The Chipmunks

[D'Snowth]

I'm surprised they subverted the traditional 555 fictional phone number, and gave Brittany an actual phone number. Out of curiosity, and I looked up the number on Google, and the very first result I got was for the sales department for Apple computers.

 

[Colbynfriends]

In some behind the scenes news, a Storyboard artist was fired, paid half what she was supposed to be paid, was told the sequence was no good, yet it ended up being used in the final show.

Owch...

wanting to go into this industry myself hurts my heart.

Storyboard Artist Accuses Bagdasarian Productions of Unethical Behavior

 

[D'Snowth]

I'll be honest, even though I've always respected and admired Ross and Janice for being very careful and protective of the franchise and all of their intellectual properties - especially after learning their lesson from selling out to Universal in the 90s (still wish JHC would have taken a hint from that, even though Disney did eventually handle the Muppets better than Universal ever did with the Chipmunks), I've also always been under the impression that they're not exactly the easiest people to work with. Even though the storyboard artist has now retracted her statement, the fact that she not only came forward with her claims, and it prompted other former Bagdasarian employees to crawl out of the woodwork to do the same, seems to shed a little new light on that.

 

[Pig'sSaysAdios]

Her retracting her statement only makes it look more suspicious. Bagdasarian probably bribed her or threatened to sue.

 

[D'Snowth]

If that's the case, I would probably suspect the latter, because they seem very quick to sue people for various different reasons.

 

[Drtooth]

Her retracting her statement only makes it look more suspicious. Bagdasarian probably bribed her or threatened to sue.

This news is pretty disappointing. They do seem like they're a bit defensive about their properties, and I can agree with that on that level. But harassing storyboardists and being that nasty about it? That really doesn't sit well with me. I understand being a little frustrated by the animation process, but it's very disappointing to see this very dark side of the creators. They certainly could have had more tact and patience with this, and maybe worked with the storyboard artists instead of such mean spirited techniques. Then again, David Cross did say that Janice was like Hitler... and he has some stories you can find on youtube about other bad experiences he had with those in the entertainment business (an especially nasty one about Jim Belushi).

 

[D'Snowth]

Then again, David Cross did say that Janice was like Hitler...

That turned out to be misinformation; there was another female producer on Chipwrecked who gave him a really hard time when they were filming. He actually said that both Janice and Ross were really kind, caring, and great people to work with. The other unidentified female producer, not so much.

 

[D'Snowth]

This new week's worth of episodes feel like the series is currently in a hiccup, because it's like we're going back and forth between good episodes and meh episodes. "Brittany the Body Snatcher" was really funny (and I know for sure it sent the Alvittany shippers flying high), but the "Agent Smith" episode wasn't really executed that well, and yesterday's new episode was another standard Alvin trying to impress Girl Of The Week episode that fell flat. I mean at least when Alvin gets him and his brothers in trouble, the situation always call for them to bring their A game (no pun intended) to figure how they're going to get out of it; Alvin trying to impress a girl he currently has the hots for gets a little stale and tired.

EDIT: Okay, so today's chain-of-deals episode was a good one, so this has been a roller coaster week of new episodes.

 

[D'Snowth]

The new episodes have been really, really fluid this week, I honestly can't tell if it's because they were animated at a higher framerate, or if it's the result of Nick speeding up the episodes again . . . I somehow suspect the latter, because even the main titles are suddenly much more fluid than they used to be.

That being said, I think "Alvin's Wild Weekend" was perhaps the best episode fo the season so far.

 

[Drtooth]

There's something off about how the framerate looks to me. Like they removed the Coconut Effect of making the show grainy to look more like a professional film. Something they've done with all CGI movies, actually. Like when I saw Beetlejuice on an HD TV at someone's house and the HD filter took the film grain away and it looked like a cheaply taped daytime soap opera. I don't think I like the look of that.

But I agree, I loved Alvin's Wild Weekend. It had the right amount of cartoony to grounded humor, and I genuinely felt something when Dave angrily crapped all over Alvin's father son one on one bonding experience, causing Alvin to run up to his room, extremely hurt. We got some great Dave being driven crazy in this episode, too. A solid Alvin and the Chipmunks cartoon all the way around. Loved Simon and Theodore being absolutely disgusted by the fact Mrs. Miller was watching them.

I also liked the bike theft episode for expanding on the even worse version of Barney Fife they have as a police officer, giving him something more than just being a gag character, but not by too much.