In a later episode, Alvin and the gang appear on the "Teen Time TV Show." Alvin does some backstage grooving until Seville reminds him,"Alvin, we don't do that kind of music!" Alvin's reply? "Gee, Dave, do you want us to get out there and die coast to coast?" Alvin is hip to the power of rock and roll and warns Dave that he might become hypnotized into rocking out, but Seville sends them onstage singing "Yellow Rose of Texas." That is, until one among a stylized horde of pubescent girls in the audience yells out, "Come on, Alvin! Do the twist!" The Chipmunks launch into a rock and roll frenzy, with Alvin swinging and spinning his guitar while his rodent brethren twist up a storm. From offstage, Seville looks in horror at his wayward charges, only to be bowled over by a screaming mob of moppets. No sooner does Seville restore order than the screaming girls send Alvin back into his "trance," and the cartoon ends with anarchy -- and rock and roll -- firmly in command.

More than a few episodes featured the tension between old-school composer Seville and his too-cool Chipmunks; even the studious Simon closes ranks with Alvin and Theodore when there's mischief to be had. When the boys are interviewed via TV by a caricature of Edward R. Murrow, they end the interview with a mocking song describing their misdeeds, to the extreme embarrassment of both the interviewer and Seville. The Alvin Show replicated, in animated form, society's concerns and fears about juvenile delinquency and misconduct. It is probably no accident that the Chipmunks were a young musical group, and that rock and roll was their identity as well as their principal instrument of rebellion.

After Alvin, rock and roll in Saturday morning cartoons became sanitized and desexualized, with programs like The Archie Show. © 1968 Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

The most salient example of this trope, which encapsulated the entire generational conflict in one episode, was as disturbing as it was hilarious. "Squares" was one of the first episodes aired on The Alvin Show, and it featured the Chipmunks at their anarchic best. A peaceful day at home is interrupted by hefty, ebullient Mrs. Frumpington (voiced by Lee Patrick), who represents the Society for Quality and Universal Appreciation of Refined Enterprises (SQUARES, natch). Mrs. Frumpington's genre of greatest concern is music, and she wastes no time in disparaging not only the Chipmunks' music, but all of rock and roll. She unfurls 2500 signatures from those who want to "bring Bach back!" and outlaw that which the Chipmunks thrive upon. As another famous toon might have said, "Of course, you know, this means war!" Alvin and his brothers huddle, planning a counterstrike in the name of rock and roll.

We next see Alvin standing on Mrs. F's doorstep, presenting her with a flower. When she avers that she loves nature, Alvin innocently asks if she has ever noticed "how nature and music go hand in hand." By holding up signs behind his back, Alvin has Theodore strum a guitar to imitate the wind, while Simon is cued to thump out a bass beat and percussion from their hidden positions. As Frumpington starts to sway to the beat, Alvin wonders if Mrs. F. loves families: "Don'cha just love a baby, a baby, a baby... " Mrs. F is soon repeating the phrase, which Alvin switches to "a daddy, a daddy, a daddy." Alvin then lowers the boom and the Chipmunks' master plan is revealed. Behind a tree are a dozen large speakers. When Alvin switches them on, a grindhouse rock tune blares into the street.

Mrs. Frumpington is now so entranced by the beat that she dances about wildly, frenetically boogying and snapping her fingers as she wails, "Baby baby baby! Daddy daddy daddy!" (At this point June Foray takes over the vocals). Within minutes she has been reduced to a screaming wreck, and the neighbors have called for the local mental hospital to cart the woman away. In her frenzy she fights the attendants off and continues to madly prance and sing. The camera cuts to Alvin, Theodore, and Simon looking on with amusement, tapping their feet. Simon wags a finger in time to the beat as their foe goes progressively insane.

Finally the attendants drop a barrel from above and cage the crazed Frumpington. As she is carried to the padded wagon (which reads, "Happydale: The Home for Tilted People"), she continues singing as the "Tilt" sign lights up on the wagon. In a somewhat disturbing moment, we see the Chipmunks wave goodbye, shake hands, and exit left in a merry conga line. There is no remorse or regret among them for their destruction of Mrs. Frumpington; her crusade against rock and roll music had to be stopped and the Chipmunks, if nothing else, are good soldiers in the cause. This challenge by the adult, civilized world and the way in which it was met by Alvin and his bros, mirrored adult society's fears about what rock and roll might drive their children to do. Moreover, Alvin -- and rock and roll -- won.

Alvin, Theodore, Simon, and Dave Seville left television in 1962 and would not be back for another 21 years. In the meantime, rock and roll in animated cartoons would suffer the same fate as rock and roll music did in the real world. It became sanitized, thematically sterile and desexualized. A Beatles cartoon appeared in 1965, but it was a playful series, and it did not run long enough to feature the Fab Four in their Sgt. Pepper guise. Many shows went on to feature rock bands: One of them, The Archies, actually managed to secure a radio hit in 1969, but they sounded nothing like the Grateful Dead, The Doors, or many of the other rock bands that were coming to prominence at the time. Rock music on Saturday morning belonged to the subgenre known as "bubble gum" and would reflect none of rock's rebelliousness or mood of altered consciousness.

Alvin and his brothers, on the whole, were relatively tame and so was their TV show. Even in later televised incarnations, the Chipmunks were still very much mainstream. Yet, for one moment in 1961, a cartoon musical group consisting of chipmunks would transmit the memory of what rock and roll was like for the society from which it emerged. Through the occasional cracks in their original show, the mischievous 'munks shone the light of transgression that once illuminated rock and roll.

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.