4.2 /10 2 Votes
6.9/10 TV Written by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. First episode date 4 October 1961 | 7.9/10 IMDb Created by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. Directed by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. Final episode date 12 September 1962 Program creator Ross Bagdasarian Sr. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Based on Alvin and the Chipmunksby Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. Voices of Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.Shepard MenkenJune ForayLee PatrickBill LeeJohnny MannDon MessickJoe Besser Theme music composer Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.Neil HeftiCarl Stalling Cast Similar Alvin and the Chipmunks (1983 TV series), Phineas and Ferb, A Chipmunk Christmas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Alvin Show is an American animated television series. It was the first to feature the singing characters Alvin and the Chipmunks, although a series with a similar concept The Nutty Squirrels Present had aired a year earlier. "The Alvin Show" lasted for one season in prime time (October 4, 1961 – September 12, 1962) on CBS (Wednesdays, 7:30-8pm Eastern), originally sponsored by General Foods (Jell-O, Post cereals), and initially telecast in black and white (Color prints of the episodes were not seen until the series entered syndication in the fall of 1965).
Contents
- Characters
- Clyde Crashcup
- Afterlife
- Voice cast
- Episodes
- Home Media Releases
- International Broadcast
- References
The series rode the momentum of creator Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.'s original hit musical gimmick and developed the singing Chipmunk trio as rambunctious kids–particularly the show's namesake star–whose mischief contrasted to his tall, brainy brother Simon and his chubby, gluttonous brother Theodore, as well as their long-suffering, perpetually put-upon manager-father figure, David Seville. The animation was produced by Herbert Klynn's Format Films.
The Pilot, an early version of "Good Neighbor", was written and produced to sell the show for CBS. The actual show featured a re-worked version, which aired as part of the 5th episode.
Characters
Clyde Crashcup
Aside from the seven-minute Chipmunk segments, in which David Seville was portrayed as a hapless bachelor who managed and mentored the three singing rodents, the show also had segments featuring a character called Clyde Crashcup (voiced by Shepard Menken impersonating Richard Haydn's Edwin Carp character), a scientist/inventor. Each segment was introduced by Alvin, who was told he was introducing a great inventor and was dumbfounded when he hears of Clyde Crashcup.
Clyde's "inventions" were really items that had already been invented, but with his own personal touches. His "creations" often backfired on him until his silent, level-headed lab assistant, Leonardo (diminutive, balding, and perpetually whispering in Crashcup's ear) saved him from any further self-destruction.
Afterlife
CBS reran the series on Saturday mornings for a few years after the show's prime time run ended, and segments from the show were syndicated in the mid and late 1960s under the package title Alvin and the Chipmunks (this first syndicated package consisted of the individual show segments only, including the Alvin and Clyde Crashcup cartoons, and Chipmunk musical segments, not in the form of half-hour shows). The series later was revived on NBC-TV, again promoted under the title Alvin and the Chipmunks (with the introductory Alvin Show title card cut off the beginning of the show opening) Saturday mornings between March 10, 1979 and September 1, 1979. TBS also reran the show sometime in the 1980s as well.
Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. had died of a heart attack in January 1972. Years later, his son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., picked up on a disc jockey's joke and produced the Chipmunk Punk album in 1980. The success of Chipmunk Punk spurred renewed interest a new animated series, which launched in fall 1983 on NBC and was titled Alvin and the Chipmunks, with Ross, Jr. taking over for his father as the voice of the Alvin and Simon, and Dave Seville. His wife, Janice Karman, voiced Theodore, as well as The Chipettes, who are the Chipmunks' female counterparts. To coincide with the new series, Viacom Enterprises distributed reruns of The Alvin Show to local stations.
In 1981 Clyde Crashcup made an appearance during a dream sequence in A Chipmunk Christmas. During recent network airings of the special, the sequence has been cut out, due to network time constraints concerning commercial ad time.
In 1990, The Alvin Show versions of the Chipmunks and Clyde Crashcup reappeared in an episode of The Chipmunks Go To the Movies entitled "Back to Our Future" (a spoof of the 1985 movie, Back to the Future).
A majority of the songs and clips from The Alvin Show were featured in the Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing Along Songs VHS's that were released in the mid 1990s. The songs, however, were slightly remastered.
Nickelodeon picked up US broadcast rights to The Alvin Show sometime in 1994 and ran the episodes daily until late 1995. During this time, as well as for sometime after the full episodes stopped airing, the individual cartoons and musical segments were inserted into episodes of Weinerville. In 1996, Nickelodeon stopped showing The Alvin Show segments altogether, and no television station has aired them since then.
Voice cast
Episodes
26 episodes each were produced for the Alvin and the Chipmunks and Clyde Crashcup segments, along with 52 musical segments.
General Foods was the show's main sponsor; as such, Dave Seville and The Chipmunks appeared in several humorous half-minute commercials for Jell-O and Post Cereals.
Home Media Releases
Other than the two VHS releases from Buena Vista Home Video, both of which featured 11 songs from The Alvin Show, up until recently, the show has never been released on DVD. However, on September 8, 2009, Paramount Home Entertainment released the first episode of the show, along with two "modern" specials. Future "Complete Series" DVD sets of the series are not yet planned. In 2014, "The Brave Chipmunks" musical sequence was released as a bonus feature on The Chipmunk Adventure Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. In 2015, three complete episodes (#01, #04, and #10) were released together as The Alvin Show on Blu-ray and DVD.