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The California Raisins were a fictional rhythm and blues animated musical group as well as advertising and merchandising characters composed of anthropomorphized raisins. Lead vocals were sung by musician Buddy Miles.[1] The California Raisins were popular from 1986 to 2002 through claymation TV commercials and animated specials, winning an Emmy Award and one nomination.[2][3]
The concept was originally created by advertising firm Foote, Cone & Belding (FCB) for a 1986 Sun-Maid commercial on behalf of the California Raisin Advisory Board when one of the writers, Seth Werner (at the time with FCB in San Francisco) came up with an idea for the new raisin commercial, saying, "We have tried everything but dancing raisins singing 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine'" (the 1968 song popularized separately by Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight and the Pips and Creedence Clearwater Revival).[4] To their surprise, the commercial became wildly popular, paving the way for several future commercials and opportunities through other media. The commercials were produced by Vinton Studios using their claymation technique, with character designs by Michael Brunsfeld.[5] The following year, the Raisins appeared in the Emmy Award-winning A Claymation Christmas Celebration, singing the Christmas carol "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer".
The California Raisins released four studio albums on Warner Bros. Records, Priority Records, BMG, and ZTT Records between 1987 and 2002, and their signature song, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", landed on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 84.[6] For three of the four albums the group issued, they were a consistent vocal group, with Buddy Miles handling most of the lead vocals; Ellis Hall and Niki Haris sang occasional leads, and backing vocals were by Howard McCrary, Howard Smith, and Leslie Smith. (One album, Meet The Raisins!, featured completely different vocal performers.) However, the Raisins would continue to make their strongest impression through animated endeavors, and the characters proved popular enough that they were used to endorse Post Raisin Bran cereal.
A Saturday morning cartoon series, The California Raisin Show, debuted the following year, but lasted only 13 episodes.[8] While cel animated by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, it maintained Will Vinton's creative direction. A sequel to the original CBS special aired in 1990 under the title The Raisins: Sold Out! - The California Raisins II. This special saw the Raisins hiring a new manager with the goal of making a comeback before The California Raisins 2000.
The Raisins were discontinued July 31, 2002, with the collapse of the California Raisin Advisory Board; members of the grape farming industry were growing alarmed at the increased fees, driven by an ever-escalating amount of money being spent on the California Raisins campaign.[9][10] The structure of the campaign had resulted in all of the profits from the campaign being funneled back to Foote, Cone & Belding for more commercials and merchandise, creating a vicious cycle.[4]
Many of the items created for the campaign have become part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. 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. A California Raisins Fan Club began in 1987, which included a Grapevine Gazette newsletter and various memorabilia.[11] 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.
Several California Raisins music albums were also released, featuring classic Motown and rock standards. These albums were included in the Smithsonian collection and were illustrated and art-directed by Helane Freeman, who later became famous for her work on Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, among other Disney programs.
Perhaps the most memorable piece of California Raisins merchandise, however, came in the form of small, non-poseable California Raisins figures. The Hardee's restaurant chain offered these as part of a promotion for its Cinnamon 'N' Raisin biscuits.[12] Different collections were produced in 1987, 1988, 1991, and finally in 2001 (the latter adding Carl's Jr. due to their late '90s acquisition of Hardee's) for their new stylization. This latest incarnation can still be seen on the California Raisin Marketing Board website.[13]
In the early 1990s, Capcom produced a video game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) titled The California Raisins: The Grape Escape,[14] in which the player controlled a California Raisin through five side-scrolling levels battling various evil fruit and vegetable characters that have stolen the Raisins' music. The game was completed and several video game critics reviewed it, but it was never released on the open market.
Box Office Software produced a different, unrelated California Raisins computer game in 1988 for the Apple II, Commodore 64, and PC compatibles. The plot of the game involved Tiny Goodbite having to rescue his friends who have been kidnapped and held in a cereal factory.[15]
On March 28, 1997 Entertainment Weekly published "The 50 Best Commercials of All Time" as its cover story. The article ranked The California Raisins' premiere advertisement, "Lunchbox", at #15 with comments by ad agency executive Claude Jacques and described the Raisins as "The coolest wrinkled musicians this side of the Stones."[16]
The vast amount of California Raisins merchandise has made for a substantial collectors' market. It even led to an unauthorized collectibles guide published in 1998, cataloging the many items based on the clay characters.[17]
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. Concept illustrations of the Raisins were also featured as interviewees discussed the characters' creation.[18]
An article published by AnimateClay.com in the late 2000s details the whereabouts of the original claymation sculptures used by Vinton Studios. The figures were kept in a box for several years and headed for the trash before being obtained by Webster Colcord, a former employee of Vinton. 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.[19]
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.[22]
I start with the standard recipe on every can of Quaker oats and then start making it better. I find it too sweet, so I dial back the sugar. It never has enough raisins in it, so I up them. I use only brown sugar (instead of a mix of brown and white). And sometimes, though not this one, I add chopped walnuts because they were made to go together.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.
The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.
I like your site since it has good recipes for trying once in a while. However, I often wonder about your health. It looks like you consume too much butter, sugar and other unhealthy stuff. I hope you cook more healthy food and blog about them as well. I do not mean to offend you, am just concerned.
Deb, No need to defend yourself to such an antagonistic comment. Your family is so fortunate to have a loving, working mom who cooks real, delicious foods- and bakes treats (called treats for a reason) to share. Baking requires exacting precision and is the most difficult to reliably blog. Thank you (and making these cookies now). The reader comment was not caring, incredibly rude and lacked grace and tact. Keep sharing your love of homemade food with all of us! We support you!
I am on the hunt for a diet which will allow me to eat exactly as I do now, and will allow indulgences such as chocolate and milkshakes and frequent servings of birthday cake, and will allow me to roll back to my high school weight and figure. Any ideas? These cookies would be a perfect beginning. Oatmeal is healthy.
Although I have never boiled the raisins, I have soaked them in spiced rum for a few hours prior to adding them to the dough. Scrumptious result! ;-) Now that alcohol is not often part of our life, I soak them in warm water with a tiny splash of Jamaican rum extract. Delicious!
I love the Quaker recipe but I usually substitute chocolate chips for the raisins, change the light brown sugar to dark and add a wee bit of fresh nutmeg. They are spicy and melty and rich. I make a half recipe two or three times a year, feel guilty while eating them hot from the oven and then wish I had made more!
I just made these cookies and they came out anything but chewy and thick! they are flakey and dry! i followed everything exactly and even undercooked them buy a minute b/c my oven is fast! What did I do wrong?
Wow, I just made this same 1/2 recipe last weekend. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in chasing the best chocolate chip cookie recipe that the humble oatmeal cookie gets neglected.. For mine, I used walnuts and dried sweetened cranberries, a little more vanilla, a dash of nutmeg, and another dash of dried ginger. The dough smelled and tasted fantastic and so were the baked cookies. This is definitely a keeper.
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