Leave a message at (646) 768-4777, or email us at btyb@insider.com. While the vines may feel special to their growerslike children!to you and me? The show was broadcast August 29, 1990, on the U.S. television network CBS during primetime. Lead vocals in the group were sung by musician Buddy Miles. Get instant explanation for any acronym or abbreviation that hits you anywhere on the web! SW: Yeah, I'm still looking for the pictures. If no one liked it, the raisin industry could not get that money back. SW: And that tax is paying for a campaign that's not even advertising your product! SW: They pulled up to a business park, hopped out of the car, and marched into a conference room. Because animators arranged each shot by hand, giving each raisin its own distinct personality (including individualized facial expressions and colorful sunglasses), the commercial took more than a month to shoot. Learn more about our approach to sharing our collection online. Oh! A short time after that, he sat in a studio and sang the words into a microphone while strumming his guitar along with a few friends. CALRAB gave the "Grapevine" pitch the green light. 80s classic toys. Needless to say, their band history borrowed heavily from the types of origin stories real bands tended to have. WERNER: 'Dear NBC, After weeks of trying to find out who to congratulate on a recent national ad, I came up with nothing. And apparently, making a clay "King of Pop" was a whole 'nother can of worms. Several photos were taken providing a close look at the Raisins' internal armatures and detailing their extremely poor condition, including the absence of the A.C. puppet's head.[18]. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. And because Sunmaid was so much biggerthe Kleenex of raisins!they suspected that brand was getting a bigger share of the sales that had trickled down from the ad. If you require a personal response, please use ourContact page. Jackson, who agreed to do his commercial for free (and on the condition that he only work with Vinton, who he knew from their Captain EO project with Disney), helped create his own Claymation raisin with his signature single white glove, fedora, and pelvic-thrusting dance moves. Free shipping for many products! KB: Couldn't find it! And as that rift widened, the raisins fell right through it. SW: Before long, a claymation Ray Charles joined the bunch. Your email address will not be published. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. I mean, really, most of us don't give raisins a whole lot of attention..they are just kind of everywhere: in our cereals, bagels, and, of course, kid's lunch boxes. Or, as they saw it, for Sunmaid's good. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/34693/The+California+Raisins/I+Heard+It+Through+the+Grapevine. But actually to me, one of the most interesting parts of that story was this little section on the California Dancing Raisins ads from the '80s. SW: I, before I started working on this story, did not even eat raisins. If you require a personal response, please use ourContact page. CH: We're back. We love hearing from you. SW: Then, you've got nature to think about. (laughs) That's just the way it is. STANDS4 LLC, 2023. Lead vocals in the group were sung by musician Buddy Miles. But I also take the approach of, that was 30 years ago so I think it's time that we look forward because the industry is in a very dramatic, very drastically different place than it was back then. And he made it very clear to me right off the bat that no one, him included, would be interested in talking about the New York Times story I'd read. In The Simpsons episode "'Tis the Fifteenth Season", The California Raisins were spoofed as The California Prunes, on a special entitled Christmas with the California Prunes. I said, 'the only thing I would do, because at that time, you know, you had things like the Chipmunks and all these different things for kids,'. The show would have animated raisins acting as rockstars, and the song, "I heard it through the grapevine," was the California Raisins number-one single. Okay? Think you know music? Sheet Music And it became more entertainment than strategy. With a budget in hand, the agency hired Will Vinton, the Oscar-winning animator who would later trademark the term "Claymation," to help create their vision of dancing raisins. Artist. KB: Vine doesn't know who it belongs to. They even earned an Emmy nomination! Our collection database is a work in progress. But in 1994, the. album - including song video, artist biography, translations and more: I bet you're wonderin' how I knew 'Bout your plans to make me blue With some other guy you knew before Between the We may update this record based on further research and review. Please take time to look at pictures I try and show condition clear as possible. But in 1986, that's just what happened when the California Raisin Advisory Board launched a series of ads by the California Raisins, a group that existed only in . First, they provide tools the industry can use to regulate the raisin market. Start the wiki. And by the end of the night, all anyone could agree on was that one of the siblings was getting a bigger cut than everyone else. And so Will said 'well finally I took Janet's nose and put that on the raisin and he bought it [snaps fingers] like that.'