36 (done) COMING ON STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE
Chipmunk Rock hadn't sold all that well, which led Alvin and Ross to reconsider what the follow-up should sound like. "Labels always loved us doing theme albums, for some reason," says Alvin. "So we came up with a fairly simple idea for the next album: songs from movies. We'd done this once before - well, I had, anyway - with The Chipmunks Go To The Movies. But the songs on that album had mainly been easy listening pop. But fifteen years later, rock songs were all over movie soundtracks. So we thought this would be a simple and fun album to do."
The song that inspired that concept was all over the radio at the time. "Survivor's 'Eye of the Tiger' was one of those monster hits you couldn't escape. So we thought, great, we'll start with that. RCA liked the idea, so we went in to record that first." Alvin did call Simon and me to tell us about the session, but said we may as well skip it. It was a single-voice song, with no backing vocals at all.
Alvin adds, "It wasn't until I went into the recording studio that I actually read the lyrics to the song. And they're actually kind of...weighty. 'Rising up to the challenge of our rival, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night.' I mean, it's not dirty or anything, but it's not exactly something you'd picture an eight-year-old singing along to. Unless maybe that eight-year-old was Simon."
Once that song had been recorded, RCA gave Ross and Alvin a playlist to work from. And, just like last time, some of their ideas were fine. "It was their idea to open up the concept so we could do TV theme songs, too. 'Greatest American Hero' and 'Dukes of Hazzard' were both good picks. But '9 to 5'? 'Arthur's Theme'? The songs were OK, if a little sleepy for the under-twelve set. But come on - those weren't exactly movies you could picture kids rushing off to see." The choices were lackluster enough that Alvin suggested that Simon and I could skip the entire recording session. "It just didn't sound like it'd be much fun for you guys. There weren't a ton of backing vocals to sing, anyway."
In fact, one song RCA suggested didn't have any lyrics at all. "The last song on their list was 'Chariots of Fire'. For those that don't know, it's an instrumental. Ross and I just stared at each other after reading it. I finally asked him, 'So, should I just stand there and hum?' We thought that idea was hilarious, so we went ahead and recorded it like that. I hummed the melody, with Stephen and Jonathan joining in. Then we dubbed me on top whispering things like 'Doesn't this song have any words?' and 'I don't think we're doing this song justice'. It was utterly ridiculous, but a lot of fun."
But Alvin's most embarrassing moment in regards to the album was still to come. "They wanted us to do a song about E.T. Naturally. I mean, the movie was the biggest hit of the year, and kid-friendly to boot. But there was no pop song from the film. Ross suggested we do a version of Neil Diamond's 'Heartlight', which was a sleepy hit song vaguely related to the movie. But they wanted something more...E.T.-ish, I guess. Which is how Ross and Janine ended up writing that slopfest 'E.T. and Me'.
"Don't get me wrong - they've written some good stuff. But 'E.T. and Me' was pretty much a first draft, whatever-came-to-mind thing. In the lyrics, I ask E.T. to do my homework, and to bring my houseplants back to life. There's this line in that song - 'Hey, E.T., you know the McDonald's on Sunset?' Sure, I bet that alien's familiar with where all the fast food joints in the greater Los Angeles area are.
"As fas as I was concerned, that song, and 'Tomorrow' from Annie, were the two really terrible tracks from that LP. But I figured, OK, the rest of the album is pretty solid, so no big deal. Then RCA releases 'E.T. and Me' as a single, and puts 'Tomorrow' on the flip side. Ugh! It may have been the first time I hoped that a single of ours would bomb." Alvin's secret wish was granted. The single went nowhere, and the Chipmunks Go Hollywood album followed suit.
"It's funny, looking back on it, though," Alvin muses. "In the late sixties, I had ground out the vocals on a lackluster album of movie songs. And then, almost fifteen years later, I more or less did the same thing. The recording process was friendlier, but I was starting to feel kind of disconnected from it all again. It didn't really bother me much the second time, though. I had two other jobs by that point. I didn't have to stay up at night wondering if I'd be able to make rent if these albums didn't sell."
Meanwhile, Ross and Janice were working on the planned Chipmunks return to television. NBC was happy with their work on the Christmas special, so they allowed them to write the treatment and submit some scripts. Once they had finished those, other writers were given scripts to write, as well. Alvin says, "One of the things that Ross and Janice told the other writers - don't just focus on Alvin. In the sixties show, Simon and Theodore were almost bit players, there just to react to Alvin's antics. In the eighties cartoon, they tried to treat all three characters a bit more as individuals."
"There were two stipulations that I needed fulfilled before I would consent to providing my voice for the second cartoon series," says Simon. "First and foremost, I wished to ascertain that the series would be one that I would not mind being associated with it. To be clear, I was not expecting deep and meaningful scripts. I simply did not want to become involved with a project that I would loathe completing. Secondly, the schedule for recording our voice could not greatly interfere with my teaching or studies."
Ross sent us a few scripts, to see what he thought. "Overall, I was pleased. A few lines and situations made me wince, but it was my opinion that young people would probably find the program relatable. Once the scheduling was handled, I gave my assent to providing the voice for Simon."
Scheduling us for the voicework wasn't easy. Simon of course was teaching several classes, and I had my bustling business to deal with. Neither of us had a ton of time to head out to Los Angeles to record. NBC handled things by arranging marathon recording sessions starting right after Christmas. This schedule worked out great for us. Simon was on break from university. There were no Safety Corps assemblies during that time of the year. And I'd be coming off my busiest stretch, at which point Grace could handle the few orders that came in.
