How can anyone not like the Chipmunks?

I went to catch the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie today at 2.20am, Cathay Cineleisure. That’s how much of a fanatic I am – die die must watch the show on the first day of release! How can anyone not like them??? They are cute, adorable, sing really well and are furry creatures!

The movie was very enjoyable, given the light treatment. It’s good after-work brainless entertainment. Plus it stars Jason Lee, of My Name is Earl fame – my favourite TV serial!

Another very important plus point about the chipmunks is that the lead is called ALVIN!!! What an awesome name, don’t you all think? 🙂

Anyway, I did some search on how Ross Bagdasarian managed to think up the strange concept of singing chipmunks fifty years ago. Here’s the story according to his son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr. :

“In 1958, our family was down to our last $200. Being a gambler at heart, my dad did what other prudent person would do. He took $190 of it and bought the latest state of the art tape recorder, one that allowed him to change tape speeds. As he tried to decide what to write about, he spotted a book on his desk, “Duel with the Witch Doctor”. In a burst of creative energy, fueled mostly by sheer panic, he wrote Witch Doctor – a song about a guy hopelessly in love and goes to see a witch doctor for advice.”

Hmm… the song Witch Doctor, featured in the movie was an original! Would this mean the songs in the movies written by Dave (Jason Lee) are all originals from Ross Bagdasarian himself? I think this is most likely so.

I can’t stand the chipmunks singing hip-hop – I guess the marketing folks hoped to mask their marketing ploy by making the bad guy force the chipmunks to sing it in the movie. So, now there are hip-hop chipmunk songs in their latest OST. Tsk tsk… That was as poorly veiled as a woman in see-thru lingerie!

Just to share, I found some interesting chipmunk videos on Youtube! Here’s one showing the full movie trailer:

Here’s the chipmunk theme song for the cartoon that I grew up with (the song with the ‘tu tu tutu’):

Finally, here’s a video of The Alvin Show – originally aired on CBS in 1961. This classic features the hit song that made the Chipmunks a number 1 hit:

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