The Alvin Movie

The Alvin Movie is a 2018 traditionally-animated musical comedy-adventure film written by Ross Bagdasarian, Jr., Doug Langdale, Sherri Stoner, Deanna Oliver, Jon Vitti, John Swartzwelder and directed by Rich Arons. The film is produced by Paramount Feature Animation and Amblin Entertainment. The film is distributed by Paramount Pictures. The film was based off the 1961 series, The Alvin Show, the first TV incarnation of Alvin and the Chipmunks, produced originally by the now-defunct Herbert Klynn's Format Films.

Synopsis
Dave and the Chipmunks go off on a trip to New York City to rehearse for their list of new songs and perform them opening night on-stage.

Voice cast

 * Ross Bagdasarian Jr. - Alvin Seville, Simon Seville, Dave Seville
 * Janice Karman - Theodore Seville
 * Linda Cardellini - Daisy Belle
 * Brian Cummings - Clyde Crashcup
 * Tress MacNeille - Mrs. Frumpington
 * Frank Welker - Stanley the Eagle

Development
After the successful Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action films, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. decided to make an all-animated film based on his father's characters. The Alvin Show was the Alvin and the Chipmunks first animated incarnation which came around in 1961 on CBS, and Bagdasarian decided to make a film based on the 60s' animated series. Several animators, such as Rich Arons, came around to work on the movie and tried their best to make it the same as the original 60s' incarnation.

A team of writers were called in to help as well. Doug Langdale (who had previously worked on Earthworm Jim, Project G.e.e.K.e.R., and Dave the Barbarian), Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver (both had previously worked on Animaniacs and Casper), Jon Vitti and John Swartzwelder (both had previously worked on The Simpsons) were all brought in to beef up the quality of the writing. There were some funny moments borrowed from the same shows they've worked on, such as Alvin doing the "EAT DIRT!" line but altered to "EAT LASERS!" for a reason. Alvin was a chipmunk and Earthworm Jim is a talking worm in a robotic supersuit.

Production on the storyboards took 2 to 3 months. Storyboarding and re-storyboarding the movie was a different matter completely. Artists such as Travis Cowsill, Neal Sternecky, Spike Brandt, Tony Cervone, Jeff Siergey, Keith Tucker, Curt Walstead, Sean Bishop, Llyn Hunter, Dave Krocker and Alan Gibson were working on the storyboards for the entire movie. Sometimes, if the scenes are not like they intended them to look from the original script, retakes will be called. In an interview by Ross Bagdasarian Jr., he said "There was a deleted scene from the movie. Alvin and Daisy Belle were brawling and beating each other up like it's Dragon Ball Z. We had to cut that out, because people were going to think that boys will hit girls and it will cause complaint letters to come flying right into the studio."

The animation work took 6 to 12 months. Bagdasarian hired many former Disney animators to work on the movie. The animators did follow some timing corrections and animation directing. The result was very fluid and lifelike, comparing to the original Alvin Show (which had limited animation). Eric Goldberg and Jamie Oliff, two of the animators from Disney did very amazing animation of the dancing sequences. There were also some corrections that had to be done before it was ready for editing.

Writing
The writing in this film stayed almost exactly the same as in the original Alvin Show.

Voices
Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman reprised their roles as Dave Seville and The Chipmunks for the film. Others, including Linda Cardellini and Tress MacNeille, were cast as Daisy Belle and Mrs. Frumpington. Brian Cummings reprised his role as Clyde Crashcup.

Animation
Rich Arons was the main animation director and timing supervisor. He hired away many former Disney animators to work on the movie. The result was full traditional 2-D high-quality hand-drawn Disney-like animation. It really lacked the usual limited animation style used in the original Alvin Show, because of its lavish budget.

Music
The music in the movie was composed by Ron Jones and Walter Murphy. The music stayed close to the original Alvin Show as possible.

Reception
The Alvin Movie had received mixed-to-positive reviews. Critics praised for the animation and humor, while others had criticized for the use of 90's pop culture references and ruining the image of the original Alvin Show. The film didn't play well at the box office (despite the animation and humor being the only ones brilliant), and was considered to be Bagdasarian's second box office failure.

Trivia

 * This was the first film not to be distributed by Nickelodeon Movies.