1960 had just begun when Simon and I joined Jack in the studio to record "Salt Peanuts" and "Uh-Huh". After we had finished, we sat down in a conference room with a few guys from Hanover. They wanted our input on which song should be the A-side of the single - the one Hanover would try to get radio stations to play.
"I think we should go with 'Salt Peanuts'." I said. "It really cooks, and it shows off another side of our group."
"That is difficult to argue against," Simon admitted. "However, the other song is a more logical step from our debut. It may be prudent to promote that one. Or perhaps both songs are worthy of being promoted."
"A double-sided hit?" I asked. This wasn't uncommon back in the fifties. Sometimes, both sides of a single would become hits. For instance, RCA had released "Don't Be Cruel" and "Hound Dog" by Elvis Presley on the same single, and both songs had managed to hit number one.
The guys from Hanover weren't too sure about that idea. The label was kind of small, and they probably didn't have the resources to push two songs at once. After we discussed it some more, they asked if we had any other songs ready, and Simon told him we were about set with two or three others. So it was suggested that we record those the following week, and then see if we had a better idea what to do.
The next Saturday, we came back in and laid down two new songs we had finished - "Zowee" and "Ding Dong". Both were pretty solid numbers, although none of us thought they were quite as good as the previous two. That meant we still had no clear choice for the A-side of the next Nutty Squirrels single. After a second lengthy meeting with Hanover, we finally just told Hanover to put out whatever they thought would work the best.
They eventually decided to release all four songs on a seven-inch record, two per side. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Record labels had been doing this for years, calling them EPs (short for "extended play"). But Hanover insisted this wasn't an EP - it was a "double single". Yes, that's what they called it - a double single. They told record stores that it should be priced as a single, and kept with the other singles. From what I understand, some record stores did and others didn't. To make things worse, the label design didn't even make it clear which song was supposed to be the hit. This may have been on of the reasons that the record sort of slipped out of sight without reaching the chart.
The picture sleeve for the "double single" was actually pretty clever. They set those two ceramic Nutty Squirrels up against a red background. A small pile of peanuts, still in their shells, stands next to me (or next to "the one without glasses"). Next to Simon ("the one with glasses") is a small pile of crushed peanut shells, suggesting Simon had eaten his. ("Simon" was the fat one in the Squirrels.) Simon says, "The sleeve was indicative of the creativity that drew me to Hanover Records originally. If only their innovative plan for the single itself had been as successful."
Undaunted, Hanover had us keep return to the studio several times to record enough material for a full-length album. Since The Nutty Squirrels were a more adult, jazz-themed act, they thought we'd do better in the LP market than we had with singles. Simon and I were still on something of a tear at the time, so we had little trouble coming up with enough material. Either I'd get a beat going, or Simon would strum a few chords, and soon we'd be "doo be doo wah"ing away. Not everything on the album is all that timeless, though. You can sort of tell that "Something Like That" was sort of tossed together. But I think as a whole, the first Nutty Squirrels album holds up as the best LP I've ever played on. Just last week, I was cleaning house, and I found myself singing the vocalizations from "Bang!". Those melodies do seem to find a way to burrow into your brain.
Unfortunately, Hanover Records shut down operations right after the album came out. There was no money for promotion, and they couldn't restock stores if they sold out of them. As such, the album more or less "died on the vine". It's never been reissued, and has never seen a CD release. I've heard rumors that Steve Allen had kept the masters, but lost them in a move in the late 1960s. Whatever the story, I've held tight to my vinyl copies, and kept a few of them sealed. Maybe someday, a reissue label will be able to create a CD master from one.
I was pretty torn up when Hanover went under, but Mr. Burland and Mr. Elliott came to the rescue. They put Simon in touch with some people at Columbia Records, and a few days later, we were sitting in their offices. The meeting started with them saying all the right things to us - how much they loved that "Uh-Oh" song, what a shame the LP didn't take off, and so on. But they eventually got around to business. They had lined up a syndication company that was interested in doing a cartoon show based on a Columbia act, and Columbia thought the Nutty Squirrel characters would be perfect for that. Not only that, but they wanted the cartoon on air as soon as possible. In short, Columbia wanted to sign The Nutty Squirrels, under the assumption that we'd also be hosting a cartoon show. I completely expected Simon to scoff at the idea, but he actually seemed willing to go along with it. "By the spring of 1960, after several delays and reports of problems, Mr. Seville and Liberty Records had ceased discussing the proposed Chipmunks animated series. I was under the impression that they had simply abandoned the project. Thus, an animated series with the Nutty Squirrels would not have been in direct conflict. In addition, I was eager to make a good impression with the new larger record label, therefore I decided to assent to the proposed series."
