The California Raisins: The Grape Escape
Capcom completed a five-level NES platformer and submitted it for Nintendo approval just as the claymation band's popularity shrivelled, leaving a retail-ready cartridge outside the market.
Quick facts
- Existence state
- Never Born
- Peak stage
- near release
- Research confidence
- high
- Last verified
What it was
An unreleased Nintendo Entertainment System game developed by Radiance for Capcom.
A California Raisin would cross food-themed stages to rescue the band's stolen musical notes.
Existence timeline
Capcom backs a California Raisins platformer.
Radiance develops the adventure and music system.
The near-final cartridge enters lot check.
The prototype passes platform-holder review.
Capcom withholds the finished NES title.
A cartridge dump makes the unreleased game inspectable.
Why it ended
Capcom cancelled the commercial release as the advertising characters' popularity declined.
Last confirmed trace
Multiple prototype cartridges, box art, manuals and preserved ROM images document a substantially complete game.
What it left behind
It became a vivid example of a licensed game outliving the marketing phenomenon that justified making it.
How we classified it
The proposed archive unit never reached ordinary public access in the form being documented.
The strongest verified milestone maps to near_release under Arrival Score V1.
Sources & verification
Last reviewed 2026-08-01. Sources are linked so readers can inspect the evidence directly.