I was first exposed to the Chipmunks through Alvin and the Chipmunks. Then I saw the Alvin Show designs, first when the shorts were shown on Nickelodeon's Weinerville and then when Nick aired The Alvin Show (and it seems two of the Chipmunks Sing-Along videos were compilations of the music segments). Sometime later I saw the cover of an early Chipmunks record and was surprised by how they originally looked like real Chipmunks.
After not watching Alvin and the Chipmunks for quite awhile but seeing The Alvin Show frequently, I once again saw some episodes on the VHS release "School's Out for Summer", and was confused that the opening was a little different than I remembered (mainly it not including things I remembered seeing), and especially confused that the title card read "The Chipmunks", instead of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
And then Alvin and the Chipmunks came to Nickelodeon, and the opening was as I had remembered (except for some reason Nickelodeon would edit the theme so that the theme would end with the title card for the first short, played over the ending audio of the theme). I also thought it was odd that the characters looked a little different from how they did on that "School's Out" VHS. But the syndication package ends before it got to those episodes, and it seems the majority of episodes on VHS back in the early 1990s are episodes left out of the syndication package (could Buena Vista Home Video have been generous or do those later episodes have cheaper music fees?). I was surprised when I learned that "Alvin and the Chipmunks Go to the Movies" was the last season of the show, I thought that was a direct-to-video collection.
I saw the first two movies in the theaters, haven't seen them since, and haven't seen Chipwrecked. I thought they were okay. I can't believe that they had the Chipmunks resemble actual Chipmunks.