meeeee I waaaaaaant a hoooooooolaa hooooooooop

[spatch]

Hear Chipmunks slowed down! (Thanks, snapdoolie!) Hear Ross Bagdasarian sing in three-part harmony! Shudder at Theodore's throaty baritone giggle performed by a grown man! Oh, ain't we got fun.

I remember trying to accomplish this when I was a kid, only I didn't have the patience to slow the record down with my finger. We did have some cassette recorders, though, and I discovered that if you held down the pause button halfway on one as it was rolling, the mechanism used to pause the cassette would actually speed the tape heads up a little bit. This meant you could speed up the playback and make your own wacky Chipmunk songs if you want (hint: make them sing something dirty for extra laffs) -- or, if you held the pause halfway down during recording, you could make SLOOOOW GIAAAAANT VOIIIIIICE. I remember trying to slow down a recording of the Chipmunks by playing it into the fiddled-with tape recorder, but I don't remember results as, well, downright creepy as this.

So who did this particular monstrosity, anyway?

Comments

[luckimunki.livejournal.com]

This must have been the most excruciating thing to record. It's going in half-time and driving me CRAZY!

[rigel.livejournal.com]

That's AWESOME.

[betweenstations.livejournal.com]

I saw it in jwz's lj.

[cloudscout.livejournal.com]

If I sang in my chipmunk voice and slowed it down, would I sound like Ross Bagdasarian?

(From FlickChick):

Ross Bagdasarian (1919-1972) was one multitalented fellow. A Fresno, Calif., native of Armenian descent, he started his career as a popular songwriter; his first hit was 1951's "Come On-A My House," sung by Rosemary Clooney and cowritten with his cousin, literary novelist William Saroyan. Bagdasarian also recorded several albums under the pseudonym David Seville, appeared in several films — including Rear Window — and, in 1958, wrote the holiday novelty perennial "The Chipmunk Song" ("Christmas, Don't Be Late"), inspired by his youngest son, Adam's, persistent questions about when Christmas was coming. Bagdasarian sang for all three chipmunks, Alvin, Simon and Theodore: His voice was electronically sped up and multitracked. The chipmunks spawned a minor empire, which has been run by Bagdasarian's son, Ross Jr., since his death.

[byrneout.livejournal.com]

This is doing weird things to my head, man.

[lno.livejournal.com]

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_019b.html

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

HURR HURR HURR

That *so* messes up my childhood memories....

[(Anonymous)]

Every time I hear the "I still want a Hooooo-la-hooooop!" line sung by a baritone, it makes me cringe... During the whole song, I'm thinking to myself, "speed up damnit... this is far too slow!"

And to think, I always envisioned the cartoon breaking new frontiers in voicing, by spending years to teach chipmunks how to sing. (Although, they probably didn't play their own instruments - Much like the Monkees.)

[spun-lepton.livejournal.com]

That is freaking AWESOME!

[lokesvara.livejournal.com]

It sounds like Low (http://www.chairkickers.com).

Um, sort of.