It’s Time We Gave "The Chipmunk Adventure" Its Flowers
by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
There are a lot of animated musicals from the 1980s that get the love they deserve. An American Tail gets called heartbreaking. The Care Bears Movie is sweet. And All Dogs Go to Heaven? Well, try watching that one without collapsing into a puddle of tears.
But if we're handing out flowers — and we should — then it’s time The Chipmunk Adventure got a big, bright bouquet.
Released in 1987, The Chipmunk Adventure isn’t just a fun offshoot of a Saturday morning cartoon. It’s a full-on animated musical that goes harder than it ever needed to — and it holds up way better than a lot of its peers.
When you think about the animated movie landscape back then, Disney hadn’t even hit its comeback yet. The Black Cauldron had flopped, The Great Mouse Detective was good but modest, and Oliver & Company was still a year away. The Disney Renaissance — the era of Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin — hadn’t even started. Animated musicals weren’t the powerhouse genre we think of now.
And yet here was The Chipmunk Adventure — swinging for the fences anyway.
If it’s been a while since you’ve seen it, the plot is just as bonkers (and delightful) as you remember: Alvin, Simon, and Theodore, along with Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor, get roped into a high-stakes race around the world — unknowingly acting as pawns in an international diamond smuggling operation. There are hot air balloons, near-death escapes, Incan treasure, double agents, and one extremely catchy musical number after another.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during that studio pitch. It’s wild, but the movie plays it with such straight-faced earnestness that it somehow works.
Written by folks such as Randy Edelman, Randy Goodrum, Jay Levy, and Terry Shaddick, the musical numbers aren’t just catchy — they’re legit story drivers. "Girls of Rock and Roll" perfectly captures the Chipmunks and Chipettes' playful rivalry and sets the tone for the whole adventure.
"Diamond Dolls" feels like a full-blown Vegas number, weirdly grown-up and campy in a way that kids didn't totally understand but felt anyway. "Off to See the World" taps into that bittersweet, expansive feeling that so many ‘80s movies tried to bottle — that mix of wonder and loneliness that hits you when you realize how big the world actually is.
Every song is woven into the plot like a real musical should be. They're not just tossed in for filler; they're moving the story forward, developing character, giving you something to hum later — and honestly, that’s more than a lot of bigger studio musicals were doing at the time.
And for a movie that could've gotten away with cheap, Saturday-morning animation, The Chipmunk Adventure looks beautiful. The settings — Incan temples, Arabian deserts, Egyptian tombs — are colorful, textured, full of movement. You can tell this wasn't just slapped together; it was crafted by a lot of animators who knew exactly what they were doing and cared way more than they had to.
What I love most is that the movie actually trusts its audience. It doesn’t slow down to over-explain every twist or drag out the jokes. It keeps the adventure moving, lets the humor stay quick, and treats the stakes like they actually matter. It expects kids to keep up — and they do. Alvin, Simon, Theodore, Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor all get real moments to shine, even as the story goes completely off the rails (we’re talking diamond smuggling, ancient temples, hot air balloon races — the works). It’s chaotic, it’s sweet, it’s a little unhinged — and honestly, that’s exactly what a good musical should be.
The Chipmunk Adventure wasn’t a giant critical hit at the time, but for the kids who loved it (including 6-year-old me), it made a permanent mark. It gave us a real musical when we weren’t getting a lot of them. It gave us songs we could belt at the top of our lungs. It gave us an adventure that felt big. And honestly? It still slaps.
So here’s to The Chipmunk Adventure — one of the best animated movie musicals of its time, and absolutely deserving of its flowers.