My Friends the Chipmunks

My Friends The Chipmunks was the Alvin and the Chipmunks first full-length feature film. The film was distributed by Buena Vista Pictures, and produced by Bagdasarian Productions, Herbert Klynn's Format Productions (for the storyboards and animated the opening sequence), and Walt Disney Productions (animated for the rest of the film). It was released to theatres on November 15, 1969.

Synopsis
Jennifer, a kind-hearted girl in her early 20s, visits the home of the Sevilles to see Dave with Alvin and the Chipmunks. She becomes the Chipmunks' new nanny.

Characters

 * Jennifer (voiced by Julie Andrews) - The Chipmunks' new nanny. She likes to sing and dance, and has an interest in animals.
 * David "Dave" Seville (voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.) - The Chipmunks' adoptive father, songwriter and manager, Dave's patience is tested nearly every day by Alvin, usually to the point where he yells his trademark yell "ALVIN!!!". Despite all this, he loves all of his boys equally.
 * Alvin, Simon, and Theodore (all voiced by Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.) - Three rambunctious singing Chipmunk kids who mostly sing in barbershop. Alvin is the talented troublemaker of the group. Simon is the intelligent realist and the most responsible of the group. Theodore is the cute and innocent member of the group who likes to eat a lot.

Development
When The Alvin Show was cancelled after one season on CBS in 1961, Ross Bagdasarian, Sr. had decided to make a film based on the Chipmunks. The decision was to give the film a more Walt Disney-like feel, so he pitched the film to Walt Disney, which he accepted.

Animators, which came from Disney shorts, such as Glen Keane and Dick Lundy, helped out with the animation of the film.

The film is noted for being, along with The Jungle Book (1967) and The Aristocats (1970), the last film project to be approved by Walt Disney himself, as he died in late 1966, before the film was released. (However, Walt did work on a few projects before his death as well, most notably the majority of Disney's animated films that came out in the 1970s. Most notably The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which is a compilation of three featurettes)

Format Productions handled the storyboards for the entire film, and Chuck Harriton animated the animals in the opening sequence. The rest of the film is animated entirely by Disney.

Writing
The film was written by Ross Bagdasarian Sr., Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Tedd Pierce, and Ernest Lehman.

Animation
The animation resulted in a peculiar mix between the cartoony Disney style (The Chipmunks and Dave for the entire film), the cutesy and realistic Disney style (the animals for the rest of the film), The Alvin Show 's distinctive animation style (which could be spotted only in the opening sequence for the animals in the forest), and the rotoscoped animation (Jennifer is an example). This was due to Format Productions suffering from low budgets in their animation for only the opening sequence, while Disney animated the rest of the entire film.

Music
The music scores were composed by Irwin Kostal.

Trivia

 * Jennifer is the only character in this film to be rotoscoped in a similar manner to Disney and Fleischer Studios' rotoscoping techniques. Though the Chipmunks and/or Dave would be rotoscoped for the dancing sequences while on-model.
 * The Chipmunks and Dave, however, were animated in a Disney style throughout the entire film.