All these claymation characters were popular way back when; why not anymore? BTW–I’ll toss in the Hamm’s Bear as a great why no more as well, although that was cel animation. I assume some people here would know.
Fads, nothing more. Demand for the California Raisins just dried up.
People have gotten used to computer generated animation and other animation styles look “old”. Advertisers generally want to associate their products with “new”.
Viewers expect something more currant.
CG animation is a lot better and cheaper now
Because, as an 80’s kid, the Conductor from that Raisins Christmas Special and the Noid were creepy as hell.
Complicated. The characters are the creations of Will Vinton Productions, whose work I loved. They created and trademarked the term “Claymation”, which everyone uses as indiscriminately today as they do “Kleenex” or “Google”. His shorts, shown at animation festivals and on PBS, were wonderful. I particularly love the one on Dinosaurs, and his feature-length film the Adventures of Mark Twain. He also did effects for the Disney film Return to Oz, as well as 3D Claymation effects for the Disney park 3D Michael Jackson movie Captain EO. As well, of course, as the Noid and California Raisin commercials. (These commercials, by the way, were in the cinematic release of The Festival of Claymation, but are missing from the Home Video version. Copyright and licensing issues, no doubt. Also missing from the home version is the music video for John Fogerty’s Vantz can’t Dance, which is a real shame. You can watch it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x219s9_john-fogerty-vanz-can-t-danz_music )
All of this was, in my humble opinion, horribly underrated. Vinton shoulda been the success that Aardman animation later was with their stop-motion plasticene (Chicken Run, Wallace and Grommit) But evidently Vinton’;s studio was successful, if not so highly visible. Then he lost control. To cite Wikipedia:
Without Vinton doing it, what’s the point of the Noid and the California Raisins? I think they just decided to move on to other images. as for Speedy, he long predates Vinton, being created in 1951 by animator George Pal, and I don’t think Vinton ever animated him. I know I’ve seen him computer-animated in the recent past.
Boooooo!!! 
I imagine that Hamm’s would run into the same issues these days using cute animated animals as Camel did with their animated, much less child-friendly, mascot.
From the Land of Sky Blue waters (waters)…
Comes the beer refreshing
Hamm’s, the beer refreshing…
I still remember that jingle well.
Or Bud Light, with Spuds McKenzie. Cute / cartoon mascots for alcohol or cigarettes are almost undoubtedly a thing of the past.
As an example, the second “sequel” to the Rankin-Bass Rudolph special was in CG, and that was back in 2001.
@Cal Meacham: Thank you so much for the detailed information.
The drive for bran new things is relentless.
All of Vinton’s stuff was technically masterful, but as a kid it all struck me as vaguely creepy and unappealing, like some adult’s idea of what kids should like who just didn’t get it. As an adult, I still feel the same way. (That vague creepiness was put to very good use in “Return to Oz,” BTW.) Aardman’s stuff, by comparison, is instantly appealing and cute without being cutesy. Nick Park may not have made the technical innovations Vinton did, but in terms of artistic style, he’s miles ahead.
I gotta disagree. I can see how some of his characters would affect people that way, but not everything Vinton studios did was in the same style. Have a look at the short The Creation, which is awe-inspiring. His short Dinosaurs, is excellent. And “The Diary of Adam and Eve” section in The Adventures of Mark Twain brings me to the point of tears.
It was a product of its time, one of those things that were great in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and would just be weird to bring back now. Sort of like the Arsenio Hall show. 
I am drawing a blank on who Speedy is. Can somebody please refresh my memory?
Speedy Alka-Seltzer, the mascot for Alka-Seltzer. Created in 1951, he has been dimensionally animated on TV since the 1950s, and more recently has been done in CGI. But don’t think Will Vinton studios ever did him:
Stop-motion animation is probably the dictionary definition of labor intensive! Which for any big production also translates into slow & expensive! Of course computer graphics were (are) expensive too. The tipping point I’d say came with Jurassic Park in the early 90s. They were going to do it all with stop-motion (or actually Lucas’ motion-blur enhanced ‘Go-Motion’) but the CGI people felt they were at a point were they could realistically take over. They made a short demo reel (of the T-rex chasing those gazelle-like dinos) and showed it to Spielberg and he was amazed. He decided right there to go 100% CGI. When Phil Tippet (the stop-motion guy) saw the clip he lamented something like, ‘Guess I’ll have to find a new career!’ He actually wound up working with the CGI people using a mechanical, stop-motion ‘input device’ armature model to help the computer geeks better understand 3D animation.
Although the Wallace & Grommit and *Chickenrun *guys do fantastic work, their days are numbered. Now 3D computer animation can be ‘dirtied-up’ (less fluid motion, simpler models & background etc.) to look exactly like claymation, and still be faster & cheaper. Kinda sad…