Garfield the cat must be choking on his lasagna. “Alvin and the Chipmunks” - a half-assed family film built around the singing teenage rodent characters created in 1958 for a series of singles by recording artist/producer Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. a.k.a. “David Seville” – is pushing towards $200 million dollars in box office receipts after about a month in release. That’s flat-out ridick. But there you have it. The Chipmunks movie, which mixes Jason Lee and other live actors with computer-animated versions of the titular creatures, is out-performing previous feature-film properties featuring various other ostensible kiddie faves such as Garfield and Underdog.
I’ll admit that I’m shocked. The movie, though innocuous, is by-and-large puerile even as it tries to be contemporary and hip. I’ve been covering popular culture – music, film, comedy, TV, and so on – for years, and some successes are inexplicable. That would include the triumphant return of what seemed to be a moribund Chipmunks franchise. Now, to capitalize on this rather stunning commercial coup, a 26-song Chipmunks compilation album - Greatest Hits: Still Squeaky After All These Years - has emerged from the vaults. Whether or not you can tolerate it depends on your threshold for shrill jibber. Mine is apparently low.
In the wake of his 1958 novelty hit “Witch Doctor,” Bagdasarian came up with the squeaky voices of brother chipmunks Alvin, Simon and Theodore by speeding up the playback of his own multi-tracked voice on tape. The furry trio was introduced on the single “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late),” which featured Bagdasarian’s alter ego David Seville coercing his little animal charges to sing a seasonal song. It became a hit and a holiday perennial, and spawned a cottage industry of follow-up singles, albums and cartoon shows. Bagdasarian died in the early ‘70s. Although it seems like the last time there was anything new from the Chipmunks was “The Alvin Show,” a prime-time cartoon series that ran on American TV from 1961-1962, there have been other recordings and animated properties through the years including a couple of direct-to-video animated Chipmunks movies. Bagdasarian’s son and various associates kept the property alive – and boy, did it pay off.
Maybe this is partly about the nostalgia factor – parents taking their pre-pubescent children to see the movie about those adorable icons of yore. Speaking of nostalgia, Greatest Hits: Still Squeaky After All These Years features nothing recent, in the mode of the Chips’ truncated onscreen rendition of the Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha.” Of course, the album includes “The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)” and its follow-up hit “Alvin’s Harmonica,” both of which trade on the formula of troublemaker Alvin screwing up the recording session until Seville threatens him. The same sort of dynamic crops up on other tracks – “Alvin’s Orchestra,” “Japanese Banana,” “Sing a Goofy Song,” etc. – as Alvin deliberately provokes Seville into a screaming fit by the end of the number.
There are more straightforward, supposedly cute Chipmunk interpretations of film and musical chestnuts such as “Talk to the Animals” from “Doctor Dolittle,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” from “Mary Poppins,” “Whistle While You Work” from “Snow White,” and “Do Re Mi” from “The Sound of Music”; and ‘60s hits including Herman’s Hermits’ “I’m Henry the VIII , I Am” and the Beatles’ “She Loves You,” “Please Please Me” and “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Yep. More than two dozen cuts - all done with those grating, high-pitched vocals.
Their ear-piercing interpretation of “America the Beautiful,” backed by a full chorus and orchestra, was the end for me. One or two songs? Mildly amusing. After a few more, I truly began to understand the horrors of water-boarding.
When I was a kid, there were few Disney cartoons that made me laugh more than the amped-up conflicts between Donald Duck (in his 1950s middle-class Everyfowl mode) and the mischievous, resourceful chipmunks Chip 'n Dale. These (mostly) tree-dwelling rodents were looked upon by Donald as nuisances of the highest order – and their battles invariably resulted in the chipmunks getting the better of an embarrassed, infuriated duck.
Despite my life-long affection for the blustery Donald (mostly due to the alternately hilarious and exciting comic books written and drawn by the immortal Carl Barks), I actually rooted for Chip 'n Dale in the ‘toons. On the other hand, I have no great affection for the threesome that came in the wake of C. & D. Alas, it looks like Alvin and company are back with a vengeance.
Would someone please call Pest Control?
