EU, GEORGIA TO SIGN ENP ACTION PLAN IN A ‘COUPLE OF MONTHS’
Civil Georgia, Georgia
June 15 2006
EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Peter Semneby told
RFE/RL on June 14 that the European Neighborhood Policy Action Plans
with Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan will be signed “in a couple of
months’ time.”
He said only minor issues remain to be negotiated with Georgia,
but he added that talks with Azerbaijan are more difficult, as
differences persist between the EU and Azerbaijan on how to address
the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
“But the slowing [down] of one will not affect [the negotiation
process with] others,” Semneby added.

4TH TRAIN WITH MILITARY HARDWARE LEAVES RUSSIAN BASE IN GEORGIA
RIA Novosti, Russia
June 15 2006
TBILISI, June 15 (RIA Novosti) – Another train with Russian military
hardware from a Soviet-era military base in Georgia has left the
former Soviet republic according to schedule, the Georgian Defense
Ministry said Thursday.
The ministry said the train had departed from the Black Sea base of
Batumi carrying combat support vehicles and trucks.
Under an agreement Russia and Georgia signed March 31, Russian troops
and hardware are to leave Georgia’s two Soviet-era bases in Akhalkalaki
and Batumi by 2008. The pullout from Akhalkalaki, about 30 kilometers
(19 miles) from the border with NATO member Turkey, is to be completed
by December 2006.
The withdrawal is being monitored by a joint Georgian-Russian
commission set up under the March agreement.
The bulk of Russia’s weapons will return to Russia and the rest of
it will be delivered to a Russian base in Armenia.

ARMENIA IS NOT READY FOR NATO MEMBERSHIP: DEPUTY SPEAKER OF ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT
Regnum, Russia
June 15 2006
“NATO membership means rebuilding relations with that organization –
something Armenia is not ready for today,” the vice speaker of the
Armenian parliament Vahan Hovhannissyan said during a roundtable with
NATO representatives. The press service of the Armenian parliament
has told REGNUM that, when asked about the future development of
Armenia’s relations with NATO and the EU and, in this context, with
Russia, Hovhannissyan said that since the Soviet times Armenia has
regarded NATO as some military organization – some alliance formed for
protecting the European democratic values. “It later turned out that
many countries join NATO not so much for adopting these values as for
feeling more protected, for gaining some cover,” Hovhannissyan said.
“Obviously, the new NATO and EU members from Eastern Europe were not
ready for that. Unlike its neighbors, Armenia believes that the key
goal of NATO membership is to attain conformity with the European
standards so that this membership be natural rather than artificial.”
Hovhannissyan noted that Armenia is signatory to the Collective
Security Treaty – an anti-terrorist rather than military organization,
whose key goal is to ensure security. Nevertheless, membership in
NATO means rebuilding relations with that organization – something
Armenia is not ready to do yet.
Asked by British delegate Franck Cook what challenges Armenia is
faced with today, Hovhanissyan said that for many years already
Turkey has been keeping Armenia in blockade and laying pre-conditions
for establishing diplomatic relations with it, which makes mutual
improvement impossible. “Turkey demands that Armenia should stop
efforts towards the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide,
that Armenian forces should be withdrawn from Nagorno Karabakh – which,
in fact, means that the whole Armenian population should leave Nagorno
Karabakh – and, finally, that Armenia should recognize the territorial
integrity of Turkey – something Armenia does not deny officially as
there is Kars Treaty, a document nobody disputes,” Hovhannissyan said.
“Meanwhile, Turkey keeps violating Kars Treaty, particularly, its
points 17 and 19 saying that railroads and other routes should be
protected and free transit of people and goods should be ensured.
When Armenia proclaimed independence, Turkey refused to establish
diplomatic relations with our country and violated one more point
of the treaty saying that the two countries should have consular
conventions,” Hovhannissyan said. He noted that by constantly demanding
compliance with Kars Treaty from Armenia Turkey is involuntarily making
more visible its own doubts concerning the treaty. Hovhannissyan said
that Turkey’s membership in NATO is not a guarantee for its neighbors
that they will not become victims of its aggression as there is a
vivid proof they may – the fate of Cyprus.

