THE MUNKS' TALE TRIO OF SINGING CRITTERS READY FOR ANOTHER CLOSE-UP.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

In 1958, a young father in Van Nuys who supported his family working as a songwriter came up with a novelty group of three singing chipmunks, taking them from hit records to an animated TV show.

Nearly 50 years later, his son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., and his wife, Janice Karman, have made that imaginary trio -- Alvin, Theodore and Simon -- their livelihood and their life.

It wasn't in Ross Jr.'s early plans. He was a sports fanatic as a kid whose dad had no expectations of hanging out a Chipmunks & Son shingle someday. What changed all that was his father's sudden death from a heart attack when Ross Jr. was just 21.

``He was like the Armenian version of Zorba the Greek, you know? Vital, virile, loved life, funny,'' Bagdasarian recalled recently over lunch. ``So when he died in 1972 at the age of 52, that was like, honestly, the universe had turned completely upside down.''

The Chipmunks at the time were mothballed, the elder Bagdasarian having decided they had run their course through recordings and a couple of TV series. He had purchased vineyards in the San Joaquin Valley and was making wine for various labels when he died.

``I really didn't want his memory to pass away that quickly, and I thought the surest way of giving that kind of life was bringing these characters back again,'' Bagdasarian says. ``Now, being a complete idiot, I had no idea how difficult that would actually be.''

He invited his sister and brother to join him in the endeavor, but they passed. ``Not `Let us get back to you, we'll think about it.' The answer came startlingly fast: `Not a chance.'''

So he went to law school and got involved in the family wine business, always thinking about orchestrating a Chipmunks comeback. Meeting Janice Karman, a girl with a creative streak and fond memories of ``Alvin and the Chipmunks,'' in 1978 was fortuitous.

``On our first date, he brought me to his father's office and showed me the films, the cartoons, and reignited my memory and asked me if I thought the characters were viable,'' Karman said.

``And I said I don't know why they wouldn't be -- I loved the show.''

They got involved, personally and professionally, and began pitching the franchise at the New York Toy Fair and other outlets, but there were no takers.

Then late one night, a bored radio disc jockey somewhere back East decided to put on a Blondie record and speed it up -- just as Ross Sr. had done when he created the Chipmunks' sound by double-timing his own slow-tempo harmonic vocals.

``He told all his listeners that it was the latest and greatest song from Chipmunk Punk,'' Karman said. ``His switchboard started lighting up and he got inundated with calls asking where we can get this album. And a record company heard about this and called us and said, `Are you interested in doing an album called ``Chipmunk Punk''?'

``It wasn't really punky. It was Billy Joel, Blondie. And it sold a million overnight and then people were willing to have lunch with us.''

More popular records led to a TV deal with NBC for specials and, in 1983, a new series that ran for eight seasons. With Bagdasarian and Karman writing, producing and recording the voices, it stayed true to the boyish characters, originally named for three executives at Liberty Records, and their paternalistic manager, Dave Seville. Alvin, wearing the baseball cap and the oversize A on his jersey, is the troublemaker, while lean, bespectacled Simon is the voice of reason, and Theodore oozes good-natured charm.

Cranking out all those episodes wasn't easy, and they often were frustrated by the compromises in quality that stemmed from the volume of work and budget constraints. ``(Animation) would come back from overseas and there'd be no head on Alvin and you go, `Geez, that's a problem,''' Bagdasarian recalled.

That inspired them to make a feature that would allow them to create the rich look they wanted. But midway through the production of ``The Chipmunk Adventure,'' the director quit, and Karman, then pregnant with her first child, took over the job.

The production ran horribly behind schedule and they found themselves farming out animation work to every artist in the field they could find.

``It was just an extraordinarily tough time,'' she says. ``But I learned so much. And you'd better hold onto that, because when you feel like you're drowning, you have to hold onto something: I'm learning!''

Now that Bagdasarian Productions owns all rights to the characters following the settlement of a lawsuit against Universal Pictures, Alvin, Simon and Theodore appear to be poised for another comeback. ``The Chipmunk Adventure'' came out last month on DVD, the first Chipmunks production in that format, and ``Alvin and the Chipmunks: A Chipmunk Christmas'' will be out in September in a 25th-anniversary edition of the holiday show.

Bagdasarian and Karman have a deal with 20th Century Fox for another feature, this combining computer-animated Chipmunks and a live-action Dave. If all goes according to plan, it will be released in 2008, the Chipmunks' 50th-anniversary year.

And Karman is shopping a TV series titled ``Little Alvin and the Mini-Munks,'' a show designed to help preschoolers and their parents understand and cope with emotions.

< This time the Chipmunks are large cuddly puppets who talk, play and sing with Karman on camera. When the show goes into production, it's likely to continue as a family affair with Karman on camera and Bagdasarian and Karman recording the voices and writing scripts and songs. Daughter Vanessa, now 19, may be brought in as a production assistant, and there's talk that son Michael, 16, may do one of the voices.

``I'm so cheap,'' Karman says with a laugh.

``This is the beauty when you don't pay yourselves,'' Bagdasarian said. ``People say, `Oh my gosh, you sold this many videos.' But I'm sure if you work it out by the hour, we're way under the minimum wage.''

Bagdasarian readily admits that he and his then-girlfriend were naive at the outset about how much time and energy producing and selling animated entertainment required, even with an established product like the Chipmunks.

He optimistically thought it would take about a year to get the business up and running, ``but after that, the oars go in the water by themselves, the thing just has a life of its own, but we will have helped relaunch it.'' At the time, Janice thought that sounded reasonable.

``That's 1978,'' Bagdasarian says. ``Just off by a little.''

He says just like actors who come to Hollywood expecting to hit the big time after six months to a year, ``It's the time thing that throws most people off.

``I missed it by 31 years,'' Bagdasarian said, ``but damn it, we're zeroing in on it.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

The birth of `ALVIN!'

Ross Bagdasarian Jr. is an attorney by training, not an actor. But when he decided to do the voices of the Chipmunks for the 1980s TV series, there was one part he knew would be pretty easy: Dave Seville bellowing ``ALVIN!''

``Growing up, I would fake my dad's voice to my younger brother, Adam. I would pretend that my dad had come home early and that my brother hadn't done something or other, and I'd stand outside his window and in my best dad voice: `Adam, get down here!'

``And he would come to the window -- `Pop?' -- in this kind of broken falsetto that only true fear can engender. So when we started to do this, I was at least comfortable that I could do the David Seville voice.

``The yelling thing I had down right from the beginning.''

-- V.K.

CAPTION(S):

8 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) ALVIN!!

A new generation keeps the Chipmunks alive

(2 -- 5 -- color) At left, Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian with Alvin; above, Ross Jr. and Janice Karman have revived the rodents, with a recent DVD release and an upcoming anniversary edition of the classic Christmas show.

(6 -- 8 -- color) no caption (Chipmunks)

Box:

The birth of `ALVIN!' (see text)