Alvin and the Chipmunks (1998 Paramount TV series)

Alvin and the Chipmunks is an American animated television series featuring The Chipmunks, produced by Bagdasarian Productions in association with Paramount Television Animation. It was the first incarnation of The Chipmunks to be presented in.

It aired on and Nickelodeon (despite that Nickelodeon Animation Studios was not being involved with the show's production) from May 7, 1998 to April 18, 2005.

Plot
The series focuses three chipmunk brothers, Alvin, Simon and Theodore. The trio have been adopted by and are living with Dave (human). Each episode finds the boys getting into trouble and new and unusual situations.

Main

 * The Chipmunks: the main characters of the series
 * Alvin Seville (voiced by ): the oldest brother and leader of the Chipmunks, Alvin is the talented troublemaker of the group.
 * Simon Seville (also voiced by ): the middle brother (also the tallest), Simon is the intelligent realist and the most responsible of the group.
 * Theodore Seville (voiced by ): the youngest brother, Theodore is the cute innocent butterball of the group.
 * The Chipettes: the Chipmunks' female counterparts and on-and-off girlfriends
 * Brittany Miller (also voiced by ): Brittany, the leader and the oldest sister of the Chipettes, is Alvin's counterpart. She is as equally vain and self-centered as Alvin. But like him, she really does care about others.
 * Jeanette Miller (also voiced by ): Jeanette is the middle sister of the Chipettes, and she is Simon's counterpart. However, unlike Simon, who stands up to Alvin easily, she does not stand up to Brittany as easily. She is also very smart, which is what she does have in common with Simon. However, she is very shy and clumsy.
 * Eleanor Miller (also voiced by ): Eleanor is the youngest sister of the Chipettes, and she is Theodore's counterpart. She shares his love for food and cooking. But she is more athletic, more intelligent, and more likely to stand up to Brittany than Theodore is to Alvin.
 * David "Dave" Seville (also voiced by ): the Chipmunks' adoptive father, the Chipettes's guardian, 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.
 * Miss Beatrice Miller (voiced by ): the kindly, absent-minded adoptive mother of the Chipettes. She occasionally babysits the Chipmunks and has a crush on Dave, even though she's old enough to be his mother. In her youth, she was part of an all-girl singing group called The Thrillers.
 * Clyde Crashcup (voiced by  during 1998 and by Brian Cummings after his death): a scientist/inventor. Clyde's "inventions" were really items that had already been invented, but with his own personal touches. His "creations" often backfired on him until his silent, level-headed lab assistant, Leonardo (diminutive, balding, and perpetually whispering in Crashcup's ear (provided by Tom Kenny)) saved him from any further self-destruction.
 * Stanley the Eagle (vocal effects by Frank Welker) - The Chipmunks' pet eagle who occasionally made appearances on the show.

Minor

 * Samantha (voiced by Janice Karman) - She is Dave's girlfriend in the series and is heavily inspired by The Alvin Show segment, Lovesick Dave and the DiC episode, Dave's Getting Married. She is also a caricature of her actress.

One-time characters

 * The 60s Chipmunks: The Chipmunks' past selves, or more likely their previous incarnations from The Alvin Show back in the early 60s.
 * 60s Alvin (voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr.): The talented troublemaker of the group.
 * 60s Simon (voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr.): The intelligent realist and the most responsible of the group.
 * 60s Theodore (voiced by Janice Karman): The cute and innocent member of the group who likes to eat a lot.
 * 60s David "Dave" Seville (also voiced by Ross Bagdasarian Jr.): The 60s Chipmunks' adoptive father, songwriter and manager, Dave's patience is tested nearly every day by 60s Alvin, usually to the point where he yells his trademark yell "ALVIN!!!". Despite all this, he loves all of his boys equally.

