ALVIN!
November 17, 2020 2:42 PM   Subscribe

Do you remember the 1987 animated movie The Chipmunk Adventure? More specifically, do you remember The Girls of Rock and Roll? Of course you remember, it’s been in your head off and on for over thirty years. Then perhaps you would like to see what it looks like when performed by humans?
posted by supercrayon (30 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 


Girls of Rock and Roll was a formative influence for me. I am always devastated when someone my age doesn't know it.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 3:09 PM on November 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Lo Fi Heroin: from the album Chipmunk Punk, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers's Refugee, played at 16rpm.
posted by bartleby at 3:20 PM on November 17, 2020 [11 favorites]


A Heavy Groove...
posted by Windopaene at 3:54 PM on November 17, 2020


Then perhaps you would like to see what it looks like when performed by humans?

apparently not
posted by mbo at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2020 [4 favorites]


this is, in point of fact, exactly what i didn't want to see.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 5:24 PM on November 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


Lo Fi Heroin: from the album Chipmunk Punk, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers's Refugee, played at 16rpm. yt

Gotta be a fan creation, speeding it up to 2x (32RPM, close to 33.3) still sounds like a normal guy in front of pitched backing. Regardless, speed up the original to 2x for an extra dose of fun.
posted by rhizome at 5:27 PM on November 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


Nope. That wasn't something that I wanted to see...
posted by Chuffy at 5:28 PM on November 17, 2020


Remember when Alvin and the Chipmunks defeated communism?

Dear lord, I may have seen that at the very end of high school/beginning of college. It's achingly familar.
posted by mollweide at 5:31 PM on November 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


having been born in 1985, "Diamond Dolls" is one of those songs that I just sort of grew up knowing

anyway this post is deeply cursed and I have extremely complicated feelings now
posted by DoctorFedora at 5:33 PM on November 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


The live action version makes it pretty clear that Alvin and Simon and Theodore are have always been wearing cassocks and I’d like to know more about that
posted by charismatic megafauna at 5:36 PM on November 17, 2020 [10 favorites]


Well they are chipmonks, after all...
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:09 PM on November 17, 2020 [10 favorites]


Which makes their home a chipmonastery
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:10 PM on November 17, 2020 [9 favorites]


OMG and they live with David Seville, and "seville" means city or urban center....

so the chipmonastery must be in Bethlehem, the City Of David!

posted by hippybear at 7:14 PM on November 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Jesus fuck. I remember doing layouts (drawing backgrounds) on this thing in November of 1985 and making about $125 per week. It was awful. After having a scene come back a third time, I shattered my animation disk glass with my forehead.
posted by bonobothegreat at 7:43 PM on November 17, 2020 [32 favorites]


I remember doing layouts (drawing backgrounds) on this thing in November of 1985 ...

Thank you for my childhood?
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 8:26 PM on November 17, 2020 [14 favorites]


I forgot the The Chipmunk Adventure movie! I watched it SOOOooooOOoooo much as a kid and know every word and scene and action in my soul, even after many many years. Kind of an Around the World in 80 Days vibe to it if I remember correctly though I CLEARLY need to watch it again.

I had the The Chipmunks and The Chipettes: Born to Rock album on tape and actually listened to it semi-regularly well into university not entirely ironically. That was some good shit. My parents didn't listen to music so basically The Chipmunks (and Chipettes! theirs were the better songs don't @ me) were my gateway.

I love the live re-enactment more than I feel like should be possible. THANK YOU for this.
posted by urbanlenny at 9:31 PM on November 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Oh, wow. My parents fucking hated this movie, but of course I loved it. Wow. That is truly Cursed.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:49 PM on November 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


I loved this movie so much as a kid!! I've forced my kid to watch it a few times but its charms are lost on him.
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 5:10 AM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


bonobothegreat: I used an inflation calculator and that is a little over $300. I can't believe -- well, no, I can believe you were paid so little to do work that mattered so much to kids. Thank you!
posted by Countess Elena at 8:18 AM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Back in the day when my grown daughter was little this movie was in heavy rotation at our house. :)
posted by anguspodgorny at 8:22 AM on November 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


Countess Elena:...and those were Canadian dollars. It was piece work - shaded pencil drawings that would be approved at one level and then sent back for tiny revisions by people further up the ladder..which might mean a do over, since you couldn’t always erase the offending part of the image without damaging it...and everything would end up being painted over anyway, so it felt pretty pointless. It was only my second job after school and I was afraid that quitting would “damage my reputation” or something.
posted by bonobothegreat at 8:35 AM on November 18, 2020 [6 favorites]


The Chipettes are allowed to have mostly normal clothes, but the Chipmunks are really committed to not wearing pants.
posted by RobotHero at 11:01 AM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


more 16rpm fun ovah heah: https://soundcloud.com/alvin-thechipmunkson16sp
I would suggest their marvellous rendition of Whip It, but my favourite is their version of Blondie's 'Call Me' which smacks.
posted by aesop at 12:28 PM on November 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


so I thought I'd revisit some of these. Walk like an Egyptian is downright scary at 16rpm.
posted by aesop at 12:36 PM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


My Sharona is 70's Neil Young in 90's Seattle and serenading Courtney Love.

The Ultimate in sinister liminal spaces: you're exploring a dead mall and Mony Mony starts playing over the PA. There is no electricity.

I have been day drunk in the saddest dive bar in the world. On the jukebox, Brian Krakow and the Sad Boys performing Good Girls Don't.

The slowgore? sludgecore? arrangement of Pat Benatar's Heartbreaker is genius, but I I think I need a female voice.
posted by bartleby at 3:12 PM on November 18, 2020


Wow I had Chipmunk Punk on cassette! I loved it!
posted by freecellwizard at 6:56 PM on November 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


I, uh, decided I need to watch this movie and it's as good as I remembered, but I forgot this excellent song/montage. I also forgot about Sophie the dog!
posted by urbanlenny at 6:54 PM on November 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


Diamond Dolls is a legit bop.
posted by supercrayon at 8:55 PM on November 20, 2020


I laughed at "no, I wouldn't like to see that" but really I enjoyed it. I see myself in the Simon and Theodore guys — mostly talentless but so committed to the bit that it doesn't matter.
posted by Tehhund at 8:05 AM on November 23, 2020


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