MATTHEW BRYZA TO BE U.S. CO-CHAIR OF OSCE MINSK GROUP
Today, Azerbaijan
June 15 2006
Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said on Thursday that Matthew
J. Bryza, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for European and
Eurasian Affairs, will co-chair the OSCE Minsk Group that mediates
between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh.
Bryza will replace Ambassador Steven Mann as the U.S. co-chairman.
The Minsk Group is co-chaired by the United States, France, and Russia.
Armenian President Robert Kocharian and Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev held their latest round of talks on June 5 in Bucharest,
but no progress was reported.
Oskanian told RFE/RL that he met on June 13 in Paris with Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammedyarov to try to narrow differences,
but failed to make progress.
URL:

MURALS UNVEILED AT ARMENIAN CHURCH
Cambridge Chronicle, MA
June 15 2006
The Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church, located at 200 Lexington St.,
Belmont, unveiled two historical murals and an art exhibit by artist
Daniel Varoujan Hejinian on May 28. The murals are 48 inches by 79
inches each, and are located on the side walls of the church.
They depict the baptism of King Drtad and the creation of the Armenian
alphabet.
To the left of the center altar, one mural celebrates the 1,700th
anniversary of Armenia Christianity. This panel depicts the Baptism of
King Drtad as the first Christian King in 301 A.D. Saint Gregory the
Illuminator stands on the bank of the Euphrates River and baptizes
the King, who is bowed in humility. Queen Ashkhen and the king’s
sister Princess Khosrovitookht stand behind him, wile two soldiers
witness the event. Also depicted in the mural are Mount Ararat in
the distance, and in its shadow, the Holy Echmiyadzin Church, which
was built 305 A.D. by Saint Gregory and King Drtad.
Located on the wall to the right of the center altar, the second
mural celebrates the 1,600th anniversary of the Armenian alphabet
and Armenian culture. It depicts Saint Mesrob Mashdotz who created
the Armenian alphabet in 405 A.D. for the purpose of translating the
Bible into the Armenian language. In this panel, Saint Mesrob holds
a pen while through a stream of light the alphabet floats to him
through divine inspiration. Behind him, there is the symbolic image
of Ft. Mekhitar, who in the 1700’s founded the Mekhitarist Order in
the island of San Lazarus. Also depicted in the background is the
bell tower of the San Lazarus Monastery, because its congregation was
devoted to the advancement of learning and the publication of works
in the Armenian language, in addition they established schools in
populated Armenian communities throughout the world.
The Holy Cross Armenian Catholic Church in Belmont, is the seventh
church to display religious murals painted by Varoujan.
Saints Vartanantz Armenian Apostolic Church in Chelmsford,
Massachusetts, was the first church to commission Varoujan’s religious
murals. Twenty years ago, Daniel Varoujan Hejinian completed 46 murals
covering the northern and southern walls of Saint Vartanantz Armenian
Apostolic Church. Since then, he has painted many religious murals
and paintings in Armenian Churches throughout the United States.
Varoujan has painted several corporate murals in the Renaissance style
such as the Causeway Street Mural, a five-story high mural, which is
the gateway to the North End; the murals at Fillippo’s Restaurant in
the North End; and Luccia’s Restaurant in Winchester.
For more information, visit armenianchurch-art.com.- Rosario Teixeira

G-8 JUSTICE MINISTERS DISCUSS TERRORISM, INTERNET CRIME AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION
Pravda, Russia
June 15 2006
Franco Frattini, the European Union’s justice and home affairs
commissioner, told reporters that he would propose that each EU and G-8
member state establish a central national unit to prevent cybercrime
in order to create “a real international network of cooperation.”
Frattini said he would also discuss new measures to combat illegal
immigration, focusing on the countries where migrants start their
journeys as well as transit countries. He called the black labor market
“the most dangerous pull factor for illegal immigration to Europe.”
Frattini said the EU had recently flown its first joint repatriation
flight out of Europe, an Austrian-organized mission to return dozens
of Georgian and Armenian crime suspects to their home countries,
the AP reports.
At the outset of Thursday’s meeting, Russian presidential chief of
staff Sergei Sobyanin called illegal immigration a pressing problem
for G-8 member countries.

