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Trivia / The Chipmunks

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  • Acting for Two:
    • During the DiC era of the show; by then, Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. and Janice Karman did almost all of the voices themselves (notice an increase in characters who sound almost like Dave, and all the female characters have the same voice), while their associate producer, Thom Watkins, did the rest. By then, the only characters who weren't voiced by Bagdasarian, Karman, or Watkins were Miss Miller (Dody Goodman) and Lilly the puppy (Frank Welker).
    • In the original Latin American Spanish dub, María Fernanda Morales voiced both Alvin and Brittany.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty!: A rare visual example. For many years, fans believed that the infamous "Sploosh" episode had Simon and Jeanette kissing (mostly thanks to the few screencaps from the episode circulating around the internet including a cap of them leaning in for a smooch). When the episode finally surfaced briefly on YouTube in 2011, and officially released on DVD later that same year, it turns out The Big Damn Kiss was nothing more than an Almost Kiss.
  • Creator Backlash: Ross Bagdasarian Jr. is not very fond of the Ruby-Spears -produced episodes of the series, which are the first five seasons.
  • Cross-Dressing Voice:
    • Janice Karman as Theodore.
    • The Chipmunks (Alvin, Simon and Theodore) for the Italian and Japanese dubs.
    • A somewhat bizarre example happens in the Latin American Spanish dub: In the first half of the series, Alvin is voiced by María Fernanda Morales, a woman, but in the rest of the series, she was replaced by Jesse Conde, a male voice actor who normally voice old men rather than kids (like Asterix, Kozo Fuyutsuki and being also Stan Lee's voice in many of his cameos), albeit this is not very notable in this case, because his voice, just like the rest of the chipmunks, was sped-up. The same happens with Simon as well.
  • The Danza: Michael Bagdasarian (probably) voiced Michael in "Trick or Treason".
  • Dueling Shows: With Kids Incorporated, a Slice of Life series featuring pre-teen characters whom also happened to cover popular songs.
  • Edited for Syndication: 65 episodes were syndicated by Lorimar-Telepictures in 1988. They were the first five seasons, both Valentines and Reunion primetime specials, and the 11 Murakami-Wolf-Swenson episodes from season 6. In most markets, almost every episode from the first three seasons, as well as a handful from the fourth are sped up (similar to PAL) to conserve time for longer commercial breaks. Some season 3 episodes left the speed alone, but trimmed certain scenes out. In the U.S., a later broadcast on the Cartoon Network left out the the individual episode title cards from the Ruby-Spears episodes, though international markets always retained them. These title cards were originally narrated by Casey Kasem (the announcer for NBC's Saturday Morning programming at the time), but were replaced with Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.'s voice-overs for Dave and Alvin. New commercial bumpers were also added (also narrated by Ross Jr. performing as Dave and Alvin), and a Lorimar-Telepictures logo was inserted at the end of each episode from this package.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes:
    • While there have been plenty of DVDs featuring episodes from the show, many episodes have yet to be rereleased on video thanks to the show not receiving a full rerelease. It doesn't help that Bagdasarian Productions has a habit of re-releasing the exact same compilation DVDs (with maybe an additional entry or two with certain releases) year after year, under different titles.
    • Different episodes, in different forms, continually pop up on various different video sharing sites, such as YouTube or Dailymotion, though they do suffer from being pulled for copyright, whether from Bagdasarian Productions, or other companies such as Warner Bros. (particularly uploads from Cartoon Network recordings).
  • Long-Runners: While most Saturday Morning cartoons lasted a season or two at best, this cartoon lasted for eight seasons, with over 100 episodes, and spawning a number of TV specials associated with it.
  • Missing Episode: "Cookie Chomper III" was rarely rerun after its' initial airing due to its' subject matter.
  • No Export for You: The Japanese dub aired select episodes of the series. For example, Kong! and Robomunk were the only episodes from The Chipmunks Go To The Movies (the final season) to be dubbed and aired in Japanese.
    • The Hungarian dub only aired the first two seasons.
  • The Other Darrin:
    • Grandma Seville seems to gain a new voice each time she appears and Ross Jr. replaced Alan Young as Grandpa Seville in his last appearance.
    • Janice Karman voices Vinny instead on June Foray in her second appearance.
  • Real-Life Relative: In the first Italian dub (in which Cooperativa Doppiatori Cinematografici (CDC)note  covered the Ruby-Spears episodes, seasons 1-5), Dave Seville was voiced by Vittorio Stagni, the real-life father of Ilaria Stagni (who voiced Alvin since season 2). For the Chipettes, Barbara De Bortoli (who voiced Brittany since season 2) is sisters with Federica De Bortoli (Eleanor Miller).
  • Real Life Writes the Plot: "Cookie Chomper III". See write who you know example below.
  • Recycled Script: "Home Sweet Home" (season 7, episode 2a) parallels "My Pharaoh Lady" (season 5, episode 2b). In the former, Alvin claims that Michael Jackson will visit the school in exchange for votes for Carnival King (in which Ricky is also campaigning for). In the latter, Brittany bets Missy Snootson that if King Rutintootin was not real, then Brittany would resign from running from Carnival Queen. Unlike "Pharaoh Lady" (where Brittany loses the bet at the end), Alvin's fate for Carnival King is unconclusive.
  • Role Reprise:
    • Despite Jason Lee being the new Dave Seville, Ross Jr. still provides his vocals on a couple of soundtracks.
    • Goodman reprised her role of Miss Miller in Meet Frankenstein as well as Meet the Wolfman nine years after the 80s/90s series.
    • Janice Karman still provides the singing voices of Theodore and the Chipettes as well as doing their voices in two of the video games. She fully reprises her role for the 2015 series.
  • Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: In their debut episode, The Chipettes don matching pleated yellow dresses for concerts and public appearances. It was the only episode of the series to feature them in these dresses. However, when The Chipmunks Posable Play Pals line was released, figures of The Chipettes wearing the dresses were released.
  • Write Who You Know: In "Cookie Chomper III", the dog the Chipmunks adopted is named Lilly, who was named after Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman's dog, Tiger Lily. She served as the real-life inspiration for this episode, and like Cookie Chomper III, Tiger Lily was also run over by a car and died.
    • This incident also served as inspiration for elements of the Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures episode "Mighty's Benefit Plan," which features a Chipmunk parody called Elwee and the Tree Weasels. Animator Bob Jaques convinced supervising director John Kricfalusi to come up with the episode as revenge for the Bagdasarians not crediting him on The Chipmunk Adventure, and insisted that the roadkill dog be in there. Producer-director Ralph Bakshi also sublet studio space from the Bagdasarians, and witnessed the event in question. How they incorporated it into Mighty Mouse is in questionable taste, but consistent with his sense of humor.

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