The Hardy Boys - Television

Television

See also: The Hardy Boys (1969 TV series) and The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries

There have been five separate Hardy Boys television adaptions. In the late 1950s, Disney contracted with the Stratemeyer Syndicate and Grosset & Dunlap to produce two Hardy Boys TV serials, starring Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk. The first of the serials, The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure, was aired on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1956 during the show's second season. To appeal to the show's audience, the Hardy Boys were portrayed as younger than in the books, seeming to be eleven or twelve years old. The script, written by Jackson Gillis, was based on the first Hardy Boys book, The Tower Treasure, and the serial was aired in 19 episodes of fifteen minutes each with production costs of $5,700. A second serial, The Mystery of Ghost Farm, followed in 1957, with an original story by Jackson Gillis.

In the mid-1960s, sales of Hardy Boys books began to drop. The Stratemeyer Syndicate conducted a survey, which revealed that the decline in sales was due to the perceived high cost of the books and to competition from television. As a result, the Syndicate approved an hour-long pilot for a new Hardy Boys television show. The pilot, based on The Mystery of the Chinese Junk, was aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1967 and starred Tim Matthieson (later Matheson) as Joe Hardy and Rick Gates as Frank. Both actors were twenty at the time of production and portrayed the Hardy Boys as young adults rather than children, as they had been in the Mickey Mouse Club serials. The show did poorly, however, and the series was abandoned.

Two years later, in 1969, the American Broadcasting Company aired a Saturday morning cartoon series based on the Hardy Boys; the series was produced by Filmation and ran from 1969 to 1971. In this series, the Hardys were members of a rock and roll band. A group of professional musicians performed all the songs on the series, and toured across the United States. The animated series produced two bubblegum music albums "of moderate quality with no commercial success." The series was notable for being the first cartoon to include a black character. The show took note of current concerns; although aimed at a young audience, some plot lines dealt with illegal drugs, and the animated Frank and Joe spoke directly to children about not smoking and the importance of wearing seat belts.

ABC aired another series featuring the Hardy Boys, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, from 1977 to 1979. The prime time series starred Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy as Frank and Joe Hardy; Pamela Sue Martin and later Janet Louise Johnson played Nancy Drew. During the first season, the series alternated between episodes featuring the Hardy Boys one week and Nancy Drew the next. The Hardy Boys were cast as young adults (Stevenson and Cassidy were twenty-four and eighteen respectively during the filming of the first episodes) to appeal to a prime time television audience. The series featured original plots as well as ones based on Hardy Boys books, among them The Disappearing Floor and The Flickering Torch Mystery. The series received an Emmy nomination and featured a number of guest stars, including Kim Cattrall, Ray Milland, Howard Duff, and Ricky Nelson. During the second season, the series format changed to focus more on the Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew appearing mostly in crossover episodes with the brothers; midway through production of the second season, Martin quit and was replaced by Johnson. The series returned for a third season, dropping the Nancy Drew character completely and shortening its title to The Hardy Boys.

In 1995, a TV show called simply The Hardy Boys was produced and syndicated by New Line Television, a division of New Line Cinema. The show was co-produced by Canadian broadcasting company Nelvana and was dubbed in French for airing in Quebec and France as well as in the United States. Colin Gray starred as Frank Hardy and Paul Popowich played Joe. The characters were portrayed as in their early twenties, Frank working as a reporter and Joe still in college. The show only lasted for one season of thirteen episodes due to poor ratings.