The Chipmunks

[CensoredAlso]

But above all The Alvin Show NEEDS to be released commercially on DVD! That stuff's FUNNY! I mean, especially the Clyde Crashcup segments. heck, I think I want those MORE than the Alvin show segments.

Oh my gosh, I remember the Alvin Show! You're right it does hold up very well.

Clyde Crashcup: "That's elect for elect and tricity for tricity--electricity!" Lol

but I've noticed that when it comes to merchandising, The Chipettes always get the short end of the stick

Well yeah they're always kind of the #2. I wonder if at some point they determined that there wasn't enough of a demand for them apart from the Chimpmunks.

 

[D'Snowth]

I aways kind of thought that they could do a separate line for Chipettes in a similar fashion like Disney Princesses have their own line. *Shrug*

I k now the market is difficult for merchandising because the market is mostly dominated by boys (hence why Courage the Cowardly Dog wasn't licensed, because a pink dog wouldn't sell in a mostly boy market), but again, there's potential if they did a Princess-esque line for The Chipettes... it would just make people like myself, and a buddy of mine in the UK look like creeps walkingdown girly aisles for Chipette stuff.

But, oh heck, what do I care? I only want Jeanette stuff (maybe Eleanor too).

Speaking of which, here's another shorend of the stick situation: back in the 80s, Janice Karman had a bout of guilt because Simon was being "neglected" in the writing, so they started writing as much for Simon as they did Alvin and Theodore, but when you think about it, out of all six of them, Eleanor is constantly overshadowed, and I think that's why she hardly has any kind of a fanbase within the Chipmunk fan community: Jeanette's fanbase is HUGE, but can you blame her? She's cute, sweet, shy, nerdy, etc; Brittany has a good-sized fanbase mainly because she's Alvin's counterpart, so she gets a lot of attention; but what about Ellie? She had maybe one episode of the 80s cartoon focused on her (good one too, subtle lesson on sexism when Alvin refused to let her join his school soccer team), whereas Brittany was the center of attention in a lot of Chipette episodes, and even Jeanette's had a few episodes where she's in the spotlight, but Ellie really only had one. There is compensation however, she had a big scene in The Chipmunk Adventure (with the baby penguin and all), and she was essentially the leading lady in the Wolfman movie since Theodore was the main focus, but again, she doesn't get near as much attention and recognition as her sisters, and I think that needs to be fixed; she's a great character, like the kind they'd put on SST today for the little girls watching. People don't even realize that she's NOT a carbon-copy of Theodore, casual fans just assume that for being his counterpart, but Eleanor spends more time playing sports like soccer, basketball, football, etc, than she does baking cupcakes and such.

 

[Drtooth]

I k now the market is difficult for merchandising because the market is mostly dominated by boys (hence why Courage the Cowardly Dog wasn't licensed, because a pink dog wouldn't sell in a mostly boy market

Well, that and CN was always iffy about how they marketed things. They merchandised the heck out of PPG, then to a much smaller extent after PPG became popular Dexter stuff... NO Johnny Bravo stuff, no Cow and Chicken stuff, no Courage stuff... then they started up with KND stuff (but it wasn't hugely successful and most of the stuff was unproduced) Impossible to find Samurai Jack stuff, then mixed CN stuff with Ed Edd n' Eddy, Fosters, and Billy and Mandy (hard to find, a second series that would have added Camp Lazlo and the horrid Gym Monkey was unproduced as well) then nothing else. There was Chowder stuff and Flapjack stuff, but it was only T-shirts and Key chains at Hot Topic.... then nothing again (unless you count Secret Saturdays toys, which did poorly and Ben 10 stuff which did much better but never marketed girl characters)... now (I've said this story 5 times now) they WANTED a Symbiotic Titan toy series, but no company wants to make girls for boys lines and they canceled the show as a result... yet Jazzwares is set to do an Adventure Time line presumably with the princess characters intact (I WANT LUMPY SPACE PRINCESS!!!) yet nothing for Regular Show just yet... I want a plush Hi Five Ghost.

Anything else is Happy Meal toy promotions (I know of a Wendy's Johnny Bravo and Dexter, a BK Dexter, PPG, and Fosters, a Taco Bell Cow and Chicken, and a McD's subsisting of Fosters, Monkey, Lazlo and Squirrel boy) and a couple gumball machine toys (KND, a Fosters/Chowder set, and apparently a mixed set that had Eds... I saw the Eddy somewhere once)....

