1980's Saturday Morning Historical Preservation Society

I'd have to do too much googling to confirm or deny this so I'll just let all y'all correct me if I'm wrong; 1983, 10:30 on NBC brought us the first ever Saturday Morning "Reboot" of a cartoon*, Alvin & The Chipmunks.

Back in 1961, Alvin & The Chipmunks looked like this (please feel free to ignore the Nickelodeon branding):


Produced for prime-time television, this version of The Chipmunks was a fast-paced half-hour "Gag" show, with 2 musical segments, a "Clyde Crashcup" cartoon and a single, quick joke featuring The Chipmunks.

But here in 1983, the show was refined. The musical segments were gone, replaced by actual storylines and character development. The character of Dave Seville was finally established as an adoptive father rather than an ambiguously disassociated record producer with anger management issues. The artistic style of the 1983 show was smoothed out and standardized to fit in with all the other cartoons of 1980's Saturday Morning thanks to the involvement of Ruby-Spears, as opposed to the highly stylized 1961 version that had been crafted solely by Bagdasarian Productions.

This was a completely different cartoon.

From the very first episode of the 1983 version, they distanced themselves by having a guest appearance by Mister T and also by introducing "The Chippettes". Even the theme song (one of the best ever on Saturday Mornings) implied that this was an all-new, all different approach to the Chipmunks and it REALLY WORKED!

*(You may point out various Hanna-Barbera shows of the 70's such as "Yogi's Space-Race", "The New Scooby-Doo Movies", "Yogi's Ark" and/or "Laugh-A-Lympics" as previous reboots of cartoons, but those weren't reboots so much as sequels that just used the same characters in new situations. It's like the difference between "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock" and the more recent JJ Abrahms "Star Trek" movies)

Are you guys serious??? Alvin & The Chipmunks is FAR AND AWAY the absolute MOST POPULAR SHOW OF 1983 according to our Best Cartoon of 1983 Poll!!! Don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoyed the show... but in a year where you could also vote for awesome cartoons like The Littles, Dungeons & Dragons, Mister T... how is it possible that this cartoon nearly DOUBLES the amount of votes it's nearest competitor is getting???

My biggest memory of The Chipmunks while growing up was that I was 99% of the time disappointed by the cartoon. Like they would build it up and then I'd watch and then... and then it was over and i was all "Oh that's 30 minutes of my life that just passed without incident". YMMV? Feel free to disagree with me in the comments, I look forward to hearing about why this cartoon is so beloved!

In the meantime, here's my favorite Chipmunks-related memory via comedian Patton Oswalt (NSFW due to language)