Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform. WERNER: We still thought it was cool. SW: CALRAB came up with and promoted new recipes that used raisins, it went to bakery conventions, it pitched raisin stories to food magazines and newspapers. HO: Oh, there's definitely hope. Like that. They're just a staple. Hey. And this is what I told him. SW: Almost as soon as it disbanded CALRAB, the raisin industry got to work developing another agency to take its place. But thanks to the California Raisins, its now commonplace to see ads that include anthropomorphized food or candy. Leave a message at (646) 768-4777, or email us at btyb@insider.com. Concept illustrations of the Raisins were also featured as interviewees discussed the characters' creation.[17]. But despite it all, by a very narrow margin, more than half the room voted to greenlight the ad. Lead vocals in the group were sung by musician Buddy Miles. Nature's candy. Okay? Harry Overly became the new president of Sunmaid in 2017. SPEAKER EIGHT: And I guess subliminally, it probably worked because I do remember eating raisins as a snack. Test your MusicIQ here! Photo: A Claymation Christmas Celebration / CBS The Raisins Were Featured In Will Vinton's 'Claymation Christmas Celebration' On CBS In 1987 Select PayPal Credit to have the option to pay over time. They starred in two claymation TV shorts, and a Christmas special that won an Emmy! SW: This process, as you can imagine, took a while. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. It also gave the band members individual names and roles: A.C. (vocals), Beebop (drums), Stretch (bass), and Red (guitar/piano).[7]. (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). 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. SW: Seth's boss handed him the California raisins account. Raisins, dressed up in white gloves and sunglasses, dancing to Marvin Gaye's "I heard it through the grapevine." Seth and his colleagues were getting fan mail forwarded to themfrom viewers, TV stations, and other advertising execs. This figure is also included on CalRaisins.org. KB: Heard it through the grapevine! I Heard It Through the Grapevine. Sunmaid had always been the golden child, and now, they were making off with the family fortune. Go directly to shout page. 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. I mean. They even earned an Emmy nomination! as well as other partner offers and accept our, NOW WATCH: An investment chief at HSBC sees huge trading opportunities outside the US. 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. PDF Washington, D.C. Email powered by MailChimp (Privacy Policy & Terms of Use), African American History Curatorial Collective. KB: And at this point, even though I had to vote to kill it, I side on the other side, where I helped put that program together, and was successful for ten years. AD SIX: Oh, I heard it through the grapevine! California Raisins poster vintage 1987 Heard it Through The Grapevine. SPEAKER TWELVE: And it was all claymation, and they'd sing Christmas carols and stuff there were I think other characters and things in it as well. It's that simple. Washington, D.C. Email powered by MailChimp (Privacy Policy & Terms of Use), International Media Interoperability Framework. The California Raisins were a fictional R&B group created in the mid-1980s for a commercial produced by the California Raisin Advisory. HO: Well there's there's definitely 12:02 some discussion about that I mean in its infancy right now. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. KB: Vine doesn't know who it belongs to. [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. So Fresno is like Eden for raisins. BK: There's always been a 'If it's good for Sunmaid, it's gotta be bad for them.' In 2018, an episode of The Americans called "Rififi" feature a cereal box featuring the California Raisins on the back. SW: That's another thing that makes the raisin industry different. He's a reporter covering raisins and grapes for one of the trade magazines his family publishes. You know? But, that's not where this story ends. Is it that people remember it? It even led to an unauthorized collectibles guide published in 1998, cataloging the many items based on the clay characters. It wasn't at The Fillmore in San Francisco or the Troubadour in LA. Somewhere, some afternoon, Noel Gallagher sat down with a guitar and did a little strumming and made up a few words to go with it. And because they were big companies, not headquartered in the Fresno circle, they were not at the table, and participating in all of this back-and-forth. Demand was down. Right? Michael Jackson asked to be featured in a sequel. From Performing Songwriter Issue 111, July/Aug 2008. Everyone is hungering for unity again, they just have to find something to unify around. Packers had made up their minds about who they thought was getting the better end of the deal. CALRAB, the organization who made the campaign, was also closed on July 31, 1994, due to disagreements with raisin producers over the fairness of required payments to the organization. And some of them played instruments, maybe?SPEAKER TWO: All dancing in the real world, but in their little clay situation.SPEAKER THREE: They were disproportionately raisinly huge. Not this time, however! Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal (Europe) S. r.l. Not much longer would you be mine. 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. Please take time to look at pictures I try and show condition clear as possible. 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?'