In the 80's and early 90's, Will Vinton's patented Claymation technique was used for a number of television commercial campaigns, most famously The California Raisins -which were later spun off into a pair of Claymation specials and a traditionally-animated Saturday morning cartoon series. WILL VINTON'S CLAYMATION CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION was a video and television special which hit all the right marks. A series of Christmas songs are interpreted in various sketches, hosted by the dinosaur comedy team of Herb and Rex. Rex was an intellectual who tried to keep order. Herb was a gluttonous screwball. The results were very much in the vein of Abbott and Costello. Rex and Herb had sprang from an earlier classroom short about dinosaurs, though they had but one tiny scene and didn't speak. I'd love to think there was more Herb and Rex material, but I'm not aware of their being used beyond this seasonal favorite. The California Raisins appear, just prior to starring in their first special, MEET THE RAISINS, climaxing the festivities with a snappy version of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." WILL VINTON'S CLAYMATION CHRISTMAS CELEBRATION was a true high mark for the studio. Hard to figure why Claymation had vanished by the end of the following decade (actually, I imagine Claymation suffered from the same thing that killed traditional animation, the arrival of computer animation and Pixar).
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