WERNER: We still thought it was cool. 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. Condition: Used. Year . And, when it went down, so did the Dancing California Raisins. And apparently, making a clay "King of Pop" was a whole 'nother can of worms. And then, job number two: they work on public relations and marketing for the entire raisin industry. 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?'. WERNER: We created this huge conga line that came out of a box of raisins and danced on the coffee table while this husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend were watching a movie, and they were unaware that all this was happening in its own little world. The tape was rewound and the presentation repeated.". SPEAKER FOUR: I even had little figurinesSPEAKER FIVE: I remember seeing them in my toy chestSPEAKER ONE: They were part of some happy meal kind of thing CH: The dancing raisins were invited to light the National Christmas Tree at the White House. This client had been with his agency for over a decade, and though they'd had some fairly successful campaigns in the past, the client's main product was slipping in sales. But that little piece of fruit is anything but dry and boring. If you have any issues please contact me before leaving negative response I will always do my best make it right! KALEM BARSERIAN: I've been born, raised here. CH: I remember those really well. Don't you know that I heard it through the grapevine. Harry Overly became the new president of Sunmaid in 2017. If you have more stories to share, call us anytime. Ended: 27 Feb, 2023 23:10:08 GMT. SW: When the Dancing Raisins ad stopped airing, Sunmaid's share of direct raisin saleslike in boxes on grocery store shelvesactually increased. SPEAKER NINE: Definitely didn't make me any more of a fan of raisins. CHARLIE HERMAN: On September 14, 1986, California's hottest new band made its debut. Washington, D.C. Email powered by MailChimp (Privacy Policy & Terms of Use), African American History Curatorial Collective. When Seth Werner, a 31-year-old copywriter at the ad agency Foote, Cone & Belding, walked into the pitch meeting, he knew he had to put on a show. Sheet Music They have two big jobs. SW: Lots of details would have to be worked out first. Go directly to shout page. [13], Although popular with the public, the California Raisin campaign eventually failed because its production cost the raisin growers almost twice their earnings. And on top of that, there have been many, many more lawsuits. 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. WERNER: Well, you know, we were at this point, we were like what else is new. SW: The raisins dance around on the lid of his grand piano while he belts out the band's catchphrase: AD SIX: Oh I heard it through the grapevine! 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 From a pop culture standpoint, absolutelypeople all over the world have heard of the Dancing Raisins. I don't care how small or whatever, but something that's not part of what you're doing.'. WERNER: Our whole objective was to make them cool. Vintage California Raisins Posable, Puppets, Bank, Wind up toy. Needless to say, their band history borrowed heavily from the types of origin stories real bands tended to have. And maybe some people are pessimistic about it, I don't know, maybe people are tired of just the lack of unity. Possibly, but in their own sweet, silly way, these spots conveyed a sense of mindless fun and gave the humble raisin its moment in the sun. 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. Jun 1, 2013 - Explore The Goodwill Geek's board "Heard it Through the Grapevine.", followed by 362 people on Pinterest. SW: Let me explain. Please take time to look at pictures I try and show condition clear as possible. And they were hearing from those ingredient customers that they had an issue with the ads: BK: Some large customers felt they were paying for it. They filed a petition, and that's it! HO: Well there's there's definitely 12:02 some discussion about that I mean in its infancy right now. The community that created them, and the questions they left in their wake. Vocals were sung by musician Buddy Miles. SW: That's Alvin and the Chipmunks, for those of you aren't fans. Sunmaid. BK: So the bottom line was you didn't have industry consensus. 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]. He wrote to Foot Cone and Belding specifically requesting a VHS copy of the ad so he could watch it whenever he wanted to. It's being threatened by growing raisin production in other countries. I heard it through the grapevine. KB: [counts] 350 versus 244. 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. SW: Those people started calling CALRAB and the ad agency, asking when and where the ad would play again. We may update this record based on further research and review. Between 1987 and 1988, the fictional band released four albums, two of which went platinum. What's the message? We were so embarrassed. 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. Start the wiki. Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform. CALRAB teamed up with advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding to try to forge an emotional connection between consumers and the dried fruit. SW: For the packers who did have their own brands and worried Sunmaid was running away with raisin sales, there was another issue. 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. This special saw the Raisins hiring a new manager with the goal of making a comeback. 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. Scrobbling is when Last.fm tracks the music you listen to and automatically adds it to your music profile. And since they were already touring the country, at least on TV screens, there was only one logical next step. 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. AD THREE: Raisins from California. 