Okay so I spent a bunch of time googling around about the California Raisin Advisory Board (CALRAB).

CALRAB was funded by CA state gov and USDA to promote the California raisin industry: growers, who grow and dry the grapes, and packers, who clean, sort, pack, and distribute the raisins.

They’d been trying for literal years to goose demand for raisins. “Raisins are nature’s candy” and whatnot. Nothing was working; how do you make raisins cool?

A junior ad writer at the agency CALRAB hired was looking to make a splash and asked to be given some small account to own. He got CALRAB.

But remember that family dynamic I mentioned?

So, the California Raisins characters belonged to CALRAB, and were not meant to promote any particular raisin brand.

But when you think of raisins, what brand do you think of?

Sun Maid.

My 1987 California Raisins' Ben Indasun

🎵I Heard It Through The Grapevine!🎵

#benindasun #californiaraisins #thecaliforniaraisins #mascot #willvintonstudios #raisin #raisins #clay #claymation #figurine #toys #actionfigurephotography #toyphotography #buddymiles #ihearditthroughthegrapevine #80s

At the time, nearly all raisins consumed in the US were grown within 60 miles of Fresno. So CALRAB was made up of like 40 family-owned biz, all geographically close. They’ve worked together/competed for yrs, they’re intermarried, they have rivalries...

The family dynamic is critical to the story.

So the price of this campaign is out of control, everyone’s mad at each other and especially at Sunmaid, and all the infighting resulted in the raisin industry voting to DISSOLVE CALRAB rather than continue to pay marketing fees for the California Raisins.

He came up with animated raisins singing Marvin Gaye’s “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” and pitched it to this roomful of raisin farmers and packers by performing it himself.

The CALRAB vote to accept the proposal passed… just barely.

And remember: Raisin sales at this point are way up. Americans are eating tons of raisins! They’re feeding them to their toddlers!

The raisin biz was a real rising tide lifting all boats at this point.

But Sunmaid had shelf share in stores and there was a lot of jealousy among CALRAB members.

CALRAB was immediately replaced by the California Raisin Marketing Board, but by this point (1994) the damage has been done.

CMRB doesn’t have the budget to continue producing expensive Claymation ads. Raisin businesses don’t want to pay more in fees. And the mutual distrust lingered for 30 years.

My 1987 California Raisins' Ben Indasun!

#benindasun #californiaraisins #thecaliforniaraisins #mascot #willvinton #willvintonstudios #sunmaid #calrab #raisins #clay #claymation #figure #figurine #toys #actionfigurephotography #toyphotography #toyphoto #ihearditthroughthegrapevine #80s

California raisins, like the crash test dummies, were created and maintained by government funding. I don't know how much money they made but it seems like a lot. Calrab > department of ag seed money of 3 million.