Who knew that Raisins could take a good song and make it seem horribly cheesy. The California Raisins was a rhythm and blues band of claymation raisins. The concept was created in 1987 for the California Raisin Advisory Board. The writers used the song “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye and the commercial was a big hit. Eventually The California Raisins would star in more commercials, two television specials, a Saturday morning cartoon and produce four records.

The clay puppets were going to be thrown out, but instead were shipped to Animateclay.com. You can see pictures of the original clay raisins on the site.