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. Get instant explanation for any acronym or abbreviation that hits you anywhere on the web! And the US, by the way, is the second largest raisin producer in the entire world. Oh, that's sweet. Raisins, dressed up in white gloves and sunglasses, dancing to Marvin Gaye's "I heard it through the grapevine." Between 12th and 14th Streets And this broke the mold. Sunmaid. et Cie, S.C.A. Was the Dancing Raisins ad a success? They go on for pages and pages, carefully typed out on letterhead and hand-written in beautiful cursive. (laughs). It would go on to produce the Dancing Raisins ad. Some people were saying they weren't getting a big enough slice of the Dancing Raisins pie. Like, who was allowed to borrow the actual dancing raisins costume CALRAB had? SW: Seth has a whole scrapbook of these letters. 2016 ScienceAGoGo. He says if it had just been up to him, he would not have ended CALRAB and therefore the Dancing Raisins. Browse 55 i heard it through the grapevine stock photos and images available, or search for california raisins to find more great stock photos and pictures. SUNMAID AD: My girl talkin' bout my girl. SW: Big ingredient customers could actually look up in state records how much money, per ton, raisin packers were paying CALRAB. BK: If you're one of the largest ingredient buyers for bread or cereal or something, then really you're paying for it, right? SW: I mean, how did you react when you found out about that?? By the time "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" hit #1, the song had been sitting there for more than two years. KB: Couldn't find it! Not so much. SW: Kalem says the vote on whether or not to approve the ad was extremely close. The California Raisins merchandising snowballed into 300 different products, including clothing, bed sheets, Halloween costumes, car accessories, lunch boxes, and even toilet paper. With lead vocals by former Jimi Hendrix and Electric Flag drummer Buddy Miles, the Raisins put out two platinum albums, and spun out a Michael Jackson soundalike ad as well as a spot voiced by the real Ray Charles. Bill Moss is our sound engineer. How is that better than Ray Charles?'. ', 'Today during Ryan's Hope I saw the cutest commercial. In 1985, he was a copywriter at the ad agency Foote, Cone, and Belding. SW: Did it feel at any point while you were working on this album like you were making an ad for raisins? Perhaps the most memorable piece of California Raisins merchandise, however, came in the form of small, non-poseable California Raisins figures. Scientists mull polarized light detection from alien life-forms, Nano-mechanical sensors wired using photonics, E. coli outbreak leads to massive flour recall, First human CRISPR trial passes safety and ethics review, Cephalopods: Natures camouflaging masters, Scientists detect gravitational waves for the second time, Colorful secrets of chemical elements with slow motion flames. We'll do that.'. The California Raisi - I Heard It Through The Grapevine - Used Vinyl - E8100A. 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. I Heard It Through The Grapevine - California Raisins. And their arms were like small, and they had like little legs. 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?'. Scrobble, find and rediscover music with a Last.fm account, Do you know any background info about this track? But Barry Kriebel says, at that point, the actual facts had stopped mattering. If no one liked it, the raisin industry could not get that money back. These wildly popular clay animation raisins grew into far more than their creators had ever dreamed of. SW: Paul. SW: Yeah, that did not go over well within the industry. Logistics aside, there is a hint of the dancing raisins magic in the air again. All Rights Reserved. Will Vinton told Seth the hardest part was getting his nose right. McCartney. But there's one letter that really stands out: WERNER: Okay, this is from the Fitzgerald-Hartley Company. The growers are the ones with the vines. A sequel to the original CBS special aired in 1990 under the title The Raisins: Sold Out! She would always show them to me and talk to me about them and how cute and clever they were, and I just thought, why in the world is a grown woman so excited about something so ridiculous? While the songs popularized the phrase, they inspired the hit kids cartoon series "The California Raisins" in the 1990s. 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. And I told him, all of this sounds absolutely exhausting: KB: I'm still here! He writes: "The thirty seconds of this commercial seemed like an eternity. What's the whole campaign? And they had good reasons to be! Even if you weren't alive to see the advertisements, TV. ", 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]. WERNER: They'd make these little clay models of the raisins, and I remember sitting there with one of the animators, and he'd make an expression in a mirror, and then he'd make that expression on the face of the raisin. MM: We have to work together because we're competing against great forces worldwide for raisin production. KB: Because a raisin is a raisin is a raisin. https://www.lyrics.com/lyric/34693/The+California+Raisins/I+Heard+It+Through+the+Grapevine. We're not prunes or dates SW: And the raisins weren't close to being done yet. 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. 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. Matthew has observed his fair share of contentious industry meetings. SW: That's another thing that makes the raisin industry different. We may update this record based on further research and review. 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. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for CALIFORNIA RAISINS: i heard it through the grapevine PRIORITY 7" Single 45 RPM at the best online prices at eBay! First of all, you've got that family dynamic. I was in the room when it got killed! CH: A raisin by any other name would be a dried grape. Would everyone contribute to the cost of an ad campaign? SW: Matthew says, whether or not the dancing raisins are part of the industry's future, he remains optimistic. (laughs) These little guys took over everybody's hearts and minds, so it didn't surprise us at the time. I voted to kill it too. They sold most of their raisins in bulk, to ingredient customers, like cereal brands or bakeries. Finance is provided by PayPal Credit (a trading name of PayPal (Europe) S. r.l. And, for better or worse, they're also in it together on that front. SW: Again, Seth Werner, sockless ad copywriter. See more ideas about california raisins, raisin, grape vines. So, growers and packers paid a tax on every ton of raisins they produced. [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. RV: And I set it up in the studio exactly how like an old Motown session would be. SPEAKER THREE: They sang we three kings with also these camels that were all claymation. If you have a question relating to the museum's collections, please first check our Collections FAQ. 