Time for another of those animated shorts produced for (and rerun incessantly) on Chicago kids' shows. This one is Hardrock, Coco and Joe, and it was done for Christmas of 1956 and for the Hill & Range Company, which I guess was marketing the song involved. The actual animation was done by a company called Centaur Productions, which was run by a gentleman named Wah Ming Chang, who specialized in sculpture, stop-motion animation and odd props. He did a lot of the props on the original Star Trek TV show, for instance (he built the communicators that predated cell phones, as well as the Tribbles) and some of Elizabeth Taylor's most notable headdresses and jewels in Cleopatra.
In animation, he did most of his work over the years in commercials and for George Pal's company — much of Tom Thumb, to name one thing — as well as a few things for Disney.
Here's Hardrock, Coco and Joe. If you're interested in obtaining a DVD of the shorts done for Chicago which I'm showcasing here, click on this link.