. Price: 16.01. High-top sneakers, sunglasses, and endless swagger. BK: So the bottom line was you didn't have industry consensus. The California Raisins are often accompanied by a soundtrack of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," originally popularized by singer Marvin Gaye. Little disagreements surfaced. My girl!BK: Yeeeeah the marketing guys at Del Monte filed a complaint with the Department of Food and Agriculture over it. Watch the video for I Heard It Through the Grapevine from California Raisins's Sing The Hit Songs for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. Concept illustrations of the Raisins were also featured as interviewees discussed the characters' creation.[17]. And this is what I told him. Seth and his colleagues were getting fan mail forwarded to themfrom viewers, TV stations, and other advertising execs. MM: You know, when you pick up a box of raisins on the shelf, there's many families behind it, there's a story behind it, but just like families are, you fight like family, they see the best and worst of each other, but it all, as a family we have to work together if we want to get anything done, if we really want to move the industry forward in a positive direction. Demand was down. CH: A warship, the USS Pyro, even asked permission to sail with a California Dancing Raisins flag flying high above ahoy mateys! [22], Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 23:33, "TV Review; 'Claymation Christmas,' On CBS", "On View: A Feat of Clay: The Creator of California Raisins Molds an Animated Easter Special", "Stardom Is Feat Of Clay For California Raisins", "Bad 25: Spike Lee Brings Michael Jackson Back to Thrilling Life", "The California Raisins for Commodore 64 (1988)", "California Raisin Raisin Puppets: Late 80s - Early 90s", "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas", "Celebrating Every '80s Reference in That RadioShack Super Bowl Commercial", "California Raisins Set for Comeback in Live-Action Feature", Official Will Vinton (LAIKA) Studios Site, The Clay and Stop-Motion Animation How-To Page: "California Raisin Raisin Puppets: Late 80s - Early 90s", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_California_Raisins&oldid=1140822520, "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)" b/w "I Got You (I Feel Good)" - 1988, Purple Vinyl 7", "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" - 1988 (single, extended peaked at #84 on the, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 23:33. And since there wasn't a "Dancing Raisin" brand in the store, small packers worried Sunmaid was getting all the business. You're over. Unlike the smaller brands in the industry, it could afford to pay for that space. But back in 1994, almost ten years after the first dancing raisins ad aired, that good feeling was nowhere to be found. Deathly silence filled the Board room for what was probably only another thirty seconds, but seemed much longer. A California Raisins Fan Club began in 1987, which included a Grapevine Gazette newsletter and various memorabilia. Whod have ever thought that a beloved Motown classic would be brought back to life by a bunch of animated dried fruit? But anyway, there's this one line in the story that implies that even though the ad went on to be super successful, even though you and I still remember it all these years later, it may have precipitated some really huge divisions within the raisin industry. KB: Whereas the packer is the middleman buying it from him, processing it, selling it, shipping it into trade and hoping to make a profit. [9] Blackthorne Publishing also released a six-issue comic book series entitled The California Raisins 3-D which included 3D glasses; these would later be re-released in the Ultimate Collection trade paperback. You can have a talking head, you can have a situation' you know, there were like formulas on how to do this. Some years later, Noel Gallagher stands on a stage strumming his guitar while . BK: If you're one of the largest ingredient buyers for bread or cereal or something, then really you're paying for it, right? as well as other partner offers and accept our, NOW WATCH: An investment chief at HSBC sees huge trading opportunities outside the US. IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Oh! The Hardee's restaurant chain offered these as part of a promotion for its Cinnamon 'N' Raisin biscuits. Unknown; no label specified. WERNER: We went there because we had to meet the growers, and so we would drive, what was it, an hour, 90 minutes to Fresno from San Francisco, and the account people were all nervous on the way there like 'what are we going to do?'