Sunday, December 21, 2008

A Holiday Tradition!

It's the holiday season and with it comes a plethora of holiday rituals, superstitions, and traditions.

Chicagoland's local television giant, WGN, had three great Christmas animation shorts that they ran continuously from Thanksgiving through the season.

Every kid that grew up in the area in the 60s and 70s has the content of these shorts seared into their memory.

The most powerful was this one--The Three Little Dwarves.

If you grew up in that part of the midwest, in that time frame, you can go up to virtually anyone and sing "I'm Hardrock. I'm Coco." And it is almost impossible that the other person won't respond by singing "I'm Joe" in the deepest bass voice they can muster.

Teachers used to be totally stymied with all the "I'm Joe" laughter that would roll around with every season.

Once Christmas vacation was over, the animation went back in the film library and out of one's daily thought process. But every year, the film would reappear to every kid's delight.

I have found that if you didn't grow up in the midwest and have access to WGN, there is a good chance you've never seen (or even heard of) this bizarre holiday classic.

The animation is quirky, jerky and the puppets look , well, weird, particularly Santa.

But it is the season and so it is time to reprise this post about Hardrock, Coco, and Joe.

4 comments:

drjon said...

This Chicago xmas tradition puts me in mind, strangely enough, of this:

The Mystery of Dinner for One
http://www.slate.com/id/2133551/?nav=ais
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One

You can see the clip here:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=XtkDUlx4_-Y

I'm looking forward to finding a copy of the Beanworld Special soon! I hope you're well: my wishes for a very merry holiday.

Anonymous said...

Suzy Snowflake too. But what is the third you mention, Larry?

Larry Marder said...

Frosty the Snowman!

Anonymous said...

I'll share this little story. When Mandy and Kevin were little I taped Hardrock, Coco and Joe and we would watch it over and over and over. One Christmas-season evening during dinner they wanted to sing the song. Now we had done this so many times that we had it down perfectly. I would start and when we got to the refrain I would sing, "I'm Hardrock!", Mandy would sing, "I'm Coco", and Kevin was to sing "I'm Joe". But since he was only 2 or so, sometimes he'd get his dwarfs confused and this time he blurted out as loud as he could, "I'm DOC!"

Nothing was ever as funny as that.