Making Alvin Safe For Children

Ross Bagdasarian got a lot of mileage out of a novelty record.

In 1958, he assumed the guise of David Seville and, with his voice sped up as a chorus, made the goofy love song “Witch Doctor” a number-one hit for Liberty Records.

A real inspiration struck Bagdasarian. Why not turn his sped-up chorus into a novelty trio of chipmunks (named for Liberty executives)? They debuted on Liberty the same year with a Christmas novelty song.

Milking the idea didn’t stop there. After The Flintstones became a prime-time success in 1960, television networks looked around for more potential night-time animated hits. Right in front of them was Bagdasarian and his Chipmunks (drawings of which had been limited to album covers). Animals make perfect cartoon characters. The Chipmunks were already popular. They could even sing funny songs. A recipe for a TV comedy success.

So it was The Alvin Show debuted, with Format Films contracted to make the half-hour series. Format had been set up by Herb Klynn and others who walked out of UPA during the making of the Magoo Arabian Nights feature. Bill Hurtz designed the characters for animation, and the company hired good writers including Tedd Pierce and Dale Hale.

But Bagdasarian (whose name became a musical tag at the end of each show) mother-henned the series, at least in his version of events.

Here’s Chuck Wheat’s column in the March 12, 1962 edition of the Tulsa World. Wheat didn’t like other cartoons on CBS; I presume he must have meant Terrytoons. It’s odd he would think they had less animation than TV cartoons.

“Clean up your plate, dear . . . remember the starving Armenians.”
Ross Bagdasarian can’t tell his kids that mossy axiom . . . he breaks up in laughter every time he starts it. Ross (I’ll call him by his first name—save plenty money on type) and his cousin, William Saroyan, should be called gorged Armenians.
Together sometimes but most often separately, they have parlayed their madness into piles of long, green currency. Ross talked by telephone this week on his latest gambit, “The Alvin Show” on CBS.
After almost a season, Alvin and his fellow chipmunks seem pretty healthy — at least their sponsor is satisfied. It’s a show that surprised me, because quite frankly I am sick to death of shabby cartoon work icing down a rancid cookie of had situation comedy. Most of the animated shows on The Eye are peculiarly lacking in real animation.
Alvin, however, very often glimmers. The mischievous chipmunks are mostly enjoyable, but I get a hoot out of Clyde Crashcup, the professor who invents old things.
“Did you notice how Crashcup and his sidekick Leonardo look like Virgil Parch [sic] drawings?” asked Ross. “I hope they look utterly deadpan in their insanity—like VIP drawings.”
Ross’ cuckoo-bird mind comes up with some real odd stories on the weekly show, just as cousin Saroyan’s mind came up with wacky stories and plays that delight and confuse.
“Bill lives in Paris, but we get together once in a while,” says Ross. “Are we crazy, you ask? We’re the SANE ones in the family.”
In order to justify my call to Ross I asked him to tell us how a cartoon half-hour show comes on The Eye. Here is his description:
First the story line is written, based on ideas Ross throws out. The writers also draw sketches, much like magazine or newspaper cartoons. The story line is a phrase under each picture.
Once this “story board” is finished, Ross checks it and if he likes it, everybody troops to a recording studio where the show’s sound is put down. Then the sound recordings go to a director and layout man who turn it on for the animators. They make the action fit the noises just recorded.
You don’t call this lipsynch—this isn’t the recorded voice while the real singer pants silently and moves her lips. This is facephake—the real voice and the recorded singer.
This whole process takes about four months, according to Ross, and costs about $65,000 for a half-hour show. He hastens to explain that by now the Alvin show studios are an assembly line with a one-a-week output at least.
“The Alvin Show” moves to 5:30 p.m. Sundays next season (or maybe sooner—I’m not certain on this point) and Ross is satisfied. Or maybe oblivious—since his jobs on the show include creator, writer, boss animator, director and voice—and oh yes, he owns the show, too.
“One thing I’d hope you’ll get across,” he said. “I’ve got kids of my own and Alvin is never going to be a little skunk (ha ha, chipmunk but no skunk)—his tricks better not be destructive or dangerous.
“I once found my 5-year-old getting ready to fly off our garage because he saw Superman do it.”
Television could do with more madmen like Ross Bagdasarian. I hope he has hysterics all the way to the Armenian National Bank of America.

What stories or gags did Bagdasarian throw out? He gave some examples in a wire service interview, published December 11, 1961.

Alvin Can Do No Wrong
By JOE FINNIGAN
UPI Hollywood Reporter
ALVIN THE CHIPMUNK’S mentor is keeping an eye on the trouble prone animal to keep him from leading youngsters astray.
Given half a chance, Alvin might start a juvenile revolution that could –upset many of the nation’s households.
But Bagdasarian, apparently a fellow who doesn’t believe in overthrowing homes or governments by force, keeps a tight rein on the squeaky voiced Alvin.
“This is one of the most important things,” said Ross, explaining his reluctance to let Alvin run loose. “We joke a lot but we won’t lot any of the characters do something wrong which kids think is okay. We have a responsibility to people who watch, especially the kids.”
BAGDASARIAN built Alvin’s CBS-TV show from a phonograph record to a multi-million dollar business. Alvin and his two brothers, Simon and Theodore, are created at Format Films, where Ross oversees the whole operation.
It’s difficult to think of rascally Alvin as a pillar of any community, but that’s almost what Ross would like. Bagdasarian keeps tabs on the show’s writers to keep any vicious image of Alvin from getting on the air.
“There was a script that had Alvin giving one of his brothers a hot foot,” said Ross, cringing at the thought. “It played very funny to adults, but kids would think it’s okay to do that.
“In another script, Alvin was sitting in the car and drove it through the garage wall.”
Ross almost groaned thinking about the consequences of that little trick and said, “We could see kids in the family car going through their own garage.”
In both instances, Ross edited the scripts so Junior wouldn’t get any ideas.
IT’S FAIR to assume that Bagdasarian, who has three children, was also thinking of himself when it came to the hotfoot and automobile wreck scenes. His own youngsters might have gotten some ideas and taken one of Dad’s high powered cars for a joyride through the garage wall.
‘We’d rather have the show go off the air than maim thousands of kids,” said Ross, expressing one of TV’s nobler sentiments.
Ross admits that Alvin has no halo over his head. But he insists the little fellow is no switchblade delinquent.
“Alvin is a very delicate character,” Ross said. “He goes against authority because he feels he had a better way of doing something. He’s not a precocious brat.”

Bagdasarian’s “What about the children” attitude didn’t keep the series on the air. The prime-time animation fad disappeared as fast as it arrived as the ratings numbers just weren’t there. What looks like a CBS-TV release in newspapers starting June 2, 1962 announced The Alvin Show would debut on Saturday mornings on June 23 and would leave prime time on September 12.

That was a momentary blip. The Bagdasarian family conjured Alvin 2.0 with new records, new cartoons, new characters, new huge profits.

There’s still something to be said about The Alvin Show, despite the creaky songs turned into music videos and a title character who wasn’t likeable some of the time. Nobody had really tried a musical comedy format, so the series broke some ground. And a show with a Steven Bosustow-lookalike selling Crashcup noses in Crashcup Land can’t be bad.