. Label. SW: But, on the other side of the debate, if you ask Barry Kriebel, he'll tell you it is much more complicated than that. Nature's candy. RV: I said, 'I'm going to do it where it feels authentic.' If I tell everybody some fictitious story about you know, Chicken Little, right now to you, they might know it in Madera by 2 o'clock. SW: But by 1994, the packers had reached a consensus. There it is. If you would like to know how you can use content on this page, see the Smithsonian's Terms of Use. He says if it had just been up to him, he would not have ended CALRAB and therefore the Dancing Raisins. In 2015, it was announced that a live-action/CGI reboot of the California Raisins would be produced, with president of The Actors Hall of Fame Foundation, Rusty Citron, as one of the people behind the project. In 1987, Vinton featured the Raisins singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" in A Claymation Christmas Celebration, a Christmas TV special he produced that won an Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. African American History Curatorial Collective. Sign up for notifications from Insider! On November 4, 1988, CBS aired a primetime television special called Meet the Raisins! Besides appearing in short commercials, The California Raisins shared their musical chops in television specials. SPEAKER ONE: Like obviously, they're raisins, but it just didn't occur to me that like this was a tool to get you to eat like what you see in boxes of raisins. HARDEES AD: Announcing the big plush bendable California Raisins at Hardees SW: There were California Raisins Halloween costumesthey were bestsellers in 1988. [16], In 2002, the Food Network program Unwrapped featured a segment on The California Raisins featuring interviews with Will Vinton, David Altschul, and Mark Gustafson of Vinton Studios. People loved the singing, dancing Claymation raisins so much that more commercials followed, andin a marketing scheme that was virtually unheard of at the timeThe California Raisins went on to release four albums, score a Billboard Hot 100 hit, and earn an Emmy nomination (and appear in an Emmy-winning show). CH: So where did this journey for you begin? Kalem Barserian will tell you the ad made the raisin industry money, and he will pull out a calculator to prove it. SW: His boss had him working mostly on trade adsstuff for industry publications not the kind of campaigns you or I would ever see in a commercial or on a billboard. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. SW: In the end, the ad went to air. Right? So you really had to be in the right place at the right time just to see it, and then when you saw it, you weren't quite sure what that was, but it was different than everything else you saw, and people started just saying 'what was that?'. They all watched as Seth walked in and took the floor. CH: After the break, five million dollars DOES go a long way, the Dancing California Raisins conga line their way to record deals and awards, and they split the raisin industry right down the middle. AD SIX: Oh, I heard it through the grapevine! From Performing Songwriter Issue 111, July/Aug 2008. . The growers are the ones with the vines. Some people were saying they weren't getting a big enough slice of the Dancing Raisins pie. The California Raisins are often accompanied by a soundtrack of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," originally popularized by singer Marvin Gaye. Done. SPEAKER THREE: The one song I remember them doing all the time was "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" To the point where I was a kid and I hadn't, I don't think it really clicked to me that that was like a real song. The California Raisi - I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Used Vinyl - E8100A. As of the 2010s, packages of Sun-Maid Natural California Raisins still feature an updated California Raisin character. Merchandise sales included toys and Raisins images on nearly every conceivable medium: lunch boxes, notebooks, clothing, posters, bedsheets, and even a Halloween costume, just to name a few. It just knows that it needs water, it needs to be pruned, needs to be fertilized, it needs to be babied. If you need to request an image for publication or other use, please visit Rights and Reproductions. Like that. A board member said, 'Seth, can you do it again?' Note: Comment submission is temporarily unavailable while we make improvements to the site. And they should pretty much be still once they do their heard it! BARRY KRIEBEL: Well that's the problem with the advertising! Blastfrompasttoys. I don't like raisins. The California Raisins II is a 1990 claymation television special directed by Will Vinton, featuring the advertising characters The California Raisins. SW: That's Alvin and the Chipmunks, for those of you aren't fans. AD TWO: We know raisins are natural, but kids just know what they like. RAISINS SHOW: You might have heard about us through the old grapevine. (of Suite D2 Josephs Well, Hanover Walk, Leeds LS3 1AB) which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (with firm reference number 626349). ', 'Today during Ryan's Hope I saw the cutest commercial. There is also some good news though! Dancing Raisins "Heard It Through the Grapevine". These days, some growers are abandoning ship entirely, ripping out their vineyards and planting almonds instead. Right or wrong, It depends on wherever the votes are. But these tears I can't hold inside. The tape was rewound and the presentation repeated.". Barrett Strong was the singer. Today, it would go viral. in 1988. MATTHEW MALCOLM: I mean you can't just leave any field barren here, because something's gonna