Mr. Vinton created a series of commercials featuring the California Raisins. The figures, about eight inches high, were sculpted over a wire frame. A 30-second commercial contained 24 frames per second, which meant that 720 individual scenes had to be meticulously set up by hand. Each commercial took about five weeks to complete.
The work paid off for California’s raisin growers, who saw their sales increase by 20 percent. Various brand-name cereals climbed on the bandwagon with Claymation commercials of their own, and the California Raisins became a certified cultural sensation.
“A good character is something great to behold,” Mr. Vinton told The Washington Post in 1999. “The proof ultimately is how cool it is, whether there’s buzz around the water cooler.”
There was also a buzz around Mr. Vinton. He made commercials for M&M’s and other products and did Claymation sequences for music videos and the “Moonlighting” television show, with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd. A memorable scene in the 1988 Michael Jackson film “Moonwalker” featured Mr. Vinton’s animated figures. The California Raisins were featured in a Saturday morning cartoon, merchandise and TV specials.
Several music stars, including Ray Charles and Jackson, lent their images to California Raisins commercials, some of which were shown only in movie theaters.
“Michael called up and I’m sitting there, having small talk with Michael on the phone,” Mr. Vinton told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2009. “And I’m going, ‘What is this about? Why am I having this conversation?’ I realized he was talking about the California Raisins.
“I said, ‘Michael, we should make you a raisin!’ I realized he was heading that way, anyway. And as soon as I said it, he said, ‘Yeah!’ ”
Mr. Vinton had designs of producing major films and of challenging Hollywood animation powerhouses, such as Pixar. His company expanded into computer animation, and at its peak in the 1990s employed more than 400 people. Other animation companies, often started by his proteges, sprang up in Portland.
Admitting that he was an artist with little business acumen, Mr. Vinton hired professional managers, but his company was doomed by a downturn in advertising and changing tastes.
Facing possible bankruptcy, Mr. Vinton sold a majority stake in Will Vinton Studios to Nike shoe mogul Phil Knight in 2002. Knight later changed the name of the studio to Laika, which is best known for producing the 2009 animated film “Coraline.”
After a legal battle, Mr. Vinton was forced out of the company he founded in 2003 and was laid off without severance pay.
William Gale Vinton was born Nov. 17, 1947, in McMinnville, Ore. His father was a car dealer, his mother a bookkeeper.
At Berkeley, from which he graduated in 1971, Mr. Vinton sought to emulate the sinuous designs of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi with his modeling clay, but he never became a practicing architect.
“The filmmaking and the clay crossed paths early in my career,” Mr. Vinton told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2001. “While I was still in college I did short films just for the fun of it. I’d sculpt things, have a beer in one hand and a character in another. It was just like entertainment.”
He teamed with comedian Eddie Murphy to produce the stop-motion animated television series “The PJ’s,” which aired from 1999 to 2001, with characters made from latex foam. Mr. Vinton produced another short-lived animated series, “Gary & Mike,” in 2001.