Trivia / The Chipmunk Adventure

• Blooper: When Theodore is handing Dave his mittens, he hands Dave his sandwich instead, and then Dave has his mittens in the next shot.
• Box Office Bomb: While a confirmed or even estimated budget has never been given, the film tanked at just under $7 million.
• Channel Hop: The film, under the Bagdasarians' control, has been licensed to multiple distributors over the years. Originally released in theaters by The Samuel Goldwyn Company, the VHS was originally released by Lorimar, and a reissue was put out by Universal in the late 1990s. The first DVD was released by Paramount, and a second DVD and a Blu-ray release was released by independent distributor ANConnect, who also gave the film a brief digital release.
• Creator Backlash:
  • David Pruiksma, an animator on the film and future Disney pro, does not have good memories of working on it and refuses to rewatch it.
  "It was hell to make. Story was a mess. The Bagdasarians were complete assholes. They were idiots. Extremely difficult to work with. They were, for the most part reviled by the entire crew. And the process for production was insane. But some nice work did shine though."
  • Bill Plympton, who also worked on the film, but was uncredited, listed the film as one of his least favorite movies ever in his book "Independently Animated".
  • Animator Bob Jaques was downright livid over being denied screen credit for his work on film. The Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures episode Mighty's Benefit Plan was made as a soapbox for Jaques to complain about the Bagdasarians' behavior.
  • The Bagdasarians themselves later admitted that funding and producing the film themselves was a big mistake, citing that producers funding their own movies is the Hollywood equivalent of a lawyer representing himself.
    • To that end, both Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. and Janice Karman admitted that at the time of the film's release, although they were still proud of the achievement, the only things that stood out to them were all of the mistakes they had made. Not only that, but Janice also somewhat blamed Ross for such, noting that he was the one who thrusted her into the various different positions she found herself in during the production when she had absolutely no clue what she was even doing (including directing, which she had never done before).
  • In a 2022 interview, Janice said she felt, and had always felt, that the song "Getting Lucky" was inappropriate for the film. It was apparently included as a favor to a film-director friend of the Bagdasarians, who had optioned the song for his own film but couldn't use it. The Bagdasarians met with the songwriter, and decided to use the song to apparently "help him out".
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Janice Karman as Theodore
  • Nancy Cartwright as the Arabian Prince
  • Frank Welker as Sophie, the Yorkshire Terrier puppy.
  • In the Italian and German dub, Alvin.
• The Danza: Simon Jäger as Simon in the German dub
• In Memoriam: The film is dedicated to Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman's dog Tiger Lilly, which was run over by a car during production.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Because only the first two seasons of the 1983 show were shown in Hungary, The Chipmunk Adventure marks Miss Miller's debut in the Hungarian version.
• Technology Marches On: It would have been a lot easier for Mario to be The Mole if he contacted Jamal on his own cell phone instead of Claudia's landline, which is of course what gets him caught.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Production became too time consuming, and with the deadline for the completed project fast approaching, several scenes in the original script had to be re-written to make them simpler for the animators to animate (including the sacrificing scene), or cut from the script completely, thus resulting in a much shorter movie with fewer locations The Chipmunks and Chipettes actually visit.
  • Early concept art also reveals that the producers originally intended to have a scene where the boys drop off a doll in a church confessional and that the sacrifice scene was originally set on top of a Mayan pyramid instead of a crocodile pit. Another sketch shows the boys in some sort of sewer or prison with two men prying open bars at an opening at the top.

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