Posts by AnUnexpectedFan

    Since first making my Marc model, a lot has changed, and I was heavily encouraged to fix up all of my 3D AATC Fan models, and that means touching up my Marc model in much the same way.

    So, here's an updated image of what Marc looks like, and this will be FINAL.

    Also embedded alongside it is something I came up with more recently, where I figured out what Marc would wear as his pajamas.

    Last month, after seeing a Defunctland episode about an infamous Dark Ride based on The Wiggles, I started making comparisons between them and the Chipmunks, and, considering that there are currently 4 Wiggles each, and 3 Chipmunks each, I instinctively imagined Torchu212's OC Beckett being "The Fourth Chipette", but with only four Chipettes and three Chipmunks, my OCD-esque attention to detail wanted me to make a fourth male Chipmunk.


    So, after nearly seven years of being a Chipmunks fan... I'm finally making my own Chipmunk OC.

    His name is Marc Hanson, and while the canon Chipmunks are what I would call "Bagdasarianized" versions of California chipmunks, Marc is a Bagdasarianized version of an Ezo chipmunk, a species found in nearby areas of Russia... and the modern-day Hokkaido Island of Japan, which is where he will come from.


    After losing his mother to a predator as a baby, he spent much of his life undercover in the large Hokkaido city of Sapporo, taking in all of the Japanese culture that takes place there. In fact, it would be Marc who would ultimately introduce the Chipmunks the most to Japanese culture after being a fan himself.


    Then, he accidentally immigrated to southern California as a plane stowaway in the luggage compartment, and eventually met Alvin while crying about how much of a terrible life he had. Alvin would take Marc in and introduce his brothers to him. The two would eventually bond through their understanding of each other and become best friends.


    Say what you want about who's older in canon, whether it's Alvin or Simon, but Marc will be the oldest Chipmunk, at the age of 17; just one year away from true adulthood. And while Alvin is the Brash one (or the self-proclaimed "Awesome" one), Simon is the Smart one, and Theodore is the Cute one, Marc will be the Thoughtful one, being able to understand others’ feelings & emotions, and regularly thinking about their purpose in life. Marc is very easy to sympathize with due to his tragic past, and in return, he finds it easy to sympathize with others, especially Alvin. However, he still finds it very difficult to sympathize with himself. And despite him being easy to feel sorry for, there are still a few characters who can resist that feeling, with the biggest regular example being Miss Smith.

    Even then, he believes that no living creature is truly bad enough to be tossed away, especially for dead. Because of his thoughtfulness, he believes that everyone deserves a chance at life for one reason or another.


    Even though the Chipettes live on their own (with the exception of having Smother Mother Miss Miller as their adoptive parent) in their treehouse, and Beckett having a free-range parent, Marc will have to live with the same parent as the other chipmunks, Dave.

    Marc is the Chipmunk Dave had the most reluctant feelings towards at first, because he never felt The Chipmunks should have a fourth member. He considered three members enough, especially considering that he saw them as family, and Marc as nothing more than a stranger. Still, after learning that they both have dark childhoods, Dave does eventually bond with Marc through his sympathy.


    Some of his main instruments while performing with The Chipmunks will be the piano, the acoustic guitar, the koto, and the occasional loud tapping from the metal soles of his shoes.


    So, without any further words, here is what Marc will look like:

    This Christmas project started off as a desperate attempt to keep up my tradition of making an AATC Christmas-based Fan Audio Play every year around the Holidays. But before I tell you about it, here's a lengthy history lesson of my tradition:

    • It all started back in 2017 on the old forum, when "Post Something an AATC Character would say" was a thing, and I wanted to kickstart a Christmas-based game there. With the idea of Santa's Naughty/Nice lists on the mind, I came up with the idea of Alvin being on the Naughty list due to him being a troublemaker in the franchise. We eventually came up with the plot that Alvin would be "enchanted" with this magic formula from Jeanette that makes him nice, and it would make Alvin do a lot of good deeds in the two days leading up to Christmas Day. I turned that resulting story into an Audio Play called From Naughty to Nice.
    • Then in 2018, I kickstarted another Christmas game there involving Simon on the Naughty list for "being mean to Alvin"... only because I was still not so sure if Simon still loved Alvin overall. And then I forced Simon in that story to forgive Alvin less and less, until the community made Alvin break, run away, and I eventually forced him to write a letter to Simon. After I read what one of the old forum members (probably AmbitiousAlvin) had Alvin say in that letter, I tried imagining Simon rejecting the letter and still refusing to forgive Alvin, but even by my standards at the time, I said “Simon wouldn’t be that evil”, so I had him finally tear up and forgive Alvin in complete remorse. Even though I titled this one Holiday Hatred. I would soon regret making this idea of an audio play, especially because of the rushed ending which I had to get done before the end of Christmas Eve or else I would miss the opportunity for everyone to listen to it before the end of Christmas Day.
    • Then in 2019, even though "Post Something an AATC Character would say" had become extremely dormant by that point, I still wanted to make a piece of fanfiction involving Brittany on the Naughty List for what she did to Alvin in the New Series' Episode "Brit's Picks", Granditamias was my primary consultant on this one, which would be called Brittany the Naughty, and he suggested that Brittany would put just as much effort into doing good deeds as Alvin did in From Naughty to Nice. As he was being my consultant, though, he became concerned that I would start making "Naughty List" stories for the other 'Munks & 'Ettes, but I reassured him that that wasn't going to happen unless I had a good reason to do so.
    • That would have been the end of it, but then in 2020, Torchu212 (Still not on this forum, BTW) sent me a script involving his OC Beckett being at a Christmas party with the others, and told me to make an audio adaptation of it. I called this one A Beckett Christmas for obvious reasons. This was what finalized this whole practice as an annual tradition of mine to make a new Christmas audio play every year.
    • Yearbook Redemption was actually going to be 2021's Christmas play, and it would have been called "Christmas Redemption", because one of the main motives behind me making this one was something else Christmas-related I made back in 2016 that had a similar outcome to the premise of what I wanted to make. But then, the AATC Wiki's admin made an idea of a new Christmas album with new songs, including "Dave Got Run Over by a Reindeer", which I already knew right off the bat would be a cover of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”. I ditched plans for the "Christmas Redemption" audio play to be released around Christmas time, and turned it into an End-of-the-school-year-focused play called "Yearbook Redemption", because the latter timing made a lot more sense in context. In the meantime, I actually made the Dave Got Run Over by a Reindeer cover, and then adapted the lyrics I changed into another audio play of the same name. This was also the first Christmas audio play I have done all by myself, with no help from anybody whatsoever.

    After Yearbook Redemption, I wanted to make Christmas 2022's play serve as a sequel.

    Torchu suggested that there should be no such thing as a Yearbook Redemption sequel, and instead suggested "a light and fun story" involving "the boys getting into hijinks as they try to find a good present for Dave", which at first sounded a bit too cliched to me. Besides, it immediately made me think of the TMNT Christmas "Special" and one of its song numbers "Gotta get a Gift for Splinter". But not too long after, the 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Jingle All the Way entered my mind, as I have seen it last year on Disney+, and I wanted to adapt this whole thing into a similar premise.

    I began work on the script with the working title "Alvin All the Way", an amalgamation of "Alvin" and "Jingle All the Way", with the hopes of it being later replaced with something better. But as I thought more about it... I think "Alvin All the Way" has a nice ring to it. And more importantly, Alvin will be helping along with plot development "all the way" to the end.

    Also, this may probably be my last consecutive AATC Christmas audio play after 6 years, and unless I come up with another genius idea for a Christmas play by next year, I will consider this the end of my AATC Christmas Play tradition.


    So, without any further words, here's Alvin All the Way, and the Chipmunks' fruitless attempts to get Dave a new piece of old & obsolete technology.

    Wasn't there a SFM (Source Film Maker) program?

    I used to use it extensively from 2013-2018 on my Sonic the Hedgehog fan channel, and I was considering making my AATC fan models in Blender before porting them over to SFM, but once I found out that a few other Sonic fan animation YouTubers switched to more commercial 3D software, I decided to pitch in and switch to Blender full-time, especially considering the new, easier user interface of Blender 2.8, which was brand new at the time.

    okay and was this desing used in other videos or just this?

    First of all, I believe it was just this.

    My guess is that what you were wondering about in the first place was the prototype design for what was to come, since this came out 2 years before the TV series began with this kind of design. And even then, the initial show designed got some slight changes over the show's run.

    Lol but why I mean color tv didn’t exists then so why did the make it in colors

    Color TV broadcasts in the USA, where The Alvin Show originated, first started broadcasting through its standardized format as early as 1954, seven years before The Alvin Show.

    But even then, a very small percentage of TV viewers were watching in color. That still didn't stop television producers as late as 1967 from advertising that their shows were in "glorious color!" "Ooh! Buy a Color TV now so you could see the whole picture!" Color TV was still expensive back in that day. Color TV did exist in 1961, but it was only for very early adopters.

    This is a good time to briefly remind you what my audio play obsession is about, whether you're a veteran who has heard some of them before, or you're a forum newcomer, because strangely, this is the first audio play I have ever uploaded to this new forum.


    My obsession began with my franchise fandom, and while it started out a lot more experimental, I quickly got used to just making these audio shorts based on anything and everything I could find, as long as it was appropriate.

    So, slowly, the whole "just want to experiment with the chipmunk voice technique" shtick I had at the beginning wore off, and I started making more audio plays solely out of habit.

