The band broke up. McCartney. Start the wiki. SW: Michael Jackson sent Will Vinton a video with instructions for how he wanted the claymation to lookdown to the motions and facial expressions the backup raisins were making in the background of the ad. He wrote to Foot Cone and Belding specifically requesting a VHS copy of the ad so he could watch it whenever he wanted to. So many of you remembered that Christmas special. CALRAB teamed up with advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding to try to forge an emotional connection between consumers and the dried fruit. Sheet Music Instead, it was a group of tiny, claymation raisins playing a Motown hit in a national ad campaign. Like that. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine Lyrics." Potato head, but a raisin. See terms. Ended: 27 Feb, 2023 23:10:08 GMT. And then they called me and they said, 'you know what it's platinum in Canada too!' And this broke the mold. Still one thing nearly everyone does agree on is the mass appeal of the dancing raisins. And that is something producer that producer Sarah Wyman has made very clear to me since she began digging into the orgins of the California dancing raisins ad. SW: And then at the end the announcer says: WERNER: I remember when I went to college, people would say 'there are three or four ways you can do an advertisement. And then it clicked on me that it was like, 'oh, this is a real song, like not a California Raisins song.'. Would everyone contribute to the cost of an ad campaign? - The California Raisins II. In fact, the industry was on an upswing. But in 1994, the raisin industry abruptly pulled the plug on the ad and its spinoffs, and still debates whether or not it was successful. (981) $9.95. They recorded an album that went gold within weeks of its release. Find top songs and albums by California Raisins including I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and more. Or, as they saw it, for Sunmaid's good. CALRAB and the commercials it paid for represented the entire industry. CH: We're back. To access our initial disclosure document, please click, Get the item you ordered or your money back. RV: I said, 'I think that's a great idea.' And if you don't have a consensus, it doesn't matter. SPEAKER FIVE: They just made raisins and dried fruit in general seem really, really hip. And most of the people spending millions of dollars don't want to know there are two guys sitting in a back room trying to make each other laugh and come up with this stuff, but that is what we did. (laughs). SW: That's Alvin and the Chipmunks, for those of you aren't fans. 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. AD TWO: We know raisins are natural, but kids just know what they like. It turns out the raisin industry is actually a very contentious industry there's this long history of lawsuits going back and forth between different members. HO: Well there's there's definitely 12:02 some discussion about that I mean in its infancy right now. The California Raisins were a fictional R&B group created in the mid-1980s for a commercial produced by the California Raisin Advisory. 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. All Rights Reserved. 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. (laughs) These little guys took over everybody's hearts and minds, so it didn't surprise us at the time. Some had small brands that competed with Sunmaid. The California Raisins released four studio albums in 1987 and 1988, and their trademark, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," was on the Billboard Hot 100. Their cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" peaked at #84 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1988. Lead vocals in the group were sung by musician Bu, The California Raisins were a fictional R&B group created in the mid-1980s for a commercial produced by the California Raisin Advisory. KB: Once we started the Dancing Raisins, people were going to the store asking for Dancing Raisin raisins, and there weren't any! as well as other partner offers and accept our, NOW WATCH: An investment chief at HSBC sees huge trading opportunities outside the US. [6] 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. SW: So are the California Raisins coming back, do you thinkthe Dancing California Raisins? [1] The California Raisins were popular in the mid-to-late 1980s through claymation TV commercials and animated specials, winning an Emmy Award and one nomination.[2][3]. As of the 2010s, packages of Sun-Maid Natural California Raisins still feature an updated California Raisin character. Earlier this year, the CRMBwhich did not respond to my request for commenthired a brand new Vice President of Marketing. The community that created them, and the questions they left in their wake. Hey. From a pop culture standpoint, absolutelypeople all over the world have heard of the Dancing Raisins. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. The answer? The California Raisins II is a 1990 claymation television special directed by Will Vinton, featuring the advertising characters The California Raisins. Hell no! Unless you just happened to have a VCR set up and recording at the exact moment the ad aired WERNER: You had to wait and hopefully see it on TV again on some show you were watching and not know when that was coming, and because we didn't have a very big media budget, it wasn't on that often. 