The California Raisins' Smashing Advertising Success

Audiences were spellbound, competitors were jealous, and consumers began to buy more raisins than ever. It’s the unlikely phenomenon of the "California Raisins" who blazed across 1980s TV screens, to the tune of Motown classic "I Heard it Through the Grapevine." This groundbreaking ad campaign, brought to life thanks to then-cutting edge "claymation: effects, made stars out animated crooning raisins—and emblazoned them in the annals of pop culture—culminating with a display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.