The line "Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang" from the song "Witch Doctor" is used in the song "Texan Book Of The Dead" @2:15-by Clutch (band) on their self-titled CD. [1] It can also be heard in the last scenes of the 1978 movie version of the musical Grease, playing underneath the characters singing "We Go Together."
The Chipmunks make a guest appearance on the Canned Heat song "The Chipmunk Song," which is not the same song as the 1958 hit that appeared as their Christmas single. [2]
Comedian Patton Oswalt has a popular joke regarding "The Christmas Song" in which he describes playing the song on a record at the slowest speed possible. The result is the Chipmunks sounding like "three normal, monotone guys singing a song about Christmas," while Dave Seville sounds like a "demon from the seventh level of murderers and traitors." In this bit, Patton does an impression of the slowed-down song, including a low, gravelly voice in mock slow motion in place of Dave's voice. [3]
A recording of the show's theme song is usually played at Relient K concerts right before the band takes the stage. The Christian rock band also released a Christmas album called "Deck the Halls, Bruise Your Hand" in 2003, and some copies of the album contained a bonus track of Alvin and the Chipmunks singing "The 12 Days of the Christmas." [4]
Much like with a "Weird Al" Yankovic parody, many recording artists in the 80s and 90s felt they knew they made it when a song of theirs was covered by The Chipmunks.[5]
Contemporary Christian music and Pop singer Jaci Velasquez did a quartet with The Chipmunks on a new version of "The Chipmunk Song" on her Christmas album in 2001. [6]
The Bob Rivers Comedy Corp. released "Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire" in 2000, part of their Twisted Christmas CD series. [7] The album parodies "The Chipmunk Song" in "The Twisted Chipmunk Song", which is followed by the title track, which continues the "Twisted Chipmunk" storyline with Dave Seville's revenge, and the names are Melvin, Squeaky, and Thagadore (A.K.A. Melvin and the Gerbils). [8]
Not to be confused with the Newgrounds video, Sudden Death parodies the Chipmunks as gun-toting violent 'gangsta' chipmunks "Sherman", "Bob", and "Melvin" in their song "Rabid Chipmunks" from their 1995 album, "Drain Bammaged Kids." [9]
In The Devotions song "Rip Van Winkle," the background laughs sound very similar to the Chipmunks. [10]
In Herb Alpert's song "Spanish Flea," one of the written lyrics is "And The Chipmunks he'd seen on TV."
Television[]
In the series Dark Angel, the character Sketchy's full name is Calvin Simon Theodore. [12]
In the Simpsons episode "Homer's Barbershop Quartet," a record that Comic Book Guy has at the swap meet entitled "Melvin and the Squirrels" is a spoof of Alvin and the Chipmunks. [13]
In the 2009 episode "Homer The Whopper," a poster parodying, and supposedly foreshadowing, the third CGI/live-action movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, was seen outside the theatre.
In the 2017 episode "Gone Boy," a record that Bart had found and listened to at the Strategic Air Command Springfield Station was entitled "Calvin and the Hipmunks." The record was both parodying The Chipmunks and their dopplegangers, Calvin and the Hip Munks.
In an episode of Happy Days, the character of Mork walks into Richie's living room and babbles in Orkan. Richie says that it was a good Alvin the Chipmunk impression, thinking it was Ralph because he was watching TV at the time.
In the Alf episode "Weird Science", Alf names two undiscovered planets in the Solar System as Alvin and Dave. [14]
In the 8 Simple Rules episode "Trick or Tree House," Paul Hennesey (John Ritter) mentions Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.
In Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, the episode "Mighty's Benefit Plan" is a parody of the Chipmunks.
In the Friends episode "The One Where Rachel Finds Out," when Ross asks Chandler if he knows who Carl is, Chandler replies: "Uh, let's see... Alvin... Simon... Theodore.... no." [15]
In the Robot Chicken episode "Anne Marie's Pride," the Chipmunks are parodied in one of their shorts. In the short the Chipmunks have normal chorus voices until Dave releases "Deadly Helium" into the recording booth, thus making their voices squeaky until they eventually die. [16]
In the King of Queens episode "Noel Cowards," Doug and Arthur get in a fight over "The Christmas Song," but Arthur learns to love the song by mid-episode. [17]
On the December 16, 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live, Justin Timberlake performs "The Christmas Song" with three SNL cast members, dressed as Alvin (Bill Hader), Simon (Fred Armisen), and Theodore (Andy Samberg).
In the Boston Legal episode "On the Ledge," Lincoln Meyer kidnaps Shirley Schmidt and torments her by singing "Christmas Don't Be Late." [18]
In the British Sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps episode "Speedycruise," Louise sings (in her usual squeaky voice) the lyrics "We are the Chipmunks -- Alvin, Simon, Theodore!" [19]
In an episode of WWE Raw, when having his voice pitched up by D-Generation X, Vince McMahon states "I'm not Alvin The Chipmunk!"
