Back in the late 1980s, the California Raisins were huge. Like so many pop culture characters of the decade, they began as a marketing gimmick. Within a year or two they had toys, albums, TV specials, and they were even awarded that epitome of 1980s pop culture adoration, a (short-lived) Saturday morning cartoon. They even got a freakin’ videogame, although it was never actually produced. My personal favorite Raisins-related production was Meet the Raisins, a clever Beatles send-up which, sadly, remains unavailable outside of old VHS tapes.
Of course, young Poe had some of the Raisins toys–mostly just the little Applause figurines. They weren’t articulated, but they served their purpose of offering Poe a plastic totem of some beloved marketing icons.
PrfktTear
I had a ton of these guys, I should still have most of them. I even had the Hendrix-esque left handed electric guitar player, the tamborine playing woman, and the guy playing an upright bass.
I also had the windup singer.
Oh yeah, and guess who did "I heard it through the grapevine" for his 1st Grade Talent Show???
ME!
Newton Gimmick
@Frogster: Hardees it was! I had them.
I also had the much more poseable WIND-UP figures which aside from the wind-up mechanism were the best Raisens figures released.
I also had a T-shirt and a bunch of other crap that shows up in pictures. And I ate a lot more raisens too.
Frogster
Loved them, had a complete set that is packed somewhere. I remember they were also part of a restaurant tie-in/promotion. Hardee's maybe it was…
Nik
I had those guys. I just found out that my stop motion professor up at grad school worked on these guys a lot. neat stuff.