Three guys named…

The most recent holiday-themed LP cover on LP Cover Lover takes me back to my youth, where I could count on my local NBC affiliate playing stop-motion black and white Christmas animations during commercial breaks, accompanied by the audio of Christmas carols.

Sure, there are representations of Frosty the Snowman and Suzy Snowflake, but the one that stands out most clearly in my mind is the story of Hardrock, Coco, and Joe, three elves who accompany Santa on his journey around the world showering toys upon all the good children that he has deemed "sufficiently non-Jewish".

I remember it so clearly because the song was bizarre, never one that I heard anywhere else from year to year except on this one cartoon on this one particular TV station and, oddly, because Santa looked Asian. I thought that seemed weird for something that I assumed had to have been made in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Growing up, I moved on and forgot all about Hardrock, Coco, and Joe. It was too convoluted to explain in casual conversation and terribly, terribly isolated to one season of the year when, under any normal circumstances, I'd be safe and sound in the house where I grew up anyway.