TURKS THINK US TROOPS IN IRAQ GREATER DANGER TO WORLD PEACE THAN IRAN
The New Anatolian, Turkey
June 15 2006
The majority of Turks see the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq as a
greater threat to stability in the Mideast than the controversial
government in Iran, according to a new poll of European and Muslim
countries.
The Pew Research Center’s opinion poll released this week found that
Turks are increasingly turning away from the U.S.-declared “war on
terror.” More than three-quarters of Turks (77 percent) oppose the
U.S.-led war on terror, up from 56 percent in 2004, while 61 percent
of the participants oppose Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons.
Turkish support for the war in Iraq dropped sharply from 33 percent
in 2002, the beginning of the war, to 12 percent as of 2006.
People in Britain, France, Germany, Spain and Russia also rated
America’s continuing involvement in Iraq a worse problem than Iran
and its nuclear ambitions. Views of U.S. troops in Iraq were even
more negative in countries like Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, and Pakistan.
But the war in Iraq trumps the Iranian situation as a perceived
danger to the world at a time when the image of the U.S. and its war
on terrorism continues to drop internationally.
Even in Britain, the U.S.’ closest ally in Iraq, 41 percent of those
surveyed said the U.S. military presence in Iraq was a danger to world
peace and only 34 percent described the Iranian government as a danger.
International opinion on the future of Iraq is generally gloomy.
Majorities in most countries surveyed believe that efforts to establish
a stable democratic government in Iraq will ultimately fail. Pessimism
is strongest in Spain, Turkey, Germany, Jordan, and Egypt — in all
five countries, more than six in 10 respondents believe efforts to
establish democracy will definitely or probably fail.
Iraq is one of many issues that pushes a negative view of the U.S.,
said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.
“Last year we saw some good news in countries like Russia and India,”
Kohut said. “That good news being wiped away is a measure of how
difficult a problem this is for the U.S.
“Western countries share some points of view,” Kohut said, noting
mutual concerns about Iran’s development of a nuclear program and
the victory of Hamas in Palestinian elections. “But Iraq continues
to be divisive.”
Opinion of Bush has continued to decline in European countries, while
Muslims-populated publics remain strongly opposed to the American
president. At 3 percent, Turkey now registers the lowest level of
confidence in President Bush.
Western European nations and predominantly Muslim nations have sharply
different views on Iran, which the U.S. claims is developing nuclear
weapons.
Concerning majority Muslim-populated countries’ position towards Iran’s
acquiring nuclear weapons, solid majorities in Turkey (61 percent)
and Indonesia (59 percent) oppose it, but people in Egypt and Jordan
are divided, and most Pakistanis (52 percent) favor Iran acquiring
nuclear weapons. In addition, more people in major industrialized
nations than in Muslim-populated countries believe that Iran wants
a nuclear program to develop weapons, not nuclear energy.
West-Muslim divide on Hamas victory
Divisions between the West and the Muslim world in opinions of the
Hamas Party’s victory in Palestine’s January elections are even wider.
Fully 71 percent of Germans and 69 percent of the French feel the
Hamas triumph will be bad for the Palestinian people, among those
who are aware of the issue. Somewhat fewer Americans (50 percent)
express this view, although just 20 percent think the Hamas triumph
will be a good thing for the Palestinians. Among major U.S. allies,
only the British are divided on Hamas’ election — 34 percent say it
will be bad, while 32 percent take a positive view.
By contrast, large majorities in Pakistan (87 percent), Egypt (76
percent), Jordan (68 percent), and Indonesia (61 percent) feel that
the Hamas Party victory will be good for the Palestinian people,
among those who had heard about the election. In addition, the
Muslim-populated publics surveyed generally feel the Hamas triumph
will increase chances of a fair settlement of the Middle East conflict,
a view opposed by the West.
Some 44 percent of Turks meanwhile think that Hamas’ victory is good
for the Palestinian people, while 23 percent think the opposite.
Another significant part of the opinion poll shows that negative views
of France have increased over the past year, especially in majority
Muslim-populated countries. In Turkey, 61 percent feel unfavorably
toward France, up from 51 percent last year.
Riots of disenfranchised Muslim French youth have likely fueled this
perception worldwide, whereas for Turks, French legislation proposing
that rejection of the Armenian “genocide” be outlawed may also have
played a role.

