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Oh sweet happy Jesus am I ever glad I got to watch A Chipmunk Christmas this year. I love this freakin’ thing! We’ve spoken before about how great this particular special is, but no amount of praise can be considered an exaggeration. I’ve been fully in love with this cartoon since I was just a small sized baby, but I haven’t actually seen it on TV in years and years. Growing up, I had audio versions of it on vinyl and glorious lo-fi cassette, but I hadn’t managed to see it in it’s full animated glory since I was in shortpants. Until this year, that is.

A friend of mine picked it up on DVD, you see. When I found out I had such easy access to the cartoon, I immediately began asking some hardhitting questions. “When are we going to watch the Chipmunks?” I’d ask. “Will we be watching it now?” I’d ask. Then I’d ask things like “How ’bout now?” After four or five days of asking these and other similar questions every twenty-five seconds, everyone’s will was at last broken and I was able to point my peepers at the absolute finest treatise on the subject of musically inclined rodents that’s ever been created.

The story is about the holiday exploits of Alvin and the Chipmunks intersecting with a poor little boy named Tommy. The Chipmunks are their usual selves: Simon’s a bookworm, Theodore’s a fat idiot, and Alvin’s a sassy free spirit. Tommy, on the other hand, is just a regular human kid whose been stricken with a terminal Christmas disease. Unfortunately for Tommy, his family is just as poor as churchmice. They can neither afford whatever doctoring Tommy needs to make it through the holidays nor the one Christmas present Tommy longs for above all others: A golden Echo harmonica, just like the one Alvin has. I guess that’s something better than a regular harmonica, or whatever. Really, I can’t see paying more than $2.39 for any harmonica, regardless of how golden or echoed it is, but we will have to accept it for the sake of the story. Alvin takes pity on the poor boy and gives him his own harmonica, which had been a gift to him from Dave Seville.

If I may digress for a moment, I must bring up the question of just what Dave’s relationship is to Alvin and his brothers. I’m sure there’s a specific origin story, but I don’t know it. All I do know is that David seems to be a father figure to the boys, which suggests to me that he knocked up some babe and she gave birth to a chipmunk. And then it happened two more times!

In any case, the meat of the toon revolves around Alvin’s attempts to raise money to buy a new harmonica in time for the big Christmas Eve concert at Carnegie Hall, as well as Dave’s outrage that Alvin would try to be earning money. See, Dave doesn’t know that Alvin’s without a harmonica, so he thinks Alvin’s just being greedy, which is totally contrary to the spirit of the season. And that gets Dave pissed. Of course, he also gets pissed when there’s a light wind from the northeast. Always angry, that Seville. Would you be surprised to learn that he frequently beats Simon with a belt, or tells Theodore that he’ll never amount to anything? I wouldn’t.

I’ll spoil it for you no further, but suffice it to say there is a happy ending complete with Santa-style Christmas miracles. I mean, it’s a Christmas special; surely you didn’t expect everyone to wind up homeless and impoverished. Yes, it ends in typical fashion, but for whatever reason this is one of my all-time favorite holiday cartoons. It’s touching and warm, which I’m frequently a sucker for, and you can slap Alvin and the Chipmunks on buckets of lard and I’ll buy ten of ‘em. As with any Chipmunks cartoon, there’s plenty of toe-tapping music and jolly, kid-friendly humor, all of which adds up to good watchin’. Best of all, the animation was done with the involvement of one Chuck Jones, perhaps the all-time king of cartoonists. Although it’s clear at times that this was produced with a smaller budget than some of the other big-name Christmas shows, the Chuck Jones skill shines through in the faces of the characters.

So what I’m saying is it makes you remember everything you loved about cartoons when you were a kid and makes you want to wrap yourself up in a big ball of Christmas joy. A Chipmunk Christmas is definitely one you’ll want to make a concerted effort to watch this and every December. It’ll definitely help to make your season bright.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Chipmunks Soundtrack Named Least Essential of 2007
• War, Famine, Pestilence, Chipmunks
• A Wish for Wings That Work
• Trapped in Paradise
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol