#70s hardy boys

[thejoeisthejoe]

Expect the whumptobers to show up again. I want to reblog them since I have new followers.

Not sure if I should tag cluecrew or not.. so right now no?

[thejoeisthejoe]

He’s handsome and cute but also in a “he’s such a nerd and dork” way but said with affection.

Can definitely see where Nancy’s crush comes from 😏🤭

i've come out the other side of a paralysing crush on a boy and am returning to my roots: frank hardy

[vancruejovi]

Finally finished this Hardy Boys piece (I was VERY careful with my carpal tunnel I promise!!) The Hardy Boys is such a comfort series to me (the books and the 70s series) so I had to draw them or another

[eemcintyre]

The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977-78)

[iconuk01]

An advert for the Revell model kit of the 70's Hardy Boys TV show minivan! Courtesy of the paidstallions website

And that's a cute little image of the Boys I'd not seen before

[shadowland]

Shaun Cassidy on the set of The Hardy Boys

[culttvblog]

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: The House on Possessed Hill

I've never read any of the Hardy Boys books. The reason for this is that our headmistress subjected Enid Blyton's books to the same unfounded criticism levelled at the Hardy Boys books in the US: that they weren't proper literature and would stop the kids reading any proper literature. On this basis she banned the books completely from school premises and systematically shamed anyone caught with them. Of course the result was that Famous Five and Secret Seven books were passed around surreptitiously like the contraband they were and nobody at my school read the wildly successful Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew because they weren't banned.

I did, however, manage to watch the TV adaptations later, in my teens. Perhaps I should clarify that this post is about the 1977 to 1979 ABC series starring Parker Stevenson, Shaun Cassidy and Pamela Sue Martin or Janet Louise Johnson. I loved the mysterious theme tune and the plots. It's a show of the genre that I like to think of as aspirational for early teens: the kids are definitely kids but just older enough that they have a freedom the viewers don't have so that it can prompt dreaming, hero worship, or even crushes. This was never the effect of the Famous Five, which was clearly set in a world which didn't exist and where the kids had a freedom that no kids in human history have ever had. In the books Frank and Joe are permanently 16 and 17 respectively, which is probably just the right age to get this effect, They're probably a bit older in this series but still apparently free of the adult responsibilities of earning a living, studying, family, and so on.

The House on Possesed Hill is an absolute superb episode which basically takes the plot of a horror film and twists it slightly to fit in into the mould of the show. Joe and Frank come across Stacey, a young woman who is running away from a baying crowd who are after her. She wants to shelter from them in a mysterious house and she says the townspeople are after her because they think she is a witch: their evidence for this is that she foresaw an accident a friend had.

The show plays her psychic abilities very straight, at no point questioning what she says. In fact it seems uncanny.

Rightly, I think, at the beginning the townspeople just keep their distance from the house and don't give any excuse to Joe for being after her. This is somehow much more scary than the classic horror film tropes where she's either excaped from the local Nursing Home for the Insane Daughters of Gentlefolk (Matron: Jessica Fletcher) or she is the ward in court of the town sheriff who for no apparent reason doesn't want to go back to his house. We hear them talking amongst themselves and they do believe the house is cursed.

In fact the local sheriff doesn't help at all, saying that there's nothing he can do because it's not illegal to want to speak to someone and demanding that a crime be committed or else the Hardy boys had better shut up or leave his town. But then, ACAB.

In fact I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that on first viewing I completely missed that the house Stacey and Joe escape into is of course the house from Psycho. Since realising its identity I have seen that it's been used endlessly in film and TV since obviously a boy's best friend is his mother. I was going to make a quip that the only show it hasn't appeared in is Murder, She Wrote, but of course it's even made an appearance in that. Damnit this show follows the old dark house trope to the extent of having a mysterious hand pull out the telephone wire just as Joe tries to make a call.

The show returns to the world of the classic horror film when Joe and Frank take Stacey home and she's met by the family doctor, who is utterly creepy. Despite Stacey having been seen by specialists in New York who couldn't make head nor tail of her, Dr Creepy then does some kind of regression in the show which mysteriously reveals everything that has happened in her life. Medical ethics, anyone?

If you want a criticism of this episode you might possibly feel that it's got an embarras des richesses in the multiple possible explanations for what's going on in the house leading to a conclusion where it turns out it's several at once. However since the point of this episode is to draw from about every old dark house film ever, that's the point. There's also my enduring query about this show that Parker Stevenson was too old for the role he plays.

This is an excellent episode drawing on the rich horror film tradition.

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[seattlemanboy]

Joe and Frank Hardy (Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson) in The Hardy Boys (1977-1979).

[shadowcatgirl09]

Me finding out that the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books came out in the 1920s/30s:

[storyweaverofgondor]

Found some episodes of the 70s Nancy drew and Hardy Boys tv series on Youtube. I forgot how cool the title sequence was. I love the creepy maze they’re running around the the flashes of the book covers with the actors edited in!

[mumbojumbo84317]

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries.

(Photo by ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)

[thenonbinarydetective]

Have you played many Nancy Drew computer games?

I don't play them myself, but I watch Gab Smolders (joined sometimes by Jack Septiceye) playthroughs for background noise. In the Captive Curse game, Ned and Nancy get in a big fight about him not being important to her. While I hated the fight, the reaction of those two was HILARIOUS.

Is that type of action on Ned's part what you meant by disliking what Her Interactive did to him? I find it ironic that the Hardy Boys are comforting Ned in this game when, according to some odd alternative timeline I refuse to accept, she dates one of them.

Update: he called back and they worked it out while I was typing this.

I've played all of them. I have not seen the walkthrough by Gab and Sean, so I don't have any context for their reaction.

However, when it comes to how I don't like how Her treats Ned that moment both is and isn't what I meant.

This argument is not something that's new to Ned and Nancy, but I will say there are better examples. Romance Drama isn't Her's strong suit tbh. Honestly, I will say I prefer the versions where he is actually allowed to be present in the mysteries and nancy's life for three reasons:

Typically, we get to see Ned's behavior toward seeming less important or how Nancy's behavior makes him feel less important

The audience usually also gets to see Nancy recognize being wrong.

Continuing with the importance of visuals, when it comes to the resolution the audience also gets to see that as well and what leads up to it.

Obviously, when it comes to Captive Curse, it's not completely hidden from the audience, but I will argue that the fact that Nancy's feelings are in her diary and Ned's feelings come from speaking on the phone with either him or the Hardys results in a level of detachment that is only negative.

Although as I've said, Ned and the Hardy Boys would get along just fine if they cut out this unnecessary love-triangle nonsense.

Overall, this is one of the examples of how Her kneecaps Ned's character by forcing him to be a phone-only character creating detachment between him and the audience. The same thing also happens with Hannah and Carson.

[vancruejovi]

Shaun Cassidy 🔍 🎸

[shadowland]

Parker Stevenson, Pamela Sue Martin and Shaun Cassidy

THE HARDY BOYS / NANCY DREW MYSTERIES

[wordwizards]

Deep lore (not really) Angelica is this character I made in the 8th grade to fulfill a side character role in a story I was writing but eventually was promoted to love interest and then main character (with the previous main character now being the love interest, and remaining so to this day). I keep wanting to stick her with Heather since she and Heather are my two favorite OCs, but I always feel bad about having her be a side character again. So if I do ever come up with a better story for her (the old one was dookie), then they are still in the same universe. Just in each other's writing group or something

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

70s shaun cassidy 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