When you think of Alvin and the Chipmunks, the only things that usually come to mind are the original Christmas song that launched a million cornball records and bad cartoons. Most recently, they've made their way into bad CGI movies too! But not many people realize that in 1981, Chuck Jones lent his inimitable charm to a Christmas special featuring the musical rodent trio. In the 1970's and 1980's, Chuck Jones created a number of works for television that have been largely forgotten and underappreciated. As with the "Merry Cricket" special Jon drew attention to in our last entry, Jones took a break from his anarchic Looney Tunes past and focused on telling a good story with great animation. The result is a rarely-seen take on Alvin and the Chipmunks, but possibly the best of all.
Excuse the poor quality and overlap of the segments, but this is all I could find of this rare Holiday treat. Fans of the 1960's Chipmunk cartoons should keep an eye out for a dream sequence featuring the inventor Clyde Crashcup, who in Jones' interpretation looks a lot like Dan Backslide from the classic Merrie Melodie short "The Dover Boys"!
4 comments:
Oh, I had the album adaptation of this!
Nice special. A lot better than those Road Runner films that Format Films (the same studio that did "The Alvin Show") made.
If I recall, I think this special was released on DVD about six years ago.
This was sort of half-way between the Format design and the Ruby-Spears design, huh?
Oh, and BTW, the special was actually directed by Phil Monroe. Chuck Jones was only the character designer and "creative consultant" (according to the credits).
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