Quicknation    The California Raisins

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The California Raisins are a fictional rhythm and blues musical group made up of anthropomorphized raisins.

The concept was originally created for a 1987 commercial on behalf of the California Raisin Advisory Board when one of the writers, while trying to come up with an idea for a new raisin commercial, said, "We have tried everything but dancing raisins singing 'I Heard it Through the Grapevine'" (a 1968 Marvin Gaye song). To their surprise, the commercial became wildly popular, spawning future commercials, TV specials, and a Saturday morning cartoon series starring the Raisins. The Raisins also appeared in holiday specials such as .

The California Raisins are normally Claymation designed by the Emmy-Award winning studio of Will Vinton, but their cartoon series was cel animated. The artist responsible for the original design was Michael Brunsfeld.

The California Raisins reportedly grossed more in the year that was their heyday, 1988, than Californian farmers made selling raisins.

In the early 1990s Capcom produced a video game where the player controlled a California Raisin through five side-scrolling levels battling various evil fruit and vegetable characters that had stolen the Raisins' music. The game was finished and several video game critics reviewed it, but the game was not released on the open market.

In a Season 15 episode of The Simpsons, the California raisins were spoofed as "The California Prunes" in a Christmas special depicting the Nativity. Lisa dismisses it as "offensive to both Christians prunes."

A segment on MADtv depicted the Raisins as mass-murderers by promoting humans to eat their fans. After an 'incident' in Seattle, the band was sentenced to 'death by toaster'.