Television Reviews : Satirical ‘Meet the Raisins’ Shows Off Feats of Clay

If producer Will Vinton had found writers as good as the animators who move his familiar clay characters, “Meet the Raisins: The Story of the California Raisins” (airing at 8:30 tonight on CBS Channels 2 and 8) would rank among the best animated specials of all time. Instead, it’s a very uneven half-hour that mixes excellent animation and sharply focused satire with silly characters and tired old jokes.

The special is a vehicle for the California Raisins, the widely merchandised characters Vinton introduced in 1986 in a series of commercials for the California Raisin Board. “Meet the Raisins” takes four of the anonymous little figures and gives them names (A.C., Red, Stretch and Beebop) and recognizable personalities.

The highlight of the show is a clever montage that parodies rock documentaries--home movies, stills, clips and interviews trace the Raisins’ rise to stardom from their small-time roots in a band called the Vine-yls. The animators copy the elaborate footwork of early ‘60s groups such as the Drifters and the Coasters with the same elan that made the original commercials so entertaining.

But instead of following the group’s transitions through various styles of rock or chronicling their decline and comeback on the revival circuit, the show stumbles into a series of funny but irrelevant movie spoofs. The weary jokes involving Rudy Bagaman, the Raisins’ inept hustler of a manager, lack the sly satire of the musical sequences, and a subplot about a grapefruit-bass singer who was dropped from the group adds nothing to the story.

“Meet the Raisins” will probably increase the characters’ already phenomenal popularity: Viewers can expect to see more of them in gift shops, T-shirt stores and boutiques. Maybe one of the two additional specials in the works for next year will give audiences the opportunity to see them in a coherent story.