IN MEDICAL THRILLER, BEWARE THE CURE
By Elisabeth Townsend, Globe Correspondent
Boston Globe, MA
June 15 2006
The idea for “Flashback,” Gary Braver’s latest suspense novel, occurred
to him when he was visiting his Aunt Nancy in a Watertown nursing home,
where she was dying from Alzheimer’s disease.
“At one point, something very creepy happened,” Braver said. One minute
“she was kind of babbling incoherently,” and the next “she began to
talk baby talk . . . in that high, thin, violin-wire, little-girl
voice intonation. Then she began to talk in Armenian to her mother,”
he said. But her “mother died before she was 5, so in her head she
was 80 years back.”
Suddenly, he had the idea for the book that became “Flashback.” What
if there were a new wonder drug that restores lost memory? Who
wouldn’t want a cure for Alzheimer’s disease? Some of the patients
in Braver’s newest novel might have second thoughts about it. They
are the guinea pigs in a tale in which a cure for Alzheimer’s is
found but has an awful side effect that causes either blissful or
terrorizing flashbacks.
His novel has just won the first fiction “Honor Award” for a medical
thriller from the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Boston Globe
reviewer Hallie Ephron called “Flashback” “a thoughtful book with
an intriguing premise and a sprawling plot, pulled together with a
twist at the end” from an author who “has made a career of spinning
be-careful-what-you-wish-for scenarios.”
In addition to literary awards, two of Braver’s books have been
optioned for movies. He is a vivid storyteller in novels and in person.
“I’m very cinematic, only because I was brought up on movies,” said
Braver, who lived down the street from a theater in Hartford. “I
see the movie inside my skull, and I just kind of take dictation. In
writing, you’re always doing psychodramas in your head.”
A wiry man with curly, salt-and-pepper hair, his vibrant energy belies
the stereotype of the middle-aged tenured college professor.
“The first 18 years of my life” were in Hartford, Braver said,
“and then I went to college and never went back.”
He was the only child of an Armenian refugee family. His parents
divorced when he was 5 years old, so Braver didn’t see much of his
foundry-worker father. His mother, the most educated person in his
family, encouraged him to read and excel in school. “Some outside
folks gave me scholarships” for poor but bright students heading into
science, said Braver, who majored in physics at Worcester Polytechnic
Institute.
During his sophomore year, Braver realized he was having more fun
writing for the newspaper, yearbook, and a humor magazine he founded
than doing physics. But he said the turning point came when he studied
with the late James Hensel, “a fabulous English professor” who became
a mentor to Braver. “There were five of us who were literary nerds,”
elaborated Braver. “We wanted to talk about literature after class and
so he brought the five of us up to his office after hours . . . and
we talked about books.”
He said he wanted “to grow up to be just like him.”
In 1970, after completing his doctorate in English, Braver joined
the Northeastern University faculty to teach linguistics. When
his English department chair sent out an “SOS looking for jazzy new
courses . . . to boost the body count in enrollments in the electives,”
Braver suggested a science-fiction course.
“They gagged, and they said, `This is not real literature;’ it was
kitty litter stuff,” said Braver, who as a child had “read science
fiction by the pound.”
But he persuaded them by naming such iconic authors as Mary Shelley
and Aldous Huxley, eventually filling his class with 600 students.
Braver is on sabbatical and scrambling to finish “Skin Deep,” a
psychological thriller about the dangers of women’s cosmetic surgery,
the second of a three-book, biomedical thriller contract.
He described thrillers as a lucrative if unpredictable genre. But
“textbooks pay the bills,” explained Braver, who is finishing the
11th edition of one his four college composition textbooks written
under his legal name, Gary Goshgarian. For his recent fiction, Braver
adopted a pen name that is a translation of his Armenian grandfather’s
first name, Garabed, meaning “braver person or leader.”
A disciplined author who believes writer’s block is a cop out, Braver
begins a typical day with a cup of coffee and works either at his
desk or in the Robbins Library in Arlington. He regularly puts in
15- to 16-hour days, but takes breaks to dine with his wife in local
restaurants, such as Flora near his longtime Arlington home.
Whether Braver is writing novels or teaching his favorite courses —
modern bestsellers and horror fiction — he seems to have an unerring
instinct for compelling plots.
Always looking for the what-if story, Braver doesn’t always find
his ideas so close to home. He discovered the scheme for his first
novel, “Atlantis Fire” (1980), while scuba diving around a Phoenician
shipwreck near Mallorca, Spain.
“I had no idea we’d stumbled upon a major black-market operation
selling ancient treasures to museums.
“It scared the hell out of me.”
And now he does that to his readers.
Gary Braver will sign his books from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday at the Barnes
& Noble in Burlington. Authors Among Us is an occasional series about
writers of distinction in the northwest suburbs.