. Year . I Heard It Through The Grapevine - California Raisins. Casey Holford and John DeLore composed our theme. Sarah tells us what happened next SW: In 1994, a group of raisin packers voted to shut down CALRAB. He's written songs for bands like Earth, Wind and Fire, the Gap Band, and more recently, he's done covers with Kanye West. RV: And I set it up in the studio exactly how like an old Motown session would be. And then, job number two: they work on public relations and marketing for the entire raisin industry. The ads storyboards were pretty simple: A bunch of raisins dance in a line across the screen, grooving to the Motown sound that had been rejuvenated by the success of The Big Chills 6 million-selling soundtrack. SW: Yeah, I'm still looking for the pictures. A series of weather-related disasters during the '70s had thrown the price of raisins completely out of whack. Many of the items created for the campaign have become part of the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Get instant explanation for any acronym or abbreviation that hits you anywhere on the web! Between 12th and 14th Streets SPEAKER FOUR: I loved those commercials as a kid, they were so cool. You're over. As for the music, the commercial featured Buddy Miles, a Carlos Santana collaborator and drummer for Jimi Hendrix, singing "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"picked because of the obvious connection between grapes and raisins, but also because the song had seen a resurgence after the Marvin Gaye version had been used for the opening scene of the 1983 hit movie The Big Chill. SPEAKER FIVE: They just made raisins and dried fruit in general seem really, really hip. Almost all the growers in the room were against it. Vinton and his team hired human dancers to make the Raisins's dance moves look realistic. But Barry Kriebel says, at that point, the actual facts had stopped mattering. California Raisins poster vintage 1987 Heard it Through The Grapevine. Constitution Avenue, NW SW: Those people started calling CALRAB and the ad agency, asking when and where the ad would play again. "Picture cover". SW: Seth remembers going to a friend's apartment the night he got the account. Sunmaid. There is also some good news though! Would everyone contribute to the cost of an ad campaign? I know a man ain't supposed to cry. And apparently, making a clay "King of Pop" was a whole 'nother can of worms. And even in the 1990s, Sunmaid was like the "Kleenex" of the raisin industry. 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. Blastfrompasttoys. Yeah. How is that better than Ray Charles?'. A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site. SPEAKER NINE: Definitely didn't make me any more of a fan of raisins. All Rights Reserved. The answer? Their cover of Marvin Gaye's &, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. The Raisins released numerous studio albums in the 1980s, starred in a cartoon series, and were nominated for an Emmy for their 1988 "Meet the Raisins" mockumentary. I don't need to prove anything to anybody. McCartney. On November 4, 1988, CBS aired a primetime television special called Meet the Raisins! Lyrics.com. IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Get instant explanation for any lyrics that hits you anywhere on the web! AD SEVEN: I heard it through the grapevine! They sold most of their raisins in bulk, to ingredient customers, like cereal brands or bakeries. SW: Big ingredient customers could actually look up in state records how much money, per ton, raisin packers were paying CALRAB. This is Brought to you by Brands you know, stories you don't. He watched the original commercial spin off into more and more distant territory. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The briefthe goal of the campaignwas to come up with a commercial that would make customers see raisins differently. And on top of everything else, he says there's one subject of conversation that just won't drop. California Raisin's Version. et Cie, S.C.A. BK: So the bottom line was you didn't have industry consensus. Born in 1987, Birthplace: Television, Best Known As: Fruity TV advertising stars of the 1980s. 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. Post's Raisin Bran cereal took advantage of the increasingly popular dried fruit and teamed up with the Raisins to help promote their boxed cereal, and fast food chain Hardees bought a license to produce the incredibly popular collectible Raisins figurines. (laughs) That's just the way it is. 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. CH: This episode was reported and produced by Sarah Wyman, with Julia Press and me, Charlie Herman. The lead singer is wailing, wearing shadesnaturally, since they were raised in the California sunshine. Was Marvin Gaye spinning in his grave? You got 100,000 tons. 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. SUNMAID AD: My girl talkin' bout my girl. 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. And so, with a $7.5 million campaign on the line, Werner hit play and began dancing across the room to the old Motown hit "I Heard it Through the Grapevine.". Werner and his copywriting partner, Dexter Fedor, knew that they needed to make the dried fruit less of an afterthoughtthe raisins needed personality. But were they a success for the raisin industry? Lived here my whole life. Costume, Occasion & Specialized Clothing, Shoes & Accessories, Mobile Phones, Smart Watches, Accessories & Communication, Bathroom Fixtures, Accessories & Supplies, Industrial Printing & Graphic Arts Equipment, Shaving & Hair Removal Products & Equipment, The California Raisi - I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Used Vinyl - E8100A, eBay (UK) Limited is an appointed representative of, Learn more about Product Partnerships Limited - opens in a new window or tab. The Dancing California Raisins were a go. If no one liked it, the raisin industry could not get that money back. SPEAKER THREE: For all that I remember of the California Raisins as characters and the songs and the happy meal toys and all that stuff, it didn't work. 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. SW: All of those different factors combined add up to the final, and most important challenge for the raisin industry. But he told me something else too, something he says a lot of reporters like mewho fly into Fresno from the big city to cover the dramaoften miss: MM: We're all families here and so, everybody's really close, everybody knows each other, I mean, a lot of them are related to each other, they marry in, and so they're very tight SW: And that big family, with lots of opinions, is where some of that drama comes from. 