Will Vinton, animator behind the California Raisins, dies

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Will Vinton, an Oscar-winning animator who invented Claymation, a style of stop-motion animation, and brought the California Raisins to TV, has died in Oregon. He was 70.

Citing a family statement, The Oregonian reported that Vinton died Thursday after a lengthy battle with multiple myeloma.

He won an Oscar in 1975 for the animated short film "Closed Mondays" then founded Vinton Studios in Portland the next year and went on to win three Emmys as a producer.

Stop-motion is a technique that requires animators to shoot puppets a single frame at a time, adjusting them slightly between frames to simulate movement. Claymation used putty or clay for a textured, somewhat cartoonish feel.

Vinton Studios was best known for the 1986 California Raisins ad campaign featuring Claymation raisins dancing to "I Heard It Through the Grapevine."

"He saw the world as an imaginative playground full of fantasy, joy, and character," Vinton's children wrote on his Facebook page.

Rose Bond, a professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, said Vinton single-handedly established the city's animation community.

"He put the city on the map as far as stop-motion in America," Bond said.