Post by theCarbonFreeze on Oct 23, 2021 11:39:30 GMT
I've been collecting Halloween specials because tis the season. I received a copy of an old childhood favorite, "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman," and it got me wondering about the rest of the old cartoon series. It was never a huge favorite of mine, but I do remember watching some episodes in syndication growing up and I thought it might be nice to see it again.
What I found was a giant clusterfuck of DVD/VHS releases over the years, a few episodes randomly selected for each, but no boxset of the complete series or for individual seasons. Further complicating matters is that the series changed names twice over its run, from "Alvin and the Chipmunks" to "The Chipmunks" to "The Chipmunks go to the Movies." Only the first 65 (some sources say 63) episodes under the original title were ever syndicated, further limiting our ability to compile the entire series. Some of these later episodes were released on home media, but only some and apparently they've never aired on TV since 1990. According to reelgood, it's not currently on official streaming sites either.
I only just discovered all this tonight, so admittedly I haven't looked into it very thoroughly but it seems like there is no feasible way to gather the entire series right now. There are some bootleg DVDs that seem to offer the syndicated episodes plus the whole mess of inconsistent, out-of-print vhs/dvd releases with one to five episodes each from the official sources. There are also two illicit sites which seem to have all the episodes (it's not as though I've checked every link) but only for streaming. If you want to keep them, you have to find a way to rip the video files (which is a huge hassle and sometimes borderline impossible these days) and tediously repeat the process one by one for each episode. And let's be honest; ain't nobody got time for that shit. Maybe for Rocko's Modern Life or something but not the freaking Chipmunks.
Unfortunately, these sites could go down any day without warning. So, in this regard, the series is already "lost" if we're talking official avenues to watch and could very well become "lost" as in completely unavailable in the near future should these sites go offline for any reason. It's not like Alvin was mine (or anyone's?) favorite show, but considering this franchise is popular enough to spawn like 4 movies and 2 other TV series besides this one, you'd think it'd be popular enough to get a complete series release or have been torrented by now. Guess not.
What I found was a giant clusterfuck of DVD/VHS releases over the years, a few episodes randomly selected for each, but no boxset of the complete series or for individual seasons. Further complicating matters is that the series changed names twice over its run, from "Alvin and the Chipmunks" to "The Chipmunks" to "The Chipmunks go to the Movies." Only the first 65 (some sources say 63) episodes under the original title were ever syndicated, further limiting our ability to compile the entire series. Some of these later episodes were released on home media, but only some and apparently they've never aired on TV since 1990. According to reelgood, it's not currently on official streaming sites either.
I only just discovered all this tonight, so admittedly I haven't looked into it very thoroughly but it seems like there is no feasible way to gather the entire series right now. There are some bootleg DVDs that seem to offer the syndicated episodes plus the whole mess of inconsistent, out-of-print vhs/dvd releases with one to five episodes each from the official sources. There are also two illicit sites which seem to have all the episodes (it's not as though I've checked every link) but only for streaming. If you want to keep them, you have to find a way to rip the video files (which is a huge hassle and sometimes borderline impossible these days) and tediously repeat the process one by one for each episode. And let's be honest; ain't nobody got time for that shit. Maybe for Rocko's Modern Life or something but not the freaking Chipmunks.
Unfortunately, these sites could go down any day without warning. So, in this regard, the series is already "lost" if we're talking official avenues to watch and could very well become "lost" as in completely unavailable in the near future should these sites go offline for any reason. It's not like Alvin was mine (or anyone's?) favorite show, but considering this franchise is popular enough to spawn like 4 movies and 2 other TV series besides this one, you'd think it'd be popular enough to get a complete series release or have been torrented by now. Guess not.