Episodes
List of episodes

Voice cast

 * as Alvin Seville, Simon Seville and David Seville
 * as Theodore Seville, Samantha, Brittany Miller, Jeanette Miller and Eleanor Miller
 * as Beatrice Miller
 * (1998) and Brian Cummings (1999-2005) as Clyde Crashcup
 * Frank Welker as Stanley the Eagle
 * Tom Kenny as Sam Valiant and Leonardo

Additional Voices

 * Rob Paulsen
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Jess Harnell
 * Frank Welker
 * Kath Soucie
 * Jeff Bennett
 * Dan Castellaneta
 * Kath Soucie
 * June Foray
 * Doug Lawrence
 * Billy West
 * Cheryl Chase
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * Dee Bradley Baker
 * Howie Mandel
 * Kat Cressida
 * Christine Cavanaugh
 * John DiMaggio
 * Sarah Silverman
 * Linda Cardellini
 * Jim Cummings
 * Charlie Adler
 * Edward Hibbert
 * Nancy Cartwright
 * Andrea Martin
 * Tara Strong
 * Elizabeth Daily

Development
It all started when the final Season 4 episode of the WB/Amblin incarnation, Pet Show had completed production. It was shown to the WB executives the next day, even shown to Bagdasarian and Karman, owners of the Chipmunks and Chipettes. Bagdasarian spotted the ending scene where Alvin goes mad and hits Dave repeatedly with an oar for driving him insane with his short temper. He was very furious about that scene. This caused Bagdasarian to terminate his contract with Warner Bros. There was no fifth season to conclude the series, and that was the end of it. This incarnation was cancelled by Jamie Kellner after Bagdasarian tore up his contract with Kids WB!.

After leaving Warner Bros., Bagdasarian and Karman tried to pitch the series again throughout several different studios. First came Disney. The studio didn't want to do any Halloween specials starring the Chipmunks and Chipettes, realizing it might be too dark for family films and participating in it would would damage their plans of making any further feature films, shorts, TV shows, etc. Then came Universal, who rejected their offer on a series but agreed to make two direct-to-video feature films. Sony planned to convice Bagdasarian and Karman to make a Spain-themed movie featuring the Chipmunks and Chipettes, but after seeing the box office failure of 1987's The Chipmunk Adventure, the project was abandoned.

Finally there was Paramount. Paramount was not so sharp. They agreed on Bagdasarian's offer to do a reboot, since The Alvin Show was off the air a year ago. Paramount Television Animation handled the storyboards, character animation layouts, background layouts and post-production, while Bagdasarian was in charge of voices and music. The animation was outsourced to other overseas studios, even PTA's Canadian subsidary a few times and Rough Draft Korea for the most part.

The post-production of the first season began after PTA had made the first 13 episodes. Sound effects had to be added and voices and music had to be mixed at PTA's sound services, as well as editing the episodes. Although the Ruby-Spears episodes were still the same to begin with, Paramount improved its style with their use of high-quality fluid and lifelike Disney-style animation.

Paramount wasn't pleased with the quality of the Ruby-Spears style writing because it was filled with cartoonish and surrealistic humor (which was unusual in real life), reminiscent of The Alvin Show and the Fleischer cartoons of the early 1930s. The producers felt the animation did not exhibit a distinct style envisioned for the show. At the time there were only a few choices for animation style. Usually, they would follow the style of either Disney, Warner Bros., or Hanna-Barbera. Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons had a universe that was bendy and the characters seemed to be made of rubber. The producers wanted a realistic environment in which the characters and objects could not do anything that was not possible in the real world, despite the Disney-style animation. One example with the animation being cartoonish was that the doors behaved liked rubber when slammed. The style of Hanna-Barbera featured the use of cartoon sounds, which they did not want either.

The animation remained the same while not resorting to limited animation like DiC, but started to take a noticable downgrade in quality when the second season began production. The writers began to use more original and realistic plots, although Dave retains his trademark yell "ALVIN!!!" in some episodes.

Writing
Writers, such as Dianne Dixon, Jack Enyart, Matt Utiz and Ellinor Pullen, have returned to work on the series. Two writers, Sherri Stoner and Deanna Oliver, were brought in to the series as well, having had a bad experience with the WB era before and apologized to Bagdasarian and Karman for writing these episodes during said era.

