Alvin and the Chipmunks

Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally known as David Seville and the Chipmunks and billed for their first two decades as The Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunk brothers named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore. The characters have since featured in several television series and films, as well as other media.

Bagdasarian provided the group's voices by producing sped-up recordings of his own, a technique pioneered on the successful "Witch Doctor". Later in 1958, Bagdasarian released the similarly engineered "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. The Chipmunks were first depicted in animated form in The Alvin Show (1961). David Seville and the Chipmunks released several more records over the following decade until Bagdasarian's death in 1972. The franchise was revived in 1973, with the characters' voices provided by his son Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and the latter's wife Janice Karman.

Through the successful franchise, the Chipmunks have become one of the most successful children's artists of all time. It has garnered two number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and won five Grammy Awards, having four Top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 and three certified platinum albums. "The Chipmunk Song" became one of the best-selling singles of all time at 5 million physical copies sold. In 2019, The Chipmunks received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1958, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. released a novelty song (as David Seville) about being unsuccessful at love until he found a witch doctor who told him how to woo his woman. Seville had bought a tape recorder and he experimented recording himself at different speeds to create a duet between him and the witch doctor. The voice of the witch doctor was in fact Seville's own voice, sung slowly but recorded at half speed on the tape recorder, then played back at normal speed, thereby speeding up the voice into a high-pitched squeaky one.

The song was a hit, holding number one for three weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, ranked by Billboard as the No. 4 song for 1958. Bagdasarian re-recorded the song for the second Chipmunks album, Sing Again with the Chipmunks, in 1960.

Bagdasarian (again as Seville) recorded a follow-up song, "The Bird on My Head", singing a duet with his own sped-up voice as the bird. It also reached the Top 40, peaking at No. 34. While driving in Sequoia National Park, Bagdasarian saw a chipmunk dash in front of him. That moment inspired him to create his chipmunk characters. He again used the same technique to pitch up the voice to create the chipmunks.

After the success of "Witch Doctor", Liberty Records asked Bagdasarian to create another successful novelty record. He then came up with three singing chipmunks who were named after executives at Liberty Records: Alvin (named after Al Bennett), Simon (named after Simon Waronker), and Theodore (Ted Keep). The Chipmunks first officially appeared on the scene in a novelty record released in late fall 1958 by Bagdasarian. The song, originally listed on the record label (Liberty F-55168) as "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", featured the singing skills of the chipmunk trio. The novelty record was highly successful, selling 4.5 million copies in seven weeks, eventually selling 12 million copies. The song launched the careers of its chipmunk stars. The song won three Grammy Awards in 1958 and was nominated for Record of the Year. "The Chipmunk Song" appeared on the Chipmunks' debut album, Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks, in 1959, and was repeated on Christmas with the Chipmunks, released in 1962.

The first television series to feature the characters was The Alvin Show. The series ran from 1961 to 1962 and was one of a small number of animated series to be shown in prime time on CBS. It was not a prime-time ratings success and was subsequently canceled after one season. Ratings improved significantly in syndication. The television series was produced by Format Films for Bagdasarian Film Corporation. Although the series was broadcast in black and white, it was produced and later re-run in color. This show also introduced David Seville as an animated caricature.