LORD OF THE BLING
Rick Westhead – Business Reporter
Toronto Star, Canada
June 15 2006
When the siren sounds on the Stanley Cup final, another less publicized
annual hockey skirmish will be picking up steam: the fight between
jewellery companies to make championship rings for the winners.
Making rings for pro sports teams is a long-standing ritual that has
become big business.
In 1893, the Montreal AAAs awarded each of its seven players a plain
gold ring inscribed with crossed hockey sticks after the team claimed
the inaugural Stanley Cup.
Fast forward a century and times have certainly changed.
When the Tampa Bay Lightning won the NHL title in 2003-’04, the team
ordered gold rings that featured 138 diamonds apiece, including a
host of rare blue diamonds – sent to Israel to be “radiated” to give
them their unusual hue – making up the Stanley Cup on each ring.
Nowadays, pro sports teams are buying championship rings that are
sometimes appraised for as much as $30,000, which means orders can
run well into the millions of dollars.
In a twist fitting for the sports industry, where most everyone loves
an underdog, an upstart Calgary company called Intergold Ltd. is fast
becoming a force in the niche business.
Founded by 51-year-old Miran Armutlu, who moved to Canada with his
family from Armenia when he was a child, Intergold has become the NHL
ring-maker of choice in an industry that for decades was dominated
by larger American firms such as Jostens, a Minnesota company that
also produces high school and college yearbooks.
Intergold has created rings for the past three Stanley Cup winners,
including the Lightning.
It won’t be long after the Stanley Cup is presented to this year’s
winner that Armutlu’s company and its rivals will start their sales
pitch.
“They’re pretty aggressive,” Lightning president Ronald Campbell
said. “I might have had messages from them on my voice mail even
before Game 7.”
The Lightning, which beat the Calgary Flames in seven games to claim
the franchise’s first Stanley Cup, hired Intergold because of positive
reviews from its customers and because the jewellery concern was
willing to produce more than a dozen ring prototypes for the team. NHL
teams can give out the rings to anyone, and some clubs have awarded
toned-down versions of championship rings to scouts, arena staff,
retired players and even long-time season-ticket holders. (Not all
Stanley Cup winners have awarded rings to players. The Montreal AAAs
handed out watches after its second Cup win, and the 1915 Stanley
Cup recipients, the Vancouver Millionaires, gave players medallions,
Hockey Digest magazine reported.)
To be sure, some players and team executives are willing to part
with their rings for a price. An unnamed former member of the Boston
Bruins recently listed for sale on eBay his championship ring from
the 1972 season, when Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito guided the team to
a win over the New York Rangers. The asking price: $13,500 (U.S.)
“There is so much hard work that goes into getting these rings that
you hate to hear about situations like that,” Campbell said. “I’d
never consider selling my ring. But everybody has their challenges.
Every day you hear about a tough-luck story.”
Still, while most recipients probably wouldn’t sell their rings,
that doesn’t mean everyone is enamoured of them.
Detroit Red Wings defenceman Chris Chelios has two Cup rings – one he
received as a member of the Red Wings and the other with the Montreal
Canadiens – but he doesn’t wear either. Chelios said he gave both to
his father, Kostaf, a retired Chicago restaurateur.
“They’ve gotten pretty gaudy,” Chelios said. “They’re so heavy that
it’s almost impractical to wear them. But it’s not like anyone’s
going to say they don’t want them.”
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

THE MUNKS’ TALE: TRIO OF SINGING CRITTERS READY FOR ANOTHER CLOSE-UP
By Valerie Kuklenski, Staff Writer
Los Angeles Daily News, CA
June 15 2006
Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and wife Janice Karman have revived the Chipmunks
with a recent DVD release and an upcoming anniversary edition of the
classic Christmas show. (Handout)
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 says. “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 says. “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 says 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 says. “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 damn it, we’re
zeroing in on it.”