Ross Bagdasarian, Jr.
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Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. (born October 25, 1949 in Los Angeles, California), is a American film producer, record producer, singer, and voice artist and the son of the Alvin and the Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdasarian, Sr.. The Bagdasarians are of Armenian origin. After his father died of a heart attack in 1972, Bagdasarian succeeded him as the main owner of the Chipmunks productions, which had fallen into obscurity after significant success between 1958 and the early-1960s. He heads Bagdasarian Productions with his singer-manager wife Janice Karman.
Under his supervision, new Chipmunks records were created in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Chipmunk Punk. In 1981, the Chipmunks returned to television in the cartoon special A Chipmunk Christmas. Two years later, Ruby-Spears Productions' Alvin and the Chipmunks Saturday morning cartoon series debuted on NBC. Based on that series, a feature film, The Chipmunk Adventure was released in 1987.
For those new Chipmunks productions, Bagdasarian sings and speaks the parts of Alvin, Simon, and Dave Seville. Janice Karman provides those of Theodore and The Chipettes: Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor.
Bagdasarian sold the rights to the Chipmunk characters to Universal Pictures in 1996, resulting in a string of Universal-produced direct-to-video films. Four years later, he sued them for breach of contract, in order to recoup monetary damages and regain control of the characters.
In 2007, Bagdasarian produced the movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks, based on the cartoon and featuring computer-animated Chipmunks and a live-action David Seville, portrayed by Jason Lee. The film was developed by 20th Century Fox (which has announced release of the complete set of television's The Alvin Show on DVD). The movie was released in U.S. theatres December 14, 2007. Bagdasarian was originally set to portray David Seville, however, due to his age, the younger Lee was chosen. Initially, Bagdasarian and his wife portrayed Alvin, Simon and Theodore in the film, but were replaced at the studio's insistence with younger actors Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney respectively. (However, Bagdasarian Jr. does provide Alvin's [but not Simon's] singing voice.)[1]
Ross and his wife Janice have two children, a daughter, Vanessa, and a son, Michael in Santa Barbara, California.
[edit] External links
- History at TheChipmunks.com
- Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. at the Internet Movie Database
- Ross Bagdasarian, Jr. at the Voice Chasers Database
