The title "Meet the Raisins" spoofs the record album title "Meet the Beatles." Some of the Raisins' biography is based on The Beatles of Liverpool, England. The most obvious point is their number of four, with the additional footnote that there was a little-known fifth member of the team who was dropped before they "made it big." (Several men have been called the "little-known 5th Beatle," Pete Best is possibly the most famous nominee for that title.) After the snowmen scene, the Raisins make their comeback on "The Ed Succotash Show" just as the Beatles were formally introduced to America on Meet The Beatles (1964). The Beatles' nickname British Invasion is mentioned in the cartoon, however it refers here not to the Raisins themselves, but to Lick Broccoli's band. The Raisins themselves seem to be African-American musicians of the "Motown" culture, so named because it got its sponsorship from the automobile-manufacturing city of Detroit, Michigan. Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye, featured prominently on the Raisins soundtracks, were some of the most famous Motowners.
Among the many celebrities caricatured are Cab Calloway ("Cob Calloway"), Federico Fellini ("Federico Raspberrini"), Ed McMahon ("Ed McMelon"), and Mick Jagger ("Lick Broccoli").
The California Raisins were created for television commercials for that state's vegetable groceries industry in 1986, and were featured in one of the sketches in Claymation Christmas Celebration (1987). Meet the Raisins is the first cartoon to give names and distinct appearances to individual Raisins. These vegetables permeated pop culture in a merchandise craze which rose meteorically around 1987 and reigned for the next few years, only to peter out by 1992. Since 1994, only a few Sun Maid products continue to use updated versions of the Raisins in their advertising. Nevertheless, the nostalgia market fondly remembers the characters, around which several unofficial fan clubs have grown.
The host remarks that "Some are born grape, some achieve grapeness, and some have grapeness thrust upon them." This is a line, substituting "grape" for "great," from the William Shakespeare play "Twelfth Night, or, What You Will." In the play, the pompous oaf Malvolio adopts this line as his catchphrase, after reading it from a piece of paper he's found, which he mistakenly believes to be a love letter sent to him from Countess Olivia.
Popular music icon Little Richard is represented by two of his legendary songs in this short: "Tutti Frutti" (during the sketch "Talent or Consequences") and "Long Tall Sally" (during "Live Elevator Music").