Pasadena Star-News, CA
June 17 2006
The Munk’s tale
By Valerie Kuklenski, Staff Writer
In 1958, a young father in Van Nuys who supported his family working
as a songwriter came up with a novelty group of three singing
chipmunks, taking them from hit records to an animated TV show.
Nearly 50 years later, his son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., and his wife,
Janice Karman, have made that imaginary trio – Alvin, Theodore and
Simon – their livelihood and their life.
It wasn’t in Ross Jr.’s early plans. He was a sports fanatic as a kid
whose dad had no expectations of hanging out a Chipmunks & Son
shingle someday. What changed all that was his father’s sudden death
from a heart attack when Ross Jr. was just 21.
"He was like the Armenian version of Zorba the Greek, you know?
Vital, virile, loved life, funny," Bagdasarian recalled recently over
lunch. "So when he died in 1972 at the age of 52, that was like,
honestly, the universe had turned completely upside down."
The Chipmunks at the time were mothballed, the elder Bagdasarian
having decided they had run their course through recordings and a
couple of TV series. He had purchased vineyards in the San Joaquin
Valley and was making wine for various labels when he died.
"I really didn’t want his memory to pass away that quickly, and I
thought the surest way of giving that kind of life was bringing these
characters back again," Bagdasarian said. "Now, being a complete
idiot, I had no idea how difficult that would actually be."
He invited his sister and brother to join him in the endeavor, but
they passed. "Not Let us get back to you, we’ll think about it.’ The
answer came startlingly fast: Not a chance.’"
So he went to law school and got involved in the family wine
business, always thinking about orchestrating a Chipmunks comeback.
Meeting Janice Karman, a girl with a creative streak and fond
memories of "Alvin and the Chipmunks," in 1978 was fortuitous.
"On our first date, he brought me to his father’s office and showed
me the films, the cartoons, and reignited my memory and asked me if I
thought the characters were viable," Karman said.
"And I said I don’t know why they wouldn’t be – I loved the show."
They got involved, personally and professionally, and began pitching
the franchise at the New York Toy Fair and other outlets, but there
were no takers.
Then late one night, a bored radio disc jockey somewhere back East
decided to put on a Blondie record and speed it up – just as Ross Sr.
had done when he created the Chipmunks’ sound by double-timing his
own slow-tempo harmonic vocals.
"He told all his listeners that it was the latest and greatest song
from Chipmunk Punk," Karman said. "His switchboard started lighting
up and he got inundated with calls asking where we can get this
album. And a record company heard about this and called us and said,
Are you interested in doing an album called "Chipmunk Punk"?’
"It wasn’t really punky. It was Billy Joel, Blondie. And it sold a
million overnight and then people were willing to have lunch with
us."
More popular records led to a TV deal with NBC for specials and, in
1983, a new series that ran for eight seasons. With Bagdasarian and
Karman writing, producing and recording the voices, it stayed true to
the boyish characters, originally named for three executives at
Liberty Records, and their paternalistic manager, Dave Seville.
Alvin, wearing the baseball cap and the oversize A on his jersey, is
the troublemaker, while lean, bespectacled Simon is the voice of
reason, and Theodore oozes good-natured charm.
Cranking out all those episodes wasn’t easy, and they often were
frustrated by the compromises in quality that stemmed from the volume
of work and budget constraints. "(Animation) would come back from
overseas and there’d be no head on Alvin and you go, Geez, that’s a
problem,’" Bagdasarian recalled.
That inspired them to make a feature that would allow them to create
the rich look they wanted. But midway through the production of "The
Chipmunk Adventure," the director quit, and Karman, then pregnant
with her first child, took over the job.
The production ran horribly behind schedule and they found themselves
farming out animation work to every artist in the field they could
find.
"It was just an extraordinarily tough time," she said. "But I learned
so much. And you’d better hold onto that, because when you feel like
you’re drowning, you have to hold onto something. I’m learning!"
Now that Bagdasarian Productions owns all rights to the characters
following the settlement of a lawsuit against Universal Pictures,
Alvin, Simon and Theodore appear to be poised for another comeback.
"The Chipmunk Adventure" came out last month on DVD, the first
Chipmunks production in that format, and "Alvin and the Chipmunks: A
Chipmunk Christmas" will be out in September in a 25th-anniversary
edition of the holiday show.
Bagdasarian and Karman have a deal with 20th Century Fox for another
feature, this combining computer-animated Chipmunks and a live-action
Dave. If all goes according to plan, it will be released in 2008, the
Chipmunks’ 50th-anniversary year.
And Karman is shopping a TV series titled "Little Alvin and the
Mini-Munks," a show designed to help preschoolers and their parents
understand and cope with emotions.
This time the Chipmunks are large cuddly puppets who talk, play and
sing with Karman on camera. When the show goes into production, it’s
likely to continue as a family affair with Karman on camera and
Bagdasarian and Karman recording the voices and writing scripts and
songs. Daughter Vanessa, now 19, may be brought in as a production
assistant, and there’s talk that son Michael, 16, may do one of the
voices.
"I’m so cheap," Karman said with a laugh.
"This is the beauty when you don’t pay yourselves," Bagdasarian said.
"People say, Oh my gosh, you sold this many videos.’ But I’m sure if
you work it out by the hour, we’re way under the minimum wage."
Bagdasarian readily admits that he and his then-girlfriend were naive
at the outset about how much time and energy producing and selling
animated entertainment required, even with an established product
like the Chipmunks.
He optimistically thought it would take about a year to get the
business up and running, "but after that, the oars go in the water by
themselves, the thing just has a life of its own, but we will have
helped relaunch it." At the time, Janice thought that sounded
reasonable.
"That’s 1978," Bagdasarian said. "Just off by a little."
He says just like actors who come to Hollywood expecting to hit the
big time after six months to a year, "It’s the time thing that throws
most people off.
"I missed it by 31 years," Bagdasarian said, "but darn it, we’re
zeroing in on it."