Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks or simply The Chipmunks, are an American virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore who are originally managed by their human adoptive father, David "Dave" Seville.
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" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. "David Seville and the Chipmunks" released several more records over the following decade until Bagdasarian's death in 1972. The franchise was revived in 1979 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.
The Chipmunks were first depicted in animated form in The Alvin Show, which began broadcast in 1961. The characters have since featured in several television series and films, as well as other media. In 2019, the Chipmunks received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
History with the Macy's Parade[]
The Chipmunks first appeared as costumed characters back in 1961 to promote the short-lived cartoon series, "The Alvin Show", which was running on CBS at the time. The walk-arounds only appeared in the aforementioned year and were retired shortly afterwards.
However, the Chipmunks would continue to appear as walk-arounds throughout the early 80's. In 1981, guest star Donny Osmond mentioned the upcoming animated Christmas special, "A Chipmunk Christmas", which was set to air on NBC the following month. In 1982, one year before their next cartoon debuted, they appeared on the Showboat float along with the "Show of Hands U.S.A" performance group. In 1983, they appeared once again as part of a pre-parade show, singing "Tomorrow".
The Chipmunks' biggest role in the Parade by far came in 1986, when the Samuel Goldwyn Company sponsored a float based on the movie "The Chipmunks Adventure". The falloon featured a hot air balloon floating above (recycled from the 1971 Smile balloon and the 1963 Elsie the Cow balloon), with the Chipmunks and the Chipettes as walk-around characters around the float.
The falloon was retired that same year and the hot air balloon would be recycled yet again into Babar the Elephant in 1991. Their final known appearance would be in the 1992 Parade, where they appeared on the Stagecoach float as guest stars.