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.