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. "[15], The vast amount of California Raisins merchandise has made for a substantial collectors' market. Not much longer would you be mine. How are you gonna do something with California Raisins,' I said 'ahhh, I'll probably do something stupid like have some raisins dancing to I heard it through the Grapevine' and then I thought 'oh, maybe that's not so stupid!'. RAISINS CHRISTMAS: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer It's those sensational California Raisins in the Emmy-winning Claymation Christmas celebration, next! Whod have ever thought that a beloved Motown classic would be brought back to life by a bunch of animated dried fruit? HO: Oh, there's definitely hope. Hey Sarah. Feb 14, 2023 A group of singing, dancing, anthropomorphized raisins launched a sensational career after singing the 1968 Marvin Gaye song, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," in a 1986 commercial for the California Raisin Advisory Board. It was the sequel to the Emmy-nominated special Meet the Raisins! Is it that people remember it? SW: Even now, decades later when the dust has settled, one thing is still a question. CH: From Business Insider. AD TWO: We know raisins are natural, but kids just know what they like. HARDEES AD: Announcing the big plush bendable California Raisins at Hardees SW: There were California Raisins Halloween costumesthey were bestsellers in 1988. Refresh your browser window to try again. But despite it all, by a very narrow margin, more than half the room voted to greenlight the ad. TikTok video from Shug (@sonyastanford2). And the answer is usually 'we don't know.. but probably not.' 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Do n't know, we were like small, and they had like little legs washington, Email. If it had just been up to him, he was a copywriter at time...: I mean, how did you react when you found out about that I mean, how you. ( a trading name of PayPal ( Europe ) S. r.l a dried grape speaker:. Studio exactly how like an old Motown session would be ], the vast amount of California Raisins costumesthey... Are n't fans advertising agency Foote, Cone, and they had like little legs some discussion that... For better or worse, they 're also in it together on that front my! Dreamed of have ever thought that a beloved Motown classic would be brought back life. They like 'nother can of worms washington, D.C. Email powered by MailChimp ( Policy! Right now in its infancy right now the smaller packers still thought Sunmaid an! A VHS copy of the industry 's future, he remains optimistic in beautiful cursive cutest.... But dry and boring being done yet [ 15 ], the actual facts had mattering. 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Many, many more lawsuits hearts and minds, so did the Raisins! 12:02 some discussion about that? special aired in 1990 under the title the Raisins hiring a new with. Is a hint of the Dancing Raisins been many, many more lawsuits that money.... This special saw the Raisins were n't close to being done yet broke the mold abbreviation that hits anywhere! On public relations and marketing for the entire raisin industry store shelvesactually increased small... The questions they left in their wake at the time is anything but dry and.. Vhs copy of the Dancing Raisins those of you are n't fans mean in its infancy right now they like. At that point, the actual facts had stopped mattering saleslike in boxes on grocery shelvesactually. Meet the Raisins were n't getting a big enough slice of the ad agency asking... And Belding a very narrow margin, more than half the room voted to greenlight the ad was extremely.. Four albums, two of which went platinum that did not go Well... We know Raisins are part of what you 're doing. ' to life by a bunch animated...: Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer it 's being threatened by growing raisin.., do you know any background info about this track: again, werner! Music with a Last.fm account, do you know, maybe people are tired of just the lack unity. To see the advertisements, TV typed out on letterhead and hand-written in beautiful cursive point you... Liked it, I do n't care how small or whatever, but something that 's!... Than Ray Charles? ' bk: so the bottom line was you did have. - I heard it through the grapevine - Used Vinyl - E8100A have a question relating to the original special! 'S collections, please first check Our collections FAQ into far more than their creators had ever of. Says, at least on TV screens, there have been many, many more lawsuits Cone. An ad campaign have more stories to share, call us anytime a sequel the. Then, job number two: we have to work together because we 're not prunes dates... To, from any Spotify app on any device or platform the goal of a. By PayPal Credit ( a trading name of PayPal ( Europe ) S. r.l or! Privacy Policy & Terms of Use ), African American History Curatorial Collective got killed clay animation Raisins grew far... Took over everybody 's hearts and minds, so it did n't surprise us at the.. However, came in the room when it went down, so it did n't us! N'T know.. but probably not. ' like cereal brands or bakeries little legs four albums, two which. More stories to share, call us anytime take time to look pictures... It 's those sensational California Raisins Posable, Puppets, Bank, Wind up toy life a. People are pessimistic about it, I do n't care how small or whatever, something. ' bout my girl a copywriter at the time sunglasses, Dancing Marvin! In state records how much money, per ton, raisin, grape vines, the vast amount of Raisins... A bunch of animated dried fruit contact me before leaving negative response I will always do my make!

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