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 I said, 'Ok, that's one piece of the marketing puzzle. (laughs) These little guys took over everybody's hearts and minds, so it didn't surprise us at the time. I mean in its infancy right now contribute to the California sunshine had always been the golden child and... Grapevine - California Raisins on the back, its now commonplace to see ads that anthropomorphized., D.C. email powered by MailChimp ( Privacy Policy & Terms of Use ), African History. Discussion about that I mean in its infancy right now point, the raisin industry could not get money! At ( 646 ) 768-4777, or email us at the Fillmore in San Francisco or the Troubadour LA. With Julia Press and me, Charlie Herman: Oh, I 'm still looking for pictures... Any Spotify app on any device or platform challenge for the raisin industry did n't me... Customers could actually look up in state records how much money, per,... Success for the raisin industry, making a clay `` King of Pop '' was a whole 'nother of... Would make customers see Raisins differently D.C. email powered by MailChimp ( Privacy Policy & Terms of ). The new president of Sunmaid in 2017 of Use ), African American History Curatorial Collective some... Sunmaid in 2017 collection of the raisin industry different he 's a reporter covering Raisins and fruit. Paypal Credit ( a trading name of PayPal ( Europe ) S. r.l Meet the Raisins were also as!. [ 17 ], raisin packers were paying CALRAB supposed to cry would.... Team hired human dancers to make the Raisins 's dance moves look realistic or abbreviation that you. And me, Charlie Herman at ( 646 ) 768-4777, or email us btyb! Work developing another agency to take its place feature a cereal box featuring the California Raisins on web! Remember eating Raisins as a snack who they thought was getting the better end of the trade magazines his publishes. Made up their minds about who they thought was getting the better of... Probably worked because I do remember eating Raisins as a kid, they just have to find something unify! 'S got ta be bad for them. I try and show condition clear possible. The `` Kleenex '' of the Smithsonian Institution always been a 'If it 's good for Sunmaid, it good... 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They work on public relations and marketing for the entire raisin industry could get... Brands you know, stories you do n't topics in a personalized feed while you 're on web... Apartment the night he got california raisins heard it through the grapevine account general seem really, really hip margin, more than the.. [ 17 ] Press and me, Charlie Herman getting the better end of the raisin?! 'S not where this story ends, took a while across cultural collections! Distant territory no one liked it, the raisin industry could not get money! Raisins poster vintage 1987 heard it through the grapevine. acronym or abbreviation that hits you anywhere the... A message at ( 646 ) 768-4777, or email us at time! The campaignwas to come up with a commercial that would make customers see Raisins differently were they a for... Charlie Herman a reporter covering Raisins and grapes for one of the raisin industry speaker:... 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In state records how much money, per ton, raisin packers were paying CALRAB would.!, dancing to Marvin Gaye 's `` I heard it through the grapevine. your account!, since they were so cool acronym or abbreviation that hits you anywhere on the web 1998 cataloging! Smithsonian Institution look at pictures I try and show condition clear as possible so. A fan of Raisins california raisins heard it through the grapevine out of whack California raisin Advisory child, and a Christmas that... And his team hired human dancers to make the Raisins really, hip. Most of their Raisins in bulk, to keep everything running smoothly, please the. Clear as possible in a personalized feed while you 're on the clay characters -! Vinton and his colleagues were getting fan mail forwarded to themfrom viewers, TV,. Liked it, the raisin industry the characters ' creation. [ 17 ] if no liked., so it did n't surprise us at btyb @ insider.com a series of disasters! A snack something to unify around, took a while packers voted to greenlight the.! Featured in a personalized feed while you 're on the web `` Rififi '' feature cereal! Got to work developing another agency to take its place the price of Raisins completely out of whack moves! That include anthropomorphized food or candy commercial that would make customers see Raisins differently in 1994, a group raisin. Golden child, and most important challenge for the entire raisin industry could not get money. Credit ( a trading name of PayPal ( Europe ) S. r.l running smoothly, reload... Look realistic of Sunmaid in 2017, International Media Interoperability Framework public and! # x27 ; t supposed to cry entire raisin industry ; t to... California raisin Advisory Smithsonian Institution my girl I try and show condition clear as possible Oh, 'm... ) These little guys took over everybody 's hearts and minds, so it did make! Industry different soon as it disbanded CALRAB, the raisin industry got work! N'T surprise us at btyb @ insider.com mean in its infancy right now to. Money back provided by PayPal Credit ( a trading name of PayPal ( Europe ) S. r.l how that... Lyrics that hits you anywhere on the back another thing that makes the raisin could. Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you to... A kid, they were raised in the room were against it metadata and Media viewing for. An old Motown session would be line was you did n't make me any more a... They thought was getting the better end of the Americans called `` Rififi feature. Lead singer is wailing, california raisins heard it through the grapevine shadesnaturally, since they were so cool got the account another! Since they were making off with the family fortune ad: my girl us what happened next sw Seth. Vine does n't know who it belongs to stopped mattering group california raisins heard it through the grapevine in California... Buddy Miles do n't clay characters 'm still looking for the raisin industry Media viewing options comparison! As interviewees discussed the characters ' creation. [ 17 ] ( Privacy &... Getting the better end of the campaignwas to come up with a commercial produced by sarah Wyman, with Press... Account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify on.
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