he world of Saturday morning
is filled with stories of unlikely success, but The Alvin
Show may have the best one of all. Somehow, a basement
recording experiment turned into a multi-platinum single,
which turned into two wildly popular animated series.
Ross Bagdasarian was a songwriter of moderate success
at best, but taking the performing name David Seville,
Bagdasarian recorded the surprise hit novelty single
“Witch Doctor” in 1957. The sped-up “oo-ee-oo-ah-ah” of
that song’s chorus caught on like wildfire, and
Bagdasarian/Seville decided to push things further.
Recording his own voice on four separate tracks, then
speeding up three of the voices, Seville created “The
Chipmunk Song,” part of a Chipmunk Christmas album
(“Christmas, Christmas time is here…”). The “chipmunk”
designation had come from Bagdasarian’s children, and the
individual Chipmunk names - Alvin, Simon, and Theodore -
were the names of Liberty Records executives Al Bennett,
Si Warnoker, and Ted Keep.
“The Chipmunk Song” went on to sell five million
copies, and the futures of Alvin, Simon and Theodore began
looking brighter and brighter. Format Films was hired to
bring the trio to television, and with the success of The
Flintstones in 1960, CBS decided to debut the animated The
Alvin Show on 1961’s prime time schedule.
The series dealt with the
animated adventures of Dave Seville, a song-writing
bachelor, and his three musically inclined chipmunk
charges.
Alvin was the brash leader, bespectacled
Simon was the calmer and smarter one and Theodore was the
pudgy giggler. They were
constantly getting into mischief, initiated by Alvin, and
forever frustrating poor Dave. Dave usually showed his
displeasure with the antics of Alvin by emitting a loud
"Al-l-l Vin-n-n!" Each episode also included a Chipmunk
song, a sing-a-long segment, and a separate segment
featuring the misadventures of the great inventor Clyde
Crashcup.
Up against the hit Wagon Train, The Alvin Show fared
poorly in prime time, but the characters themselves proved
to be enormously popular with young viewers. And so, in
1962, The Alvin Show popped up in repeats on CBS’ Saturday
morning. Here the show found a more welcome home, airing
to widespread success for three seasons.
The show continued to run in syndication over the
ensuing years, and Bagdasarian/Seville continued to
release numerous Chipmunk albums. The songwriter died in
1972, but his creation remained popular long after his
death. In 1979, NBC aired a season of The Alvin Show
repeats, and in 1980, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. recorded a new
album tiled Chipmunk Punk. Alvin, Simon and Theodore
rocketed to resurgent fame, and in 1983, NBC unveiled the
all-new Alvin and the Chipmunks. The new series was an
instant hit, running for eight seasons, and Ross
Bagdasarian’s unlikely success story continued to be
written into the 1990s.