The California Raisins

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For other uses, see The California Raisins (disambiguation).

The California Raisins are a fictional rhythm and blues musical group comprised of anthropomorphized raisins. Vocals were sung by musician Buddy Miles.

The concept was originally created for a 1987 commercial on behalf of the California Raisin Advisory Board when one of the writers, while trying to come up with an idea for a new raisin commercial, said, "We have tried everything but dancing raisins singing "'I Heard it Through the Grapevine'" (a 1968 Marvin Gaye song). To their surprise, the commercial became wildly popular, spawning future commercials, two TV specials (Meet the Raisins and Raisins Sold Out), and a Saturday morning cartoon series, aptly titled The California Raisin Show. The Raisins also appeared in holiday specials such as A Claymation Christmas Celebration.

The California Raisins are normally Claymation designed by the Emmy-Award winning studio of Will Vinton, but their cartoon series was cel animated. The artist responsible for the original design was Michael Brunsfeld.

The California Raisins reportedly grossed more in the year that was their heyday, 1988, than Californian farmers made selling raisins. This included a wide variety of merchandising, from toys to Raisins images on every conceivable medium: lunch boxes, notebooks, clothing, posters, etc. The Hardee's restaurant chain offered several lines of non-poseable California Raisins figurines as part of promotions for their cinnamon raisin biscuits. A California Raisins music album was also released, featuring classic Motown and rock 'n' roll standards.

In the early 1990s Capcom produced a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System titled California Raisins: The Grape Escape, where the player controlled a California Raisin through five side-scrolling levels battling various evil fruit and vegetable characters that had stolen the Raisins' music. The game was finished and several video game critics reviewed it, but it was never released on the open market.

[edit] All That Remains

An article on Animateclay.com [1] sheds light on the current status of some of the original clay puppets used in the TV special Raisins Sold Out. As stated on the site, they were received by Webster Colcord, a former employee of Will Vinton Studios. The figures were headed for the trash before being obtained by Colcord and kept in a box for several years. Several photos are shown on the website, detailing the Raisins' poor condition and taking a close look at their internal armatures.

[edit] Parodies

In The Simpsons episode "'Tis The Fifteenth Season", the California raisins were spoofed as "The California Prunes" in a Christmas special depicting the Nativity. Lisa dismisses it as "offensive to both Christians and prunes."

A segment on MADtv depicted the Raisins as mass-murderers by promoting humans to eat their fans. After an 'incident' in Seattle, the band was sentenced to 'death by toaster'.