Voices
Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. and Janice Karman reprise their roles for the main characters, including Dody Goodman and Shepard Menken. Frank Welker reprises as Stanley the Eagle, and Tom Kenny became the new voice of Sam Valiant and the whispers of Leonardo. Ginny McSwain is the new voice director for the first season. Kris Zimmerman Salter came in to replace McSwain to make the dialogue more conversational and natural in the second season onwards.

Animation
Animation for the series was outsourced to various studios, such as Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS Entertainment) (first season only), Wang Film Productions, Koko Enterprises, most notably PTA's Canadian subsidary (intro and second season's Halloween special only) and Rough Draft Korea.

Alvin and the Chipmunks was made with a higher production value than standard television animation; the show had a higher cel count than most TV cartoons. The Alvin and the Chipmunks characters often move fluidly, and do not regularly stand still and speak, as in other television cartoons. The drawing count was 25,000 drawings instead of the usual 10,000, making it unique that the characters would move more fluidly.

Music
The music was composed by Tom Chase and Steve Rucker. It was strongly influenced mostly by the Murakami-Wolf Swenson episodes of the original series.

Reception
The series was received with better critical reception than its predecessor.

Toys

 * Action figures were made and came out during the start of the second season.

Tie-ins

 * Golden Book stories were made based off the series.
 * A series of comic books based off the series was made by Marvel.

Tropes
See Alvin and the Chipmunks (1998 Paramount TV series)/Tropes

Trivia

 * The show is the result of the Chipmunks and Chipettes reverting to their late 80s/early 90s character designs. Also, Tom Chase and Steve Rucker returned to compose the music for the series.
 * The show recreates elements from the Chipmunks' first TV incarnation, The Alvin Show, albeit new 90's style elements were added to rehash the entire show. Plus, the MWS/DiC closing credits sequences were re-used, but were heavily edited for the new episodes.
 * Paramount produced a new opening sequence, featuring the song We're the Chipmunks, with better animation quality and timing and the use of the late 80s/early 90s character models, of which was done by PTA's Canadian subsidiary.
 * Clyde Crashcup, Leonardo, Stanley the Eagle and Sam Valiant returned in this reboot. Both Clyde Crashcup and Leonardo's designs were updated to look more realistic and fit in more of the late 80s/early 90s style the series once had.
 * Also, both Sam Valiant and Stanley the Eagle were streamlined by DiC animator, Bruno Bianchi.
 * Unlike the DiC episode Dave's Getting Married, Samantha does not have any children of her own and is considered to be single and is also Dave's girlfriend in the series. Her appearance and voice is a caricature of Janice Karman as well.
 * The series was a result of Bagdasarian Productions' disappointment with Warner Bros. and their incarnation of the franchise due to its use of gross-out humor and adult jokes, opting to move to Paramount instead of renewing for a fifth season.
 * As a result, Paramount gave higher creative freedom to Bagdasarian Productions, opting to go back to a more family-friendly format.
 * Paramount even had a higher budget of animation for the reboot, since Disney, and even higher than DiC Entertainment's work on the show previously back from 1988-90.
 * Most of the rejected episodes from the WB/Amblin incarnation during its original run were re-written to remove the gross-out humor and adult jokes. All cameos from Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs characters have been omitted, however.
 * Paramount wasn't the first option to restart the franchise. Other options included Walt Disney Television for ABC and Disney Channel, Saban Entertainment for Fox Kids, Columbia TriStar Television (through Adelaide Productions) for syndication and Universal Cartoon Studios for Fox Kids. These options were rejected in favor of said studio, but Universal was assigned to do two direct-to-video feature films.
 * There were reasons, Disney feared that the use of darker and edgier tones in the Chipmunks halloween specials were not family-oriented at all, and participating with Bagdasarian in it would damage their plans of making any further feature films, shorts, TV shows, etc.
 * Sony tried out with the Chipmunks and Chipettes on a new feature starring them in the country of Spain. But after seeing the failure of The Chipmunk Adventure, the project was abandoned.
 * A CGI version of the franchise named  would later premiere on Nickelodeon ten years after this incarnation's series finale.
 * This was Tara Strong's first major voice work at Bagdasarian Productions.