Behind The Christmas Hits: The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)

More Stories from Behind The Christmas Hits!

Some of the most popular animated characters of the last 60 years actually debuted in a Christmas song!

This is the story of The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Some of the most popular animated characters of the last
60 years actually debuted in a Christmas song. This is
the story

Speaker 2 (00:08):
behind the Christmas hit,

Speaker 1 (00:09):
The Chipmunks song

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Christmas
Don't Be Late by Alvin and the Chipmunks.
Behind the Christmas hits with Drew Savage.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Alvin and the Chipmunks have been pop culture fixtures for decades.
They've starred in three different long-running animated TV shows, and
their four theatrical movies from 2007 to 2015, grossed a
combined $1.3 billion worldwide. But their very first appearance wasn't
in film or television. It was in a Christmas song.

(00:40):
Ross Bagdasarian was the youngest of three children born January 17th,
1919 in Fresno, California. After serving in World War Two,
he moved to Los Angeles to try acting and songwriting.
Bagdasarian's family was Armenian, and when he turned in some
music he had written for Liberty Records, the executives there
told them what unfortunately they told many people at the time.

(01:03):
His name was a little long and hard for people
to pronounce, so he did what many artists have done.
He changed his name.
In 1956, Ross Bagdasarian became David Seville. The last name
Seville came from the city of Seville, Spain, a city
Ross loved when he was stationed there during the war.
There are conflicting reports about how he chose the first name, David.

(01:26):
Some stories suggest that it was a tribute to his
first born son, who sadly died as a child. However,
there are other stories that claim that Ross and his
wife Arman never had a son named David.
Whatever the inspiration was, David Seville was set out to
make a name for himself. He was cast in small
roles in films like Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and Billy

(01:48):
Wilder's Stalig's 17. He would also get some work as
a composer, writing and performing the theme for a 1956
movie starring William Holden and Deborah Carr, called The Proud
and the Profane. As a songwriter, he also wrote hits
for Rosemary Clooney and Dean Martin.
You've heard the expression, there are no bad ideas. Well,
Seville had a pretty silly idea. He had just purchased

(02:11):
a $200 tape recorder. Now that was no small investment
at the time. $200 in 1958 translates to more than
$2100 in 2025. He could get both an iPad and
an iPhone.
As Seville was doing some recording, he thought, what if
you played around with the tape speeds to
create different voices?

(02:31):
He wrote a song called The Witch Doctor, where Seville
sang the main part straight, and then the role of
the witch Doctor, Ooo ah ah, was sung slowly and
recorded at half speed, only to be played back at
normal speed to give that high pitched sound effect. Seville
played around with different techniques.
For over 2 months before going into the studio to

(02:52):
actually record the song. When it was finished, he took
it to those same executives at Liberty Records who thought
it was so fun and unique they rushed it into
production 24 hours later. The Witch Doctor by David Seville
went all the way to number one in both the
US and Canada in April 1958, the first ever number
one hit for Liberty Records. The song's success literally saved

(03:16):
the company from bankruptcy.
Seville quickly recorded another novelty song called The Bird on
My Head, using the same recording technique for the voices,
but the song didn't click and stalled out at number
34 on the charts, which begs the question, how do
you repeat the success of the Witch Doctor? You can't
just speed up the voices in any song. How do

(03:36):
you catch lightning in the bottle again? Well, you create
characters to sing the song, characters with high pitched voices.
People from the beginning thought the voices in those earlier
songs reminded them of Chipmunks, so that's exactly what Seville created.
Three chipmunks, each named after an executive at Liberty Records,
Al Bennett, Simon Warranker, and Ted Keep. Alvin, Simon, and Theodore.

(04:02):
Each one had a very defined personality. Simon was smart
and responsible. Theodore was sweet and innocent, and Alvin.
Was Alvin. The song begins with David asking the Chipmunks
if they're ready to sing. Simon and Theodore both check in,
but Alvin is distracted, and David screams his name in frustration.
A Star Is Born. It was recorded on Halloween Day

(04:24):
in 1958 and was in stores by November 11th. The
Chipmunk song debuted on the Billboard chart at the beginning
of December and knocked Phil Spector and the Teddy Bears
to Know Him Is to Love Him out of the
number one spot on December 29th, a spot the Chipmunks.
Hold on to well into January on its way to
becoming one of the 20 best selling singles in all

(04:47):
of 1959. The Chipmunks song is one of only a
handful of Christmas hits to top the Billboard chart in
the same year it was released, and it wasn't just
a commercial success. The Chipmunks cleaned up at the Grammys
that year, winning 3.
Best comedy performance, best children's recording, and best engineered recording.
It even got nominated for Record of the Year. I'll

(05:09):
be completely honest with you. I grew up in the 80s,
and before I started researching this episode, I always just
assumed that Alvin and the Chipmunks were already on TV
when this song was recorded. In fact, it was the
other way around. The success of the Chipmunks song made
it a no-brainer to turn these characters into cartoons.
The Alvin Show debuted on CBS in prime time on

(05:31):
October 4th, 1961. 104 different shorts were produced and packaged
into 26 half-hour episodes.
The show only ran for a year, but it lived
on in reruns until 1979. A second series, Alvin and
the Chipmunks, premiered in 1983, running until 1990. Once the

(05:52):
theatrical movies were done, a third TV series premiered in 2015,
running until 2023.
Sadly, Ross Bagdasarian, David Seville, didn't live to see much
of this success. He died of a heart attack in 1972,
just 11 days shy of his 53rd birthday. His wife
Arman and their three children, Carol, Adam, and Ross Junior,

(06:14):
inherited the Chipmunks. Ross Junior worshiped his father and said
that he felt the need to continue his work. So
after finishing law school in the 1970s, he and his
wife Janice would shepherd the characters into their 1980s TV
success and beyond.
In the mid-nineties, he bought out his siblings and became
the sole owner of Alvin and the Chipmunks. In a

(06:35):
world where big corporations own and control the most famous
comic and cartoon characters on Earth, at the time of
this recording in 2025, Alvin and the Chipmunks is still
very much a family business.
I'm Drew Savage, thank you so much for listening. You
can find me on Instagram at Drew Savage on air.
If you enjoyed this story, please leave us a rating

(06:56):
and review. It helps other Christmas music lovers find the podcast.
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