Once again let’s look back at the fun Ross Bagdasarian post. Super son Eric gave me a fun idea. How about hearing what David Seville’s voice sounded like sped up, when he wasn’t speaking s-l-o-w-l-y as he did when performing as the chipmunks? Sure. Whhhhhhhhyyyyyy not?
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Sounds/Wordpress/JAN07/ChipmunksFast.mp3]As you can hear, speaking normally wouldn’t have worked. How many times did Ross have to practice doing those voices slowly to get the speed to come out just right? I don’t believe infinitely variable tape decks were available back in those days, so all he could do was go from 7.5 ips to 15 ips.
I found a brief video clip of Bagdasarian as David Seville and the Chipmunks. It’s from a 1960 Ed Sullivan show appearance, although that date seems a year too late to me. The puppets are performed by Lou Burin.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/JAN07/Bagdasarian.flv 400 300]
The new craze among the kids in Molly’s school is “Hampton the Hamster”:
http://tinyurl.com/y9pbeo
I’m sure it’s much easier to speed up/slow down voices nowadays. I really admire Ross for all the hard work he put into the Chipmunks.