Now, I'm wondering if the lack of Chipettes is also due in part to classic purism. I've noticed a LOT of classic 60's style Alvin merchandise over the years, so there's no chance of having anachronistic characters there. But then I see a LOT of movie designed characters, and they usually tend to have the Chipettes... but then I've only seen TY Bean Bags and the Squeakuel Kid's meal McD's toys. I can't remember if the 80's line of PVC's or posibles had them or not. The only current merchandise I've seen 1980's (or rather, 90's) style was some ornaments and that Alvin with the Hula Hoop.

 

[Yorick]

I read about the plot of the 3rd CGI film recently here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1615918/board/nest/180420689?d=186406868&p=1#186406868

 

[Drtooth]

I read about the plot of the 3rd CGI film recently here:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1615918/board/nest/180420689?d=186406868&p=1#186406868

I'm gonna vomit, THOUGH it does seem like they already did that in an episode of the 80's show. But for 11 minutes instead of 89.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm gonna vomit, THOUGH it does seem like they already did that in an episode of the 80's show. But for 11 minutes instead of 89.

They did, in fact, I believe it was one of the last Ruby-Spears episodes... it was a pretty good one, another typical Alvin/Brittany feud episode since Brittany hardly did any publicity for The Chipmunks as the cruise ship's entertainment, but more than enough for The Chipettes.

And the funny thing about that episode was Brittany's luggage, which was like umpteen pink trunks and cases and junk, and to her, it was LIGHT packing, though I'm sure her side of the bedroom was probably completely empty back home.

 

[Drtooth]

So, best case scenario, it's a 90 minute clone of an episode with poo jokes, right?

Still, the entire movie seems to be based off a terrible and unfunny forced pun.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well, let's keep in mind that plot wasn't even important in the making of this movie... remember, the main reason they were even doing this movie in the first place was because of DDD.

In fact, THAT was the working title of the movie: Alvin and The Chipmunks 3D.

 

[Drtooth]

Well, let's keep in mind that plot wasn't even important in the making of this movie... remember, the main reason they were even doing this movie in the first place was because of DDD.

In fact, THAT was the working title of the movie: Alvin and The Chipmunks 3D.

Seems like a Smurf situation... like one day they woke up and said, "Ah CRAP! We marketed the movie so much we forgot to write the thing. Let's take the first idea, no matter how stupid it is and plunk one out! This thing's due to be filmed tomorrow!"

The first one was enjoyable... not great, passable, and David Cross was the only one who felt like he wanted to be in the movie... the second one, while the segment about The Chipmunks going to school and the Chipettes getting the same scam artist manager was admirable, the bad editing, lousy product placements for terrible TV shows, and the addition of Dave's loser nephew and his 3 minutes worth of "We need to get a romantic scene to market this towards girls, because all girls are stupid and want to see the same love story regurgitated out, even if it has nothing to do with the plot" ruined an otherwise meh film. And again, a random Mary sue and Marty Stu love plot EVEN THOUGH there was a perfectly good romantic plot line between the Chipmunks and the Chippettes. The Brittney/Alvin scenes were organic, the Nephew, random teacher with no point in the story bit was just there.

Now, I can't say these movies are horrible, but I refuse to see the third. I felt buyers remorse weeks later when I realized I missed Princess and the Frog with the second. of course, It took me every inch of my body to not run out of Yogi Bear and try to get into Rapunzel. Another HUGE mistake.

 

[D'Snowth]

I'm not sure I'd want the complete series of the 80s show... those DiC episodes were really cheapened in many ways (they must have lost a lot of money on TCA); the character designs were slightly improved, but the animation was "liquidy", the backgrounds were simplistic, they only had ONE person doing all of the additional voices, and he wasn't even a voice actor, he was a producer, etc.

Actually, now that I really think about it, there's another reason why I don't particularly care for the DiC episodes as much as the Ruby-Spears episodes: the writing. The Ruby-Spears episodes were really cleverly written for a Saturday morning cartoon series, my favorite example is the mock presidential elections at school, where The Chipmunks ride around in a cart pulled by a donkey, while Simon and Theodore campaign, "Don't be a donkey, vote for Alvin!"... then comes Brittany riding on an elephant for her campaign... I mean, little kids aren't going to get all of that, but it's still amusing nonetheless. The DiC episodes on the other hand were really, really cheesey; the movie episodes were clever spoofs, but the dialogue, and even in the more serious episodes, the writing was pretty cheesey.

Some of the MWS episodes were pretty good, but they were mostly either spoof episodes ("Dreamlighting", "Alvey's Angels", "The Brunch Club", etc) or clipshows/flashbacks.
I'm not sure, but it seems MWS was actually some sort of off-shoot of Ruby-Spears (which itself was an off-shoot of Hanna-Barbera).