In the Pokémon episode entitled "The Case of The K-9 Capers," Team Rocket uses helium on the group as part of a plan to confuse Pokemon. When the helium takes effect, Meowth shouts, "What happened to my voice? ... I sound like one of the Chipmunks!" in the English dub. [20]
In the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog episode "Mobius 5000," Alvin makes a cameo in the background of a Sonic Sez segment as part of the crowd.
In the Phineas and Ferb episode "Flop Starz," the backup singers are called the Ferbettes, similar to The Chipettes.
In the Monk episode "Mr. Monk Gets Lotto Fever," when Natalie is trying to explain to Monk who Simon and Garfunkel are, he replies, "Simon?... Oh, the Chipmunks!" [21]
In the Big Time Rush Christmas special, the members of the band sing a Yard Squirrels song with Snoop Dogg as a parody of the Chipmunks called "Let's Stay In Our PJs." [22]
Mad:
In the episode "ArTHOR / The Big Fang Theory," Alvin and the Chipmunks are parodied in an ad. [23]
In the episode "RiOa / Thomas the Unstoppable Tank Engine," Alvin tries to find Simon and Theodore, but they are in a snake. [24]
In the episode "Al Pacino and the Chipmunks / That's What Super Friends Are For," the third CGI/live-action film Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked is parodied. [25]
In the Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers episode "The S.S. Drainpipe," Sugaray Lizard calls Chip "Alvin." When Chip says that's not his name, he responds with "you chipmunks all sound alike."
In Episode 8 of My Girlfriend is A Gumiho, a statue of Simon can be seen when Dae Woong and Miho leave the cinema.
Film[]
In the 1991 film My Girl, Vada and Thomas start singing "Witch Doctor" as they ride their bikes down the street.
In the 1993 film Look Who's Talking Now, James (John Travolta) and Molly (Kirstie Alley), along with their daughter Julie, try to cheer up their son Mikey by lip-syncing and performing "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" when he found out Santa Claus doesn't exist. [26]
In Walt Disney's 1993 film Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, near the end of the movie, the family is heard singing "Witch Doctor" in the car.
In the 1998 film The Rugrats Movie, the circus monkeys in the jungle sing "Witch Doctor," with mostly original lyrics, to the existing musical composition. [27]
In the 2000 film Almost Famous, "The Chipmunk Song" plays in the opening scenes. The movie also stars Jason Lee, who plays Dave Seville in the CGI/live-action movies.
In the 2006 film Deck The Halls, The Chipmunks' cover of "Frosty the Snowman" is heard during the scene where Matthew Broderick is awoken from his neighbor, Danny DeVito's, illuminated Christmas house.
In the 2007 film The Nanny Diaries, The Chipmunks cover of the "Macarena" can be heard during the party scene.
In the 2008 parody film Disaster Movie, The Chipmunks are parodied as rabid chipmunks.Alvin had an orange sweater with a yellow "C", Simon had a purple sweater, and Theodore had a dark blue sweater. [28]
In the 2009 film Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Crash and Eddie sing "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Time is Here)" while in the Cazim of death. [29]
In the 2022 film Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, The Chipmunks make a cameo on the TV as Chip passes by as he states "Urgh of course they're rapping, they always have to make their cartoons rap." Later in the same movie when Sweet Pete captures Chip he states that he was "Always more of an Alvin and the Chipmunks fan."
Corporations[]
Del Monte used the Chipmunks (notably Alvin) on their fruit cups in the early 1990's.
Video Games[]
In Square Enix's MMORPG Final Fantasy XI, a racer called Tarutaru displays "chipmunk-like attributes." The character design of Tarutaru was possibly inspired by Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Imitations[]
Chip 'n' Dale are thought to be "cheap imitations" of the Chipmunks. This, however, is incorrect, as Chip and Dale first appeared in the Disney cartoon Private Pluto in 1943, more than a decade before the creation of the Chipmunks. [30] Though they were created first, their personalities and appearances do change for their 1989 TV series Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. In this new cartoon, they wear clothes. Other than having chipmunks as main characters and squeaky voices created by speeding up records, the two franchises have little in common.
Ironically, Chip and Dale performed their own version of "The Chipmunk Song" on the 1980 Disneyland Records album Disney's Christmas All-Time Favorites. [31]
In 1959, Russ Regan produced the song "The Happy Reindeer," sung by the singing reindeer Dancer, Prancer, and Nervous for Capitol Records in response to "The Chipmunk Song." [32]
As The Alvin Show was being prepared for broadcast, an imitation, The Nutty Squirrels, beat them to the market, but proved to be less successful, despite catchy scat singing. [33]
In the 1980s, there was a "group" called The Happy Hamsters, which was an obvious attempt to cash in on the Chipmunks' popularity; it has since lapsed into obscurity, although they are remembered for one of them appearing in "promos" in between public domain vhs tapes by "Kid Pics", in which he would get the viewers to join the "fan club" which would turn out to be a front to sell the viewers info to mailing lists. [34]
In the 1995 live-action film Babe, the mice also have squeaky voices. [35]
The "singing rodent" concept has been successfully imitated elsewhere, notably by the Finnish "singing squirrel" Pikku Orava. [36]
