I didn’t intend to write today, since I just got off a flight and am still pretty jetlagged. This story was irresistible to me, though. I have a seven year-old kid and I’ve seen both Alvin and The Chipmunks movies multiple times. They’re dumb and they’re annoying, but if you turn something off in your brain you can sit through them and actually laugh at parts. Parents know what I’m talking about, it’s just what we do. This review in Time Magazine of the third film in the Alvin series has a good explanation of the phenomenon of parental sacrifice when it comes to watching stupid movies. However I think it misses a key point: there is a weird kind of joy in these terrible kids’ films. When someone falls or farts on screen it’s funny in a basic way, but more than that it’s fun to see your kid get so amused by it.

While I was reading that enlightening Time article I came across these quotes from David Cross, who plays the villain character in the Alvin movies, a music company executive named Ian. Cross didn’t hint around when he explained how much he hated working on these films. (I’m sure he meant appearing in them too, which he’s defended in the past.) He said he was under contract to do three Alvin movies and that filming the last one was “the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had in my professional life.”

“I’m contractually done,” he said during press rounds for his television show “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.” “I was contractually obligated to do three, which is kinda standard.” But now his outlook on the work is considerably less positive.

“This last film was literally, without question, the most unpleasant experience I’ve ever had in my professional life,” he says of ‘Chip-Wrecked,’ where he reprises his role of record executive Ian. Without naming names, he says, “It’s safe to say I won’t be working with some of those people ever again. Not the actors. And the director [Mike Mitchell] was great. We got along. There were a couple of people, though…it was just a really awful, unpleasant experience.” Which isn’t to say the entire ‘Chipmunks’ experience has been rotten for him. “I got recognized in China,” he says, listing off the places ‘Chipmunks’ has taken him. “I got recognized in a teeny tiny town in Mozambique. In Zimbabwe. Botswana. It’s crazy.”

[From The Playlist]

Cross is a standup comic and actor and was on “Arrested Development” and “Mr. Show.” He’s currently promoting a new TV series he created and stars in for IFC, called “The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret.” It’s got to annoy him, then, that most people know him as Ian from Alvin and The Chipmunks and that it’s his most popular role to date. So is he just recounting his experience here with awful incompetent producers or is he being a jerk because he doesn’t want to be known as the guy who sold out? It’s probably a lot of both. I’m thinking filming alongside imaginary Chipmunks may have been a bad experience for Jason Lee, too. Lee’s character was in the “hospital” during the second film and he only made a couple of brief appearances for continuity. He was replaced as the chipmunks’ main caretaker by Zachary Levi. You don’t hear Lee bitching about it though.

Later on in that same interview, Cross confirms that “Arrested Development” is coming back. We’ve heard that some kind of mini-series is in the works. He says he doesn’t know what’s happening plot-wise, and that “We’re still several months away from getting scripts.” All the main castmembers are at least verbally committed to it, according to Cross.

David Cross and his fiance, Amber Tamblyn, are shown on 11-14 and 11-15-11. Credit: WENN.com