''Is it...silent?'' ''Well, there's a percussion track''

#991; The Chipmunks, and What Came After

  — December 23rd, 2013

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It wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I realized the Chipmunks (which I had always known as cartoon characters from my childhood) were actually, as pop-cultural entities, much older — dating back to their eponymous novelty Christmas record in 1958 or, arguably, the “Witch Doctor” song all the way back in 1952. There was a short-lived cartoon in 1961, but the Saturday-morning cartoon that I and people of my generation are most familiar with didn’t come around until more than 20 years later (1982-1990).

The audio trick that creator Ross Bagdasarian used to create the sound of the Chipmunks’ voices was so simple, and the resulting songs so popular in the late 50s and early 60s, that I figured they must have spawned some knockoffs. Sure enough — enjoy the squeaky sounds of:

The Nutty Squirrels (singing “Uh Oh”)
The Grasshoppers (singing “Shortnin’ Bread”) (More info)
The Three Happy Crickets (“We Wish You a Merry Christmas”)
Woody Woodchuck’s Christmas Sing Song (info only)
Sing Along with the Busy Beavers (album download)
BONUS LINK: The Happy Hamsters sing “Ghostbustin'”, a few decades later. Full album here.

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I made this video about a puppet that I also made

November 7, 2025 by David Malki !

Here is a video of me making a puppet! And then performing a little with that puppet!

Some of you may recognize this technique as a callback to another series of puppet videos I made, some years ago. (As demonstrated here)

It’s been a fun idea to revisit, and I plan to do it some more.

This is, of course, related to my Wondermark-themed card game, Bolted!

Which now has final box art:

If you were part of the game’s launch campaign back in the spring, you may have noticed I just posted a detailed backer update about the final printing and shipping schedule.

You can read it if you want LOTS OF DETAILS about the current status & progress of the game! But in summary:

  • I’m sending off the final artwork to the printer VERY SHORTLY
  • The games will be printed in December/January
  • I expect to receive my copies in February/March!

The time it will take to approve the artwork proofs & samples also allows for a perfect li’l window for me to REOPEN PREORDERS.

So if you missed it the first time around, you will now have a BONUS CHANCE to reserve yourself a copy:

Bolted! is coming to Kickstarter!

My (silly but ambitious) goal in this prelaunch period is to gather the same number of “followers” on the prelaunch page, as we had total backers in the original campaign (436). That seems doable, right??

The plan is to launch mid-next week! That’s pretty soon!!

I’m assuming at least some of you reading this are OG Boltheads who jumped on the train early and have been patiently waiting for me to wrap it all up. I’m super grateful for your initial support!

And now that the manufacturing part of it all is in motion, I’m super pleased that the timing will allow for another chance to get it in front of folks for pre-orders.

Since I’m only likely to print this game once, I want to make sure anyone who’s interested will have a chance to grab a copy. So I’ll be talking much more about this in the days to come!!


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