VintageGent’s Menswear Daily

Dressing Chipmunks on the Cheap

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Alvin and the Chipmunks. All opinions are 100% mine.

Back in the day, my brother and I found “Christmas with the Chipmunks” highly entertaining due to their frequent insubordination to their human caretaker. Someone got a lot of mileage out of speeding up recording tracks. No, misbehaving rodents did not contribute to our demise as a society nor influence our behavior at school but were a welcome break from the overtly serious seasonal tunes. Actually, we appreciated reverentially hymns but thought some of the earlier Christmas novelty fare was a little goofy. Except for the barking dogs.  That was genius. We just didn’t want to hear anything else about two front teeth.

When the first modern Chipmunks movie was announced (the 2nd movie – the Squeakquel is actually out if you want to buy it now), I wondered how the 2D goodness would translate to modern day screens, and of course the answer was to make them look “real,” but not REALLY real.  You wouldn’t want kids mistaking actual chipmunks (who are cute but can bite if you squeeze and hug them) for the fake ones — knitting sweaters and shopping at Brooks Brothers for them and leaving the offerings at the bird feeder.  On the other hand, the non-real “real” chipmunks are really far removed from what I remember.  I wonder if the Chippers of the Olden Folk like me would translate better to my future children as successfully as the Hippo for Christmas did not from my parents’ day.

The key nowadays is to reach out with social media and interactive features, and the folks who have created the new Chipmunks have created a website where kids can experience  More Munk Mayhem by creating their own Chipmunks. Just like creating a Wii Mii, you choose hats, glasses, hair and feet. No trip to the mall or to Rodeo Drive is involved. How fashionable. My chipmunk would be the oddball who bought new pants, found a pair of shoes in their closet from 20 years ago that still fit and would have bought a shirt at a vintage clothing shop and hat at an estate sale.