We both agreed to do the show, since our role in the cartoon was going to be minimal. The TV syndication group had already purchased a stack of completed cartoons from Europe and Asia, and were busy redubbing them with new dialogue. All they wanted from us was a "framing device" - some short Nutty Squirrels animation to put at the beginning and end, to sort of tie everything together. They made it even easier for us by using "Uh-Oh" as the backing sound track to all of the one-minute bits. We did one recording session, said "The Nutty Squirrels present..." three or four times, and that was the entire effort we had to put in to "our cartoon".
The Nutty Squirrels intros were pretty weird. One involved "me" trying to shoot an apple off of "Simon's" head with a bow and arrow. Simon keeps interrupting my archery by taking bites out of the apple, until I threaten to shoot him in the face. At that point he just stands still and sweats as I take aim. The arrow then drops to the ground before I can fire it, and it slowly makes its way across the ground like an inchworm. Simon then picks it up and impales it on the apple. End of cartoon.
The Nutty Squirrels Present was sent out to syndication in September of 1960. It apparently did OK, at least in the larger cities. The syndicate had some trouble selling it to smaller markets. The small town stations must have considered a cartoon starring beatnik squirrels to be...I don't know, subversive? Something like that. Anyway, I think it was pretty much done playing in repeats within two years, and it was totally forgotten soon afterwards. But as strange as the show was, I did enjoy watching beatnik-me on the screen every week.
While the Nutty Squirrels cartoon made some folks a little money (including Simon and me), its main effect was to light a fire under the rumps of the folks at Liberty Records. They figured if that slapped-together show could turn a profit, one featuring the "real" singing rodents would do even better.
The original idea for the Chipmunks cartoon had been to just animate the drawings that had appeared on the first album and single sleeves. Each of the chipmunks was going to wear different color baseball caps so viewers could tell us apart at a glance - red for Alvin, blue for Simon, and green for me. (Thus explaining Dave's question to us earlier.) But the characters on the albums were rather complex as early 1960s cartoon characters went, and apparently there were issues trying to animate them. This was what led them to put the entire cartoon series on hold.
But once they saw the Nutty Squirrels cartoon, they finally hit upon the obvious solution - scrap the early design, and start over from scratch. Someone at the animation studio sketched three vaguely chipmunk-looking things, probably as a rough draft. The three characters were drawn very simply and distinctly - one short with a baseball cap, one tall with glasses, one chubby. They further differentiated them by using the color scheme for their sweaters that they had originally planned for their hats - red for Alvin, blue for Simon, and green for me. They also drew the sweaters long enough to reach over their feet, which I can guarantee was done to save the animators the trouble of having to draw legs. I don't have an explanation for that weird starfish-blob hair on the top of their heads, though.
Simon and I had another little talk up in the treehouse, and we decided to provide the voices for the Chipmunks show. The scripts may have been locked into the "Alvin gets into mischief and Dave yells at him" mode, but they weren't too bad, and they'd occasionally throw some good jokes in there. One of my favorite ones had Dave threatening to ban Alvin from watching television, to which Alvin responded, "You mean, I can't even watch me?!" That sort of joke would barely be worth a smirk on The Simpsons, but on our show, it was wonderfully self-aware.
One thing we didn't really think much about at the time - the writers of the TV show decided to have David Seville not just be our producer, but our surrogate parent. That was sort of a natural progression from the records, where Dave often sounded like he was trying to discipline us rather than just produce us. Putting us in his home gave him a lot more opportunities to yell "AL- VIN!", which honestly was pretty much the whole point of the cartoon. We were fine with that, but we didn't realize that people would start assuming that this TV show was mirroring reality. That's probably the biggest misconception about The Chipmunks, in fact. I've lost count of how many times I told somebody, "Dave was a good songwriter and producer, and he got us signed to a deal. But no, we never lived with him."
Back in that era of television, it was pretty standard for network shows to have a regular sponsor, which the stars of the show would have to shill for. We had a fairly good sponsor as these things went - General Foods. That meant we had to do quick ads for Jello and whatnot. In addition, there was room for two musical numbers per episode. Most of the time, the studio would use songs we had already recorded (and released) that they had done some animation for. But occasionally they'd have us record a song specifically for the show. They especially liked writing episodes where we visited foreign countries, so they could write us a dumb little number about that country for us to sing.
