Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1951
Hardrock, Coco and Joe
Buy Hardrock, Coco and Joe now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'Hardrock, Coco and Joe The Three Little Dwarfs' is a 1951 short stop motion animated cartoon based on a song written by Stuart Hamblen. It is about three of Santa Claus' helpers who ride on Santa's sleigh each Christmas. The short has become an annual "Christmas Classic" first on Johnstown, PA WJAC-TV and then following on Chicago's WGN-TV and since its introduction in the mid-1950s. The film is entirely in black-and-white.
The short was originally created by Centaur Productions utilizing the stop-motion talents of artist Wah Ming Chang. Its running time is about 2 minutes and 45 seconds. This cartoon is traditionally broadcast with their two other short Christmas cartoons, "Suzy Snowflake" and "Frosty the Snowman". Centaur assigned copyright on the film to the song's copyright holder, Hill and Range Songs, who renewed the copyright on the film (but not the song) in 1979."Hardrock, Coco and Joe (The Three Little Dwarfs) By Hill and Range Songs, Inc. Employer for Hire." RE0000011645 / 1979-01-02 Renewal registration for: MP0000001838 / 1951-10-18. '[https://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?DB=local&PAGE=First United States Copyright Office public catalog]'. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
Story
According to the narrative song, Hardrock drives Santa's sleigh, and Coco navigates with maps. Santa "has no need for Joe/ but takes him 'cause he loves him so". (However, in the Bozo the Clown special "A Bozo Christmas," Coco states that Joe, who was unable to go with them that year due to illness, was in charge of crisis management.) Part of the charm of this primitively-made cartoon is that Joe, the smallest of the three, and very boyish-looking, has a deep bass voice.
Chorus:
:'Oh-lee-o-lay-dee, o-lay-dee-I-ay'
:'Donner and Blitzen, away, away'
:'Oh-lee-o-lay-dee, o-lay-dee-I-oh'
:'I'm Hardrock!'
:'I'm Coco!'
:'I'm Joe!'
The program is available on DVD from the Museum of Broadcast Communications.
Parody
A new generation of animation lovers was introduced to this Christmas classic via the short-lived Comedy Central television series, TV Funhouse, a spin-off of the recurring Saturday Night Live cartoons. In the series' third episode, "'Christmas Day'", the Hardrock, Coco, and Joe short is satirized under the name "Christmas With Tingles" in which an elf named Tingles magically spreads tension and guilt during the Christmas season. Aside from the subject matter, the spoof stays remarkably faithful to the original, featuring black-and-white stop-motion animation, as well as spoken lyrics backed by an a cappella chorus:
:'Yo-dee-yo-die-deedle, deedle-ee-dee'
:'Awkwardness and anxiety,'
:'Yeedle-dee-doo-deedle, dee-deedle dension'
:'"I'm Tingles the Christmas Tension!"'
The tune of the song featured in the "'Christmas With Tingles'" short is almost identical to the tune of the song featured in the Hardrock, Coco, and Joe "'Three Little Dwarfs'" cartoon.
This was also referenced in a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode (Prince of Space).
Other recordings
The song was also recorded by Gene Autry, but in Autry's version, Joe is depicted as having a high, childlike voice, not a bass one.
See also
*Bozo, Gar and Ray: WGN TV Classics
References
Category:1951 animated films
Category:1951 films
Category:American animated short films
Category:Santa's helpers
Category:Christmas characters
Category:American children's animated fantasy films
Category:American Christmas films
Category:1950s American animated films
Category:Stop-motion animated short films
Category:1951 short films
Category:1950s stop-motion animated films
Category:1950s children's animated films
Category:1950s children's fantasy films
Category:1950s Christmas films
Category:1950s English-language films
Buy Hardrock, Coco and Joe now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1951