Alvin, Theodore and Simon are returning to the small screen – ready to do battle with… I dunno, Honey Boo Boo and Ray Donovan (now there’s an interesting sandwich!?). PGS Entertainment have picked up the rights to the new “ALVINNN!!! and The Chipmunks”, which is set to premiere in 2015.
The last time Alvin and the boys were on telly, Bill Clinton was still in office, Kirstie Alley was a major movie star, and Ricky Martin’s publicist was working overtime.
The Hollywood Reporter says this :
The 52-episodes show from husband-wife producing team of Ross Bagdasarian and Janice Karman will be presented for the first time in CGI and feature the Chipettes with all new, original songs.
The Bagdasarians — one of the few remaining independent families of children’s program creators — will voice the characters; Karman will even sing some of the songs. She told The Hollywood Reporter on Saturday that 26 of the 11-minute episodes have so far been
“The Chipmunks are the number one family property and number one characters for kids 6 to 12,” said PGS co-founder-president Philippe Soutter. He began discussions with potential foreign buyers Saturday morning during Mip Junior.
“The new series produced by the Bagdasarians, together with France’s Genao Prods., has stunning CGI and the original music is fantastic,” he added.
Specializing in kids and family content, PGS plans to take its time to seal licensing deals, Soutter explained, given that the series is fully funded already — and because, he emphasized, “we want to be as painstaking and careful of the product as the Bagdasarians are in creating it.”
Typically, a 22-minute kids TV property runs about $500,000 to produce.
Soutter also said he expected the series to resonate “across generations” so that entire families all over the world — “from grandpa on down” — may actually watch and enjoy together.
For her part, Karman said the new storylines reflect current life issues: “It’s not just chipmunks run amok” but rather, she revealed, “there’s a take-away”: plots about growing up and being embarrassed about one’s parents, or helping one’s single parent get into the dating game, or even one about bullying at school.
“But they’re not preachy. The show is really an animated sitcom a la Modern Family,” Karman stressed.
My god, pull back on the sales pitch, guys. All you need is “Chipmunks. The kids will go batshit crazy for it. There’s a Christmas song that sounds like drunk Uncle Leo on helium. Who wants it?”.
Or, simply say, “No Jason Lee in this. Takers?” and watch them come running.
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