premise: Alvin and the Chipmunks is exclusively audio.
hypothesis: Alvin and the Chipmunks , originally David Seville and the Chipmunks or simply The Chipmunks , is an American animated music group created by Ross Bagdasarian , Sr. , for a novelty record in 1958 . The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks : Alvin , the mischievous troublemaker , who quickly became the star of the group ; Simon , the tall , bespectacled intellectual ; and Theodore , the chubby , impressionable one . The voices of the group were all performed by Bagdasarian , who sped up the playback to create high-pitched voices . Alvin and the Chipmunks is an American animated television series featuring The Chipmunks , produced by Bagdasarian Productions in association with Ruby-Spears Enterprises from 1983 to 1987 , Murakami-Wolf-Swenson from 1987 to 1988 and DIC Entertainment from 1988 to 1990 . Alvin and the Chipmunks is a 2007 American live-action/computer animated musical family comedy film directed by Tim Hill .