How do I do multiple assignment in MATLAB

From my question on StackOverflow (CC BY-SA 3.0):

Here’s an example of what I’m looking for:

>> foo = [88, 12];
>> [x, y] = foo;

I’d expect something like this afterwards:

>> x

x =

    88

>> y

y =

    12

But instead I get errors like:

??? Too many output arguments.

I thought deal() might do it, but it seems to only work on cells.

>> [x, y] = deal(foo{:});
??? Cell contents reference from a non-cell array object.

How do I solve my problem? Must I constantly index by 1 and 2 if I want to deal with them separately?