grow. SW: Matthew Malcolm was one of the first raisin industry members to return my calls. View wiki I mean, you can imagine that! KB: I'll never forget, he was a handsome guy, had white shoes on, no socks, had an earring in this ear, he had the ghetto blaster up on his shoulders, and he turns it on and it's "Heard It Through the Grapevine.". It's being threatened by growing raisin production in other countries. While the songs popularized the phrase, they inspired the hit kids cartoon series "The California Raisins" in the 1990s. And the industry was coming out of a big slump at the time. Losin' you would end my life you see. I Heard It Through the Grapevine. I believe it might have been a public service announcement', 'Dear Judy: Generally when you hear from me, a problem is involved. Check mate. It's very successful in that sense. The success of the dancing raisins exposed fractures in the industry which had been forming just under the surface for decades. And, I didn't know this, but nearly 100 percent of the raisins the U.S. produces come from within a 60 mile radius of the city. SW: That is exactly what I wanted to find out. America's favorite raisin. Brought to you by is a production of Insider Audio. Who'd have ever thought that a beloved Motown classic would be brought back to life by a bunch of animated dried fruit? Produced by Sarah Wyman, with Charlie Herman and Julia Press. I don't care how small or whatever, but something that's not part of what you're doing.'. 30 of those and you have a second of the commercial. Will Vinton told Seth the hardest part was getting his nose right. Some user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. The mockumentary-style show created a full backstory about the bands rise to stardom and delved into the histories of each of the individual Raisins, who had names by this pointA.C., Beebop, Stretch, and Red. Like the whole body was just a head, with arms and legs waving about. 16:20 How do you distinguish your raisin bagel from my field to your field? WERNER: We want sunglasses on them, I want to put them in Converse sneakers, but untie the laces, and they gotta look hip, basically. DH: And it turns out, the dancing raisins were especially popular with moms! California Raisins poster vintage 1987 Heard it Through The Grapevine. SW: That's another thing that makes the raisin industry different. Paul McCartney requested his own copy on VHS. (laughs). First aired on September 14, 1986, Werner's idea for a 30-second television commercial introduced audiences to The California Raisins, a group of anthropomorphized raisins with expressive. Got 100,000 tons, more sales than you would have if you didn't do this. SPEAKER NINE: Definitely didn't make me any more of a fan of raisins. SW: Kalem Barserian, raisin industry veteran, again. SW: I mean, how did you react when you found out about that?? RAISINS CHRISTMAS: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer It's those sensational California Raisins in the Emmy-winning Claymation Christmas celebration, next! ", In 2017, an episode of The Simpsons called "The Cad and the Hat" included a couch gag segment featuring the California Raisins being killed by Homer.[21]. On the table below them. MM: At every industry meeting I go to, it seems like someone's asking, some raisin grower's asking 'are you ever going to bring the raisin, dancing raisins back?' The following year, Vinton created another TV special called Meet The Raisins! KB: Grape and raisin grower. SPEAKER EIGHT: And I guess subliminally, it probably worked because I do remember eating raisins as a snack. The classic about a man who finds out his woman is cheating on him was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. SW: Clyde E. Nef, who was CALRAB's manager at the time, wrote about Seth's performance and the board's reaction in his book, The Fruits of Their Labors. Director. The problem, FCB's account supervisor said at the time, was that though customers understood the health benefits of raisins, they had emotional connections with various vice products, like cigarettes because of the long-running "Marlboro Man" ads, or beer based on the popular "Miller Time" ads. All Rights Reserved. A series of weather-related disasters during the '70s had thrown the price of raisins completely out of whack. But back in 1986, going viral was not yet a thing. You got 100,000 tons. Their cover of Marvin Gaye's &, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Was the Dancing Raisins ad a success? Because that's a whole market supply and demand on both the national and international basis. TikTok video from Shug (@sonyastanford2). Condition: Used. First of all, you've got that family dynamic. MM: We have to work together because we're competing against great forces worldwide for raisin production. If you have more stories to share, call us anytime. If you have a question relating to the museum's collections, please first check our Collections FAQ. California Raisin's Version. The claymation raisins singing and dancing to Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" became a kids TV show, recorded an album that went platinum, launched a range of toys and costumes, and starred in an Emmy-winning Christmas special.