The Alvin Show

''The Alvin Show'' is an American animated television series that aired on CBS in the early 1960s. This was the first series to feature the singing characters Alvin and the Chipmunks. ''The Alvin Show'' aired for one season, from October 4, 1961, to September 12, 1962 and was originally sponsored by General Foods through its Jell-O gelatin and Post Cereal brands. Although the series was created in color, it was initially telecast in black and white. It was later rebroadcast in color from 1962-65 for Saturday mornings on CBS and aired again Saturday mornings in 1979.

The series rode the momentum of creator Ross Bagdasarian Sr.'s original hit musical gimmick and developed the singing Chipmunk trio as rambunctious kids–particularly the show's namesake star–whose mischief contrasted to his tall, brainy brother Simon and his chubby, gluttonous brother Theodore, as well as their long-suffering, perpetually put-upon manager-father figure, David Seville. The animation was produced by Herbert Klynn's Format Films. The pilot episode, an early version of the fifth episode "Good Neighbor", was written and produced to sell the show to CBS. The actual show featured a re-worked version, which aired as part of the fifth episode. With producer Fred Calvert (who would later work on ''The Thief and the Cobbler'') calling them in, the opening sequence was animated by Bobe Cannon and assistant animated by Iwao Takamoto.

Each episode consisted of a Chipmunks and Clyde Crashcup segment, both of them seven minutes long. Following each segment was a musical number with Dave and the Chipmunks. Most of the songs came from the first three albums that had already been released by the time the show premiered (''Let's All Sing with The Chipmunks'', '' Sing Again with The Chipmunks'', and ''Around the World with The Chipmunks''). By the second half, all the songs from the new fifth album, '' The Chipmunk Songbook'', were also featured. In addition to the non-album '' Alvin for President'', three song segments were created that were never officially released on any album or single. They were ''Clementine'', ''Maria from Madrid'', and ''Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair''.

The show was followed in 1983 by another Chipmunks series, ''Alvin and the Chipmunks'' which aired on NBC.

Syndication

CBS reran the series on Saturday mornings after the show's prime time run ended in 1962.

In the mid to late 1960s, the individual show segments were culled together and sold as a syndication package under the title ''Alvin and the Chipmunks''. The original episodes began airing under the ''Alvin and the Chipmunks'' title on NBC Saturday mornings in 1979 for a short period.

Ross Bagdasarian Sr. died of a heart attack on January 16, 1972, seemingly bringing to an end any further Chipmunk productions. Years later, his son, Ross Jr., picked up on a disc jockey's joke and produced the album '' Chipmunk Punk'' in 1980. The success of ''Chipmunk Punk'' spurred renewed interest in a new animated series by Ruby-Spears, which launched in September 1983 on NBC and was titled ''Alvin and the Chipmunks'', with Ross Jr. taking over for his father as the voices of Alvin, Simon, and Dave Seville. His wife, Janice Karman, voiced Theodore, as well as The Chipettes, who are the Chipmunks' female counterparts. The show ran until 1990, with episodes after 1988 produced by DIC Entertainment. (Eleven episodes were produced by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson in association with DIC; these were strictly for a syndication package that included all of the Ruby-Spears produced by episodes.)

To coincide with the new series, Viacom Enterprises distributed reruns of ''The Alvin Show'' to local (mostly independent and future Fox) stations; the rerun package was also carried nationally over superstations WGN and WTBS at various times beginning in September 1983 and ran for mostly a few years on half of the markets. However, some stations continue to run the show at various times as late as 1993. Prior to its superstation runs, The Alvin Show was picked up in a few markets such as Detroit, New York, Cleveland, and in international markets such as in Australia and Brazil among others. The show made its way to Europe in the United Kingdom when the BBC
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