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Someone has more than enough money for a hula hoop
Kim Hollis: Alvin and the Chipmunks became the second largest December opening ever for a G/PG film with an estimated $44.3 million. What in the blue hell is going on?

Shane Jenkins: I find this much MUCH more shocking than Legend's take. I guess this filled the void Golden Compass created, but I'm still absolutely shocked by this number. And, I won't lie, a little irrationally angry. Never underestimate the power of a mediocre poop joke.

Max Braden: This just goes to show how way way outside the loop I am in regard to the Nickelodeon crowd. Sure I have the Chipmunks Christmas record and it still manages to get played once a year in my house (by my younger brother, I swear), but I thought this movie was going to be dead on arrival. Meaning in the $4.5 million range. I saw absolutely no advertising for this on TV, and even with TiVo I catch quite a few commercial breaks. I saw Enchanted in theaters and don't remember seeing a Chipmunks trailer. This must be the fault of all the illegal alien children I've been hearing so much about. I have no other explanation.

Tim Briody: I got nothing. Really. I'm at a complete loss.

David Mumpower: The teaser for this featured a CGI chipmunk eating walnut-shaped defecation. That was what passed for funny in it. We are right to make fun of that. In fact, I feel like we should be able to sue somebody the next time this country's school test scores come in at record lows. That teaser is an abomination. Having said that, what matters at the end of the day is name recognition. Like Garfield and The Flintstones before it, Alvin and the Chipmunks is one of the most established children's properties of the past several decades. That matters a lot here although we saw with Fat Albert that the trailers still have to be funny. I don't think there is a great explanation for why the movie opened so well, though. Fox has acknowledged that this movie was tracking for a $20 million opening. That's not even half of what it wound up doing, meaning that the $44.3 million we have seen here is what the studio had determined to be about 70% of the film's final box office gross. This is one of the biggest upsets of the past five years.

Kim Hollis: I started worrying that this movie would be big when I heard that my niece was going around quoting lines and singing songs from the film. I completely agree that the previews were god awful, but I did see them a few times (i.e. Bee Movie, etc.). All they had to do was market to 7-10 year olds and they were golden. Obviously, they got the job done.

Reagen Sulewski: I blame the hordes of unfrozen schoolchildren from 1957. Damn you cryogenics!

Joel Corcoran: Not only am I at a complete loss for an explanation, I think I fried a few thousand brain cells just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this ... "film" was the second-largest G/PG December opener in history. Maybe we need to get a couple middle schoolers here on Monday Morning Quarterback whenever these movies roll around.

People, the chipmunk eats poop. What are you thinking?

Kim Hollis: So, uh, we've been making fun of Alvin and the Chipmunks ever since the first trailer was released. Were we wrong then, or did the marketing improve that much in the past six months?

Max Braden: What marketing? Were there TV ads I missed? Were there product tie ins? I'm see I'm going to have to get a mail order baby if I'm going to predict these things more accurately.

Tim Briody: Yeah, I had a vague idea this was coming out this month, and thought it would be pretty harmless and disappear fairly quickly. Um, oops.

David Mumpower: If being wrong about the success of Alvin and the Chipmunks is wrong, I don't wait to be right. If I want to watch chipmunks eating poop, I'll go to the park. They do it for free there, and it doesn't make me sad for Jason Lee.

Kim Hollis: Truly it is the end of days.

Joel Corcoran: The marketing seemed alright to me\- a fairly standard movie marketing campaign. Nothing exceptional, so I am completely and utterly befuddled about why this movie did so well at the box office. I guess Jason Lee and David Cross are a lot more popular than we anticipated. Either that, or it's 1958 all over again ... which I wouldn't really mind that much.

Jim Van Nest: Y'all must not be watching the right channels. I have 2 boys, 8 and 9 years old, and the channels they watch (Nick, Cartoon Network, Discovery Kids, etc) played Alvin commercials during every single commercial break. I could quote the fricking TV ad, I heard it so much. While I would never have expected that kind of coin, kids were beaten to death with the ads and every single kid I know (and I run a Cub Scout pack, so there's plenty)...they all couldn't wait for Alvin to hit theaters.

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