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. Many of the items created for the campaign have become part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Sunmaid had always been the golden child, and now, they were making off with the family fortune. Characters Steve and Roger go into a mall representing 1980s culture where they meet the Raisins who proclaim that they are "cursed to live forever. If you have any issues please contact me before leaving negative response I will always do my best make it right! WERNER: Our whole objective was to make them cool. "[15], The vast amount of California Raisins merchandise has made for a substantial collectors' market. The California Raisins, Michael Jackson, and more Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Heard It Through The Grapevine (Official Music Video) Creedence Clearwater Revival 36M views some 80s music. So, just like at Thanksgiving dinner, while CALRAB tried to calm everyone down and broker peace from the head of the table, squabbling raisin packers aired old grudges and argued about who was and was not getting their fair share of the cash. I'm Charlie Herman. I Heard It Through The Grapevine - California Raisins. Michael Jackson asked to be featured in a sequel. SW: Kalem was voting on behalf of the packer he worked for. Whod have ever thought that a beloved Motown classic would be brought back to life by a bunch of animated dried fruit? SPEAKER SIX: They were an incredible Motown band.SPEAKER ONE: I thought they were a real band, and really did not connect them to like raisins, or like the idea of dried grapes until well into my adulthood. Matthew has observed his fair share of contentious industry meetings. They all want to have them back [sigh] I don't know if it's just because they love the dancing raisins, or I think more than that, is they just want a powerful campaign, you know, backing up California raisins. It wasn't true. But that little piece of fruit is anything but dry and boring. SW: This is Matthew Malcolm again. SW: Back in Fresno, the raisin growers and packers watched with amazement as the Dancing Raisins turned into superstars. CEO of.. SW: His dad started farming and processing raisins in Fresno back in the 1920s, and since then, Kalem has bounced around pretty much every corner of the industry. MATTHEW MALCOLM: I mean you can't just leave any field barren here, because something's gonna grow. If you saw a commercial you liked, you couldn't look it up on YouTube and send a link to a friend. SW: The California raisin industry is complicated. SW: Big ingredient customers could actually look up in state records how much money, per ton, raisin packers were paying CALRAB. Almost all the growers in the room were against 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. Because, in Fresno, California Raisins has always meant something bigger than a couple of claymation figurines singing "I Heard It Through the Grapevine.". 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. There was 19 of us at Sunnyside country club sitting in a circle in the main dining room, and we all voted. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100. KB: Raisin processor for many years in different facilities. You do the math on how many tons of raisins you're buying from them, and bam, you can see exactly how much of the total cost is going towards California raisin ads. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/34693/The+California+Raisins/I+Heard+It+Through+the+Grapevine. [19], In 2014, the California Raisins made a cameo appearance in the RadioShack Super Bowl XLVIII commercial "The '80s Called". They filed a petition, and that's it! Concept illustrations of the Raisins were also featured as interviewees discussed the characters' creation.[17]. Perhaps the most memorable piece of California Raisins merchandise, however, came in the form of small, non-poseable California Raisins figures. If you would like to know how we handle complaints, please click, . Werner and Fedor also thought that the commercial should use clay animation, a type of stop-motion animation using characters or settings made out of clay or other similarly pliable materials, rather than regular cartoon animation. But I think we're heading in a positive direction now. Sales of raisins themselves increased 20 percent after the first commercial. It was the sequel to the Emmy-nominated special Meet the Raisins! 30 of those and you have a second of the commercial. [4] To their surprise, the commercial became wildly popular, paving the way for several future commercials and opportunities through other media. 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. They all watched as Seth walked in and took the floor. In order to be successful, this big "family" has to work together. The show was broadcast August 29, 1990, on the U.S. television network CBS during primetime. This figure is also included on CalRaisins.org. CH: A raisin by any other name would be a dried grape. The success of the dancing raisins exposed fractures in the industry which had been forming just under the surface for decades. It's that simple. WERNER: Uh yeah, it was probably a little bit of a shock, I guess. SW: Yeah, I'm still looking for the pictures. California Raisins Heard it Through the Grapevine (Better Quality) Herozilla Video Editing and Livestream Gaming 82.3K subscribers Subscribe 10K Share 983K views 3 years ago I don't own the. 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,'. SPEAKER FOUR: My mother thought they were great, and she collected the figurines. 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. 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