The very first thing we recorded was the new theme song for the cartoon - "We're the Chipmunks". It was written by Ross and Janice, and since this was coming fresh off of 'E.T. and Me', we approached the song with very low expectations. Simon admits, "I anticipated the necessity putting on a brave face, and recording an insipid ditty akin to the Alvin Show theme. However, the Bagdasarians crafted a very engaging bit of pop for the theme song. The recording session was quite enjoyable, and once we reached the closing 'doo, doo, doo doo doo doo', I realized that I was actually tapping my foot to the beat. If the theme could produce such an effect on a cynical forty-something chipmunk, I can only imagine how the children watching the program would resond."
We had thirteen complete episodes to get done during those two weeks - both dialogue and songs. So we'd get into the studio in the morning, get one show's dialogue done, and then take a lunch break. After that, we'd work on a second episode's dialogue, and the record the vocals for the songs. (The backing music for the songs had already been recorded before we showed up.) We'd work for two days straight, and then take a day off to rest up our voices.
"We weren't rushed, exactly, but we stayed pretty damn busy those two weeks," remembers Alvin. "And with all the voicework we were doing, we had to do everything we could to keep our voices from running down. Plenty of hand signals between takes, lots of hot tea with our lunches. You had it worse than Simon and me, since they had you talking in your higher register - that put more strain on your vocal cords. But we got through it all pretty well."
The very first episode was your standard chipmunks-take-heirloom-pocket-watch-to-school, bullies-steal-pocket-watch, chipmunks-enlist-help-of-muscular-celebrity-to-retrieve-pocket-watch tale. And we had our very first special guest star on that episode. "Mr. T had his own cartoon in the works from the same production company," explains Alvin. "So the idea of a having a crossover episode made perfect sense, from a marketing standpoint. The idea of Mr. T helping three chipmunks get their stolen pocket watch back made less sense from a logical standpoint, but hey."
In the cartoon, the Chipmunks were all sort of star-struck when they met Mr. T. But it wasn't like that in the studio. I knew he was in that Rocky film, but that was about it. We just said "hi" and waved, and got straight to recording. Alvin adds, "He was nice and all. Wasn't the chattiest guy I've met. I don't think he was really happy about having to work in the morning. Plus, I think he was starting to see how ridiculous the whole Saturday morning cartoon business could get. 'OK, we'll start you off by working with the singing rodents from the sixties'."
After lunch, we went straight into Episode Two. The plot - we're out on tour, we pass a hotel advertising The Chipmunks performing live there, we stop in to figure out what's going on, we find out another group is using the name, we clash, hilarious hijinks ensue. The other music group is a female chipmunk trio who changes their name to the Chipettes, and that group would show up quite a bit on the cartoon as the years went by.
Which leads to a revelation which may be a bit awkward for a few of you. When people find out that Alvin, a Simon and a Theodore Chipmunk actually exist in real life, it's perhaps not surprising that they assume there actually is a Brittany, a Jeanette and an Eleanor, as well. But no, there isn't. "They are a simple bit of fiction, created by Janice," Simon reveals. "But a very shrewd bit of fiction. Adding female protagonists to the program allowed girls to better relate to the cartoon, in addition to giving our cartoon representatives some amorous counterparts."
"The Chipettes were basically just female versions of the cartoon versions of The Chipmunks," says Alvin. "Bossy scheming one, smart one, shy fat one. It was a little lazy on their part. I always thought it would've been more interesting if they had chosen different character traits for them. Or at least messed with the pairings - had Alvin and Eleanor start dating, for instance. Also, it seemed like every other episode was another boys-vs-girls competition. It would've nice if we were just friends or tour mates."
Simon explains it all rather simply. "Competition is conflict. No conflict, no plot. No plot, no cartoon."
You may have noticed that "Theodore's" female counterpart is named Eleanor, which was the name of the female squirrel whose heart I had broken almost a decade before. "Total coincidence," Alvin insists. "Ross didn't even find out about the real-life Eleanor until you told him about her, and that was after you saw the name in the scripts. I think Janice picked the name just because it sort of rhymed with Theodore." It was a little late to do anything about it by then, so I just had to suck it up and deal with it.
My favorite moment came about halfway through the two-week session, when The Chipmunks got to lay down the vocals for a song I started writing nearly twenty-five years earlier - "There's No Rock and Roll on Mars". Alvin had heard that Ross working on a space-related script, and had given me a call. "For each episode, we were given a popular song to record, or had one written for us. Each of the songs were related to the plot somehow. So when I saw Ross working on an outer-space script, I thought 'Sci-fi Theodore could probably come up with something for this one.'" Simon helped me finish off the lyrics, then we recorded a guitar-and-dual-vocal demo to send out to Ross.
Not surprisingly, the folks at RCA made some changes. They transformed it from a midtempo rock number into a keyboard-heavy 80s pop song. That made it fit in better with the other Chipmunks songs of the time. But even in its overly slick form, I was quite proud of it. Simon smiles and says, "All three of us gave our utmost on that recording. It may have been destined for obscurity, due to its placement in an animated children's program. But Alvin and I were acutely aware that the song held great meaning to you, so we gladly gave the extra effort to ensure it was as good as possible." RCA even included it on an LP of songs from the cartoon. That meant that more kids got to hear it, and Theodore got a slightly bigger paycheck.