode of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

The first television series was produced by Format Films for Bagdasarian Film Corporation. Although the series was broadcast in black and white, it was produced and later re-run in color. 26 episodes each were produced for the Alvin and the Chipmunks and Clyde Crashcup segments, along with 52 musical segments.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Chipmunks ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The Chipmunks; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

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