    Whether it's to fulfill a request to fully adapt a script written by somebody else, or to adapt a self-written script just pitched by somebody else and it sounded interesting enough to me, I would always be there to make an audio short on it.

    But after a certain point, some of them wouldn't even count as "shorts" anymore simply because of their length. Granditamias on the forum even once jokingly called them "audio longs".


    Either way, even though it wasn't initially my intention, these audio plays would soon end up having underlying messages that would benefit at least one person, just like everything else in media.

    Then we come to Yearbook Redemption and...

    I'm that person.


    Yeah, surprising, but the point is that I made this audio play for me. I wanted to add in as many underlying aesops that would personally benefit me and get me to stop doing some of that jerkwad behavior that I've had for practically my whole entire life!

    And if it ultimately gets me to stop doing so, then I have completely done my job.

    On top of that, this is also the longest audio play I have ever done, clocking in at just over 1 hour and 15 minutes! And I don't think that record will ever be broken.


    The script to this audio play has been a collaboration between me and Torchu212, which as of this writing, hasn't yet joined the forum. And additional credit to Granditamias for voicing Warren and Dangus near the end.


    Yearbook Redemption on Google Drive

    My history with the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise is technically still going on, even though a lot has happened to me already. When I joined the old AATC Fan Forum in January 2017, my introduction post there was paltry compared to what happened to me since. And because of this, I'm also not sure if I should update this post, or add another post to this thread, by including more significant fandom events that would happen to me since the writing of this post.


    My true introduction to the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise was actually the two Alvin Sing-Along VHS tapes from the 90s, consisting of song numbers from "The Alvin Show" from 1961. I have also heard the original "Chipmunk Song" on a Dr. Demento Christmas Compilation album, but other than that, I gradually grew indifferent of the franchise.


    But then, in August 2016, I saw the Nostalgia Critic episode "reviewing" the first live-action movie from 2007. When the Critic character imitated the Chipmunk characters there (just like how he imitates other characters in other movies he reviews all the time), I noticed that (apart from the higher pitch) those imitations sounded... sped up, especially considering that there was one non-voiceover Chipmunks imitation he did that even looked sped-up. With all that in mind, as well as an earlier clip where he imitated Ian Hawke saying "Have you tried speeding up so it sounds like high-pitched ear penetration?", and my prior knowledge on how this technique works, my curiosity gradually peaked to the point where I started experimenting by recording recitations of The Chipmunk Adventure quotes very slowly in Audacity, and then using the "Change Speed" effect to speed it up by 2. After being satisfied with the results, I did more quote recitations, before moving on to made-up sketches, and finally reaching what I consider to be my breaking point when I recorded my first full-on Chipmunks cover.

    I have since admitted to becoming a Chipmunks fan, but I have not even considered joining any AATC fan communities until I asked a genuine question on the AATC Wiki about whether Simon loves Alvin overall despite all the stress the latter gives the former. After a few back-&-forths with the admin there, he encouraged me to join that forum. Since then, my public fan activity has grown substantially, and even became friends with some other fans, to the point where I became more comfortable discussing my problems with them, than how I was doing so before.

    Then there's this whole #ChangeTheChannel debacle back in April 2018, in which part of it condemned the Nostalgia Critic for existing past 2013, and since I became a fan of the franchise through an episode made in 2016, I felt that I should have known the NC was terrible enough for me to stop watching it before I could have possibly seen that episode. Because of that, I actually wished I never became a fan of AATC in the first place. I just simply wish things away from all of history if it's deemed to be terrible enough, and I really wanted to make up for becoming a fan of something through a terrible person. Then I was backed out of that mentality through the message of It's a Wonderful Life and every played-straight clone ever.


    Again, a lot has happened to me since becoming a fan, including publishing quite a few fan covers & audio plays to the old forum, and later, the Wiki's Discord server, to the praise of my friends in the fandom. Some of them were adaptations of my own fan fiction scripts, while others were adaptations of others' fan fiction by request.

    After being disgruntled over the laziness of other fan covers on YouTube, I started a YouTube channel in November 2017 called "AnUnexpectedChipmunksFan". I added "Chipmunks" to that username because YouTube is a more general platform and I want viewers to know what I'm a fan of. Even though I have already published a few legitimate fan covers there, I am winding down activity there partly because of fears of YouTube's ContentID system potentially blocking my cover videos, as it had already done so for a couple of attempted uploads.


    Then, in December 2021, I finally buckled down to see the live-action movies after over 5 years of being a fan and yet refraining from seeing them solely because of their negative reception, simply because I was being convinced by other fans to see them anyway. You can see my first-impression review videos and hear my thoughts on these movies on my YouTube channel.


    I really hope that this forum will give me just as much joy as the old AATC Fan Forum did!