I didn't really enjoy recording the dialogue for the show. Not only was the cartoon Theodore significantly younger than I was - roughly half my age at the time, actually - but he was sort of a clueless goofball. So I wasn't really playing myself. I actually had to act the part. and I'm really not much of an actor. "More innocent, Theodore," was the direction I was given over and over. That, and "can you take it again, a little clearer?" The director was terrified that our squeaky voices would be too hard for middle America to understand, so he had us read... each... line... very... very... dis-tinct-ly. I usually sounded like a little kid trying to read a difficult book out loud.
One part of doing the show that I did like was working with June Foray. June is one of those mainstays in the voiceover business, who has done more shows and characters than you can possibly count. Granny, Tweety's owner on Looney Tunes? Her. That creepy Talking Tina doll on Twilight Zone? Her. Not only that, but she appeared on a number one single five years before I did! (Dig out your dusty copy of Stan Freberg's "St. George and the Dragonet" - that's her as the maiden.) On our show, she played our befuddled neighbor Mrs. Frumpington. A rather thankless role, but she gave it all she got, and her performances always inspired me to do better on my own lines. June was great to chat with between takes, and she's almost as short as me, to boot. We didn't hang out outside the studio or anything, but I always had fun when she was there with us.
The Chipmunks cartoon finally debuted in the fall of 1961 on CBS-TV, in prime-time, no less. And it wasn't until then that I saw that the title of the cartoon wasn't The Chipmunks Show, or even Alvin & the Chipmunks.
It was The Alvin Show.
I'm sure if I had asked, they would have told me that the title wasn't meant as a slight against Simon and me. That they didn't want to call it The Chipmunks Show because that sounded like a nature show, and that the name was referencing Alvin taking over the show in the opening montage. But back then, I was pretty much convinced that it was given that name in retaliation for Simon and me doing the Nutty Squirrels cartoon. To make matters worse, in several of the musical segments, they have me playing bass, and Simon playing drums! I'm sure the script just said "the Chipmunks are playing instruments", and the animators didn't know (or care, really) who played what. But it was hard not to take that sort of mistake personally.
Once the cartoon debuted, the "rebranding" of the Chipmunks began. All of our previous albums and singles were rereleased with new picture sleeves featuring our TV likenesses. The new artwork was simple and rather flimsy, but it did do a better job at tying the "Chipmunks brand" together. The picture sleeves with the old artwork have become harder and harder to find as the years have gone on, and a lot of people aren't aware there even was an earlier (and more accurate) artistic rendering of the Chipmunks. In fact, one friend of mine came across one of those old-style record sleeves at a flea market a few years back. He bought it for me, thinking it was "some kind of weird bootleg" that I'd enjoy owning.
At the same time the new sleeves arrived at record stores, other Chipmunks merchandise began showing up in other shops. There hadn't been much in the way of Chipmunks items for sale up until that point, in part because there was no easy way to tie it back to us. ("Look, everybody - it's those cheeky Chipmunks that sing those songs on the radio!") But the cartoon instantly gave us an easy-to-identify visual. Stuffed animals, coloring books, drinking glasses and more began showing up in stores. And thanks to Simon's far-sighted contract negotiations, we three brothers saw our trust funds begin growing faster and faster. To all those people in the early sixties who bought the Chipmunks trace-and-color books, or the full set of Chipmunks Soaky soap dispensers, belated thanks!
There was one rather bizarre thing about those early promotional items. A lot of the time, the color scheme was all wrong. There are several toys where Alvin wears yellow, or where Simon and I have each other's colors on. This seems especially confusing to people now, since the cartoon is clearly in color. Couldn't the manufacturers have just watched the show, to see what colors to paint the characters? Well, here's the weird reason why: although the cartoon was shot in color, it was originally broadcast in black and white. Color standards for television hadn't quite been settled on yet, so we didn't appear in color on TV for another few years. In other words, at the time, no one but the animators really knew what colors we were wearing - not even us!
I never met the guy who drew that first sketch of Alvin, Simon and me. If I ever did, I'm not sure what I'd say to him. Did he have any idea that that chicken scratch he made would end up being my public persona for over five decades? Then again, I'm pretty sure I've made far more money off of his picture than he ever saw. Maybe I should be thanking him, and taking him out to dinner.