California Raisins - The Grape Escape (USA) (Proto1)

California Raisins - The Grape Escape brings the popular claymation advertising icons to interactive entertainment in a quirky, music-themed platforming adventure. Developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System, this unreleased game would have let players control the sunglasses-wearing anthropomorphic raisins through vibrant levels inspired by their commercials and animated specials. California Raisins - The Grape Escape follows the musical dried grapes as they navigate through numerous environments filled with food-themed enemies and obstacles while collecting musical notes and instruments. What makes California Raisins - The Grape Escape particularly interesting is its status as a completed but never officially released title, becoming something of a legend among gaming historians and collectors. The gameplay combines traditional platforming elements with musical themes, as players jump, slide, and groove through stages designed to showcase the California Raisins' trademark funk style. Each level in California Raisins - The Grape Escape would have featured musical challenges and rhythm-based sections that align with the characters' identity as Motown-inspired performers. While never reaching store shelves, California Raisins - The Grape Escape represents a fascinating artifact from a time when advertising mascots frequently crossed over into video games, offering a glimpse into a unique gaming experience based on one of the most successful advertising campaigns of the 1980s.

California Raisins - The Grape Escape was developed by Capcom in the early 1990s as part of a licensing agreement with the California Raisin Advisory Board, whose claymation raisins had become a pop culture phenomenon through their successful advertising campaign. Despite being completely developed and ready for production, California Raisins - The Grape Escape was never officially released, likely due to the declining popularity of the advertising campaign by the time the game was completed. The game has achieved a legendary status among collectors and gaming historians, with prototype cartridges being among the most sought-after items in retro games collecting. The California Raisins themselves represented one of the most successful advertising campaigns of the 1980s, releasing music albums, starring in animated specials, and generating over $200 million in merchandise sales. California Raisins - The Grape Escape would have joined other advertising mascot games of the era like Cool Spot (7Up) and Yo! Noid (Domino's Pizza), but instead became a fascinating piece of unreleased gaming history. Today, California Raisins - The Grape Escape is known primarily through gaming preservation efforts, ROM dumps of prototype cartridges, and documentation by video game historians fascinated by this unique footnote in NES history.