The Alvin Show

The Alvin Show was an animated television series, produced by Bagdasarian Film Corporation and starring the singing characters Alvin and the Chipmunks. The series ran from 1961 to 1962.

The Show


The Alvin Show's original run lasted for a single season in prime time on CBS [Wednesdays, 7:30-8pm Eastern], sponsored by General Foods.(October 4, 1961 - March 28, 1962) Though the show was drawn in color, it was televised in black and white. The color prints of the episodes would not be released until the series entered syndication in the fall of 1965.

CBS would later rerun the series on Saturday mornings for a few years after the show's prime time run ended.

The individual segments from the show were separately syndicated in the mid- and late-1960s under the package title Alvin and the Chipmunks.

The series later was revived on NBC-TV, again promoted under the title Alvin and the Chipmunks (with the introductory The Alvin Show title card cut off the opening credits), on Saturday mornings between March 10, 1979 and September 1, 1979.

In the fall of 1983, coinciding with the launch of Ruby-Spears' newly-produced Alvin and the Chipmunks series on NBC, The Alvin Show was again syndicated, this time by Viacom Enterprises.

Nickelodeon picked up US broadcast rights to The Alvin Show sometime in 1994 and ran the episodes daily until early 1995. During this time, as well as for sometime after, the individual cartoons and musical segments were inserted into episodes of Weinerville. By the end of that year, however, Nickelodeon stopped showing The Alvin Show altogether and it has not been seen on television anywhere in the United States since.