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99-466: The Hardy Boys , brothers Frank and Joe Hardy , are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths, solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer , the founder of book packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate . The books were written by several ghostwriters , most notably Leslie McFarlane , under

198-461: A ghostwriter under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon . In accordance with the customs of Stratemeyer Syndicate series production, ghostwriters for the Syndicate signed contracts that have sometimes been interpreted as requiring authors to sign away all rights to authorship or future royalties . The contracts stated that authors could not use their Stratemeyer Syndicate pseudonyms independently of

297-514: A reboot series, The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers . In these volumes, the Hardys' adventures are narrated in the first person , each brother alternating chapters. This fresh approach to telling the adventures reveals two boys quite foreign to how they have been portrayed before, egotistical and jealous, and longtime readers will find few connections with the boys' previous personalities. The boys' Aunt Gertrude becomes "Trudy", their mother Laura

396-405: A Casefiles ghostwriter, describes a sample plot outline: "I was told that Joe Hardy would get involved with a waitress, a black widow kind of character, and that Joe would get arrested for murder. I was told the emphasis was on high action and suspense and there had to be a cliff-hanger ending to every chapter." The long-running Hardy Boys Mystery Stories series ended in 2005 and was replaced with

495-608: A black van by the Bayport Mall Association. In Casefiles #100 True Thriller the van is also blown up. They finally purchase a blue van which remains with them until the end of the series. In the Undercover Brothers series, Frank and Joe own custom sport bikes , decked out with the latest in accessories. They also own a speedboat named the Sleuth , which is equipped with a Ham Radio transmitter, as

594-487: A countersuit, claiming that, as the author of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories , she retained the rights to her work. Although Adams had written many Nancy Drew titles after 1953 and edited others, she claimed to be the author of all of the early titles. In fact, she had rewritten the older titles, but she was not the original author. When Mildred Benson , the author of the early Nancy Drew volumes,

693-831: A little more athletic." The two boys are invariably on good terms with each other and never engage in sibling rivalry , except in the Undercover Brothers series. Frank and Joe are somewhat wealthy and often travel to far-away locations, including Mexico in The Mark on the Door (1934), Scotland in The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (1967), Iceland in The Arctic Patrol Mystery (1969), Egypt in The Mummy Case (1980), and Kenya in The Mystery of

792-487: A more modernized speech style, and frequently tease and get on each other's nerves; nonetheless, they are still very close and protective of each other as in all of the previous series. Frank and Joe owned a large number of cars or automobiles. In the originals, they have motorcycles, but Joe totals his in The Shore Road Mystery and they purchase a yellow convertible soon afterwards. The car appears in

891-501: A muscular frame. He lives in the town of Bayport, NY with his parents, Fenton and Laura ; his younger brother, Joe ; and his aunt, Gertrude . Joe is not only Frank's younger brother but his best friend and crime-fighting partner. Working together, the two have solved countless mysteries. Around Bayport, Frank and Joe have quite a reputation as amateur detectives. The Hardy boys are often helped by their friends, most notably best buddy Chet Morton . Compared to his brother Joe, Frank

990-677: A new case. Joe's best friend Chet Morton 's sister Iola is killed by a bomb in the first Casefiles novel, Dead On Target . Some of Joe's other friends are Phil Cohen , a computer genius; Tony Prito , the manager of a famous teen hang-out place, Mr. Pizza; and Allen "Biff" Hooper, a well-built football player who has helped the Hardys on more than one case. The Hardys and their friends go to school at Bayport High. Joe may not do quite as well in school as his brother, but he still gets good grades. Phys Ed and History are his best subjects. Frank occasionally helps him with homework. The Hardy Boys have worked for, with, or against several organizations over

1089-561: A pistol, one Bayport criminal alleges Fenton Hardy never misses. Laura Hardy is the pretty and petite stay-at-home (in the Undercover Brothers , as a librarian ) mother of Frank and Joe . She is married to Fenton Hardy the private investigator and they all live in fictitious Bayport with Fenton's sister, Aunt Gertrude . Gertrude "Trudy" Hardy is the unmarried aunt of Frank and Joe Hardy (the Hardy Boys of

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1188-491: A series based on Nancy Drew that ran alongside it in syndication suffered the same fate. The Hardy Boys streaming series is a teen and young adult-oriented drama starring Rohan Campbell as Frank and Alexander Elliot as Joe released on December 4, 2020, by Hulu with Joan Lambur and Steve Cochrane executive producing the series and Jason Stone directing. Shot in Toronto, Hamilton, and other Southern Ontario locations,

1287-574: A series written in the first person. For the first time since 1985, the books are issued in hardcover, along with paperback editions. The longest-running series of books to feature the Hardy Boys is the Hardy Boys Mystery Stories , sometimes also called the Hardy Boys Mysteries . The series ran from 1927 to 2005 and comprises 190 volumes, although some consider only the first 58 volumes of this series to be part of

1386-539: A short time". His nickname comes from a distant relative who was a boxer named Biff. He owns a bloodhound named Sherlock and a Great Dane named Tivoli, and a motorboat named Envoy . He can play the harmonica . In one of the Casefiles he is part of "The Circle of Twelve", which is a group of vandals. He is in the group because of his girlfriend. His association with the Circle of Twelve nearly gets him killed. In

1485-600: A year is never mentioned. In the Casefiles, the differences between Frank and Joe are more pronounced as Joe's personality is somewhat changed because of the death of his girlfriend, Iola Morton . Frank (although the death of Iola does affect him somewhat) stays more or less the same. In the Casefiles series, the Hardy boys collaborate with The Gray Man , who works for the Network—a secret government intelligence agency—to fight

1584-614: Is a three-story old Victorian on the corner of High and Elm Streets. His brother, Frank Hardy is his crime-fighting partner. His father, Fenton Hardy , used to work for the New York City Police Department and is currently a private investigator. His mother, Laura Hardy , is a stay-at-home mom and his aunt, Aunt Gertrude lives with them in Bayport as well. His aunt is secretly proud of the boys' investigating abilities, but always chides them when they pick up

1683-525: Is also the co-founder of a top-secret organization, ATAC, American Teens Against Crime, the agency for which his sons, Frank and Joe, work. Although in his 40s, Hardy is still one step ahead of his boys. Being healthy, fit, and smart, he quickly outwits most local criminals. Hardy owns an old Crown Victoria which he acquired from the local police force when he retired. He also was the head of the Association of Private Investigators . An excellent shot with

1782-420: Is also well-versed in the making of bombs and is also able to disassemble them, which saves his and many other's lives many times. As was the case in the previous series, Joe acts as the mechanic for the boys and is often described as being very athletic. This was a series of 36 paperback novels in which the Hardy Boys teamed up with intelligent young female sleuth Nancy Drew . One character arc seen throughout

1881-423: Is clear and filled with specific details, making his works superior to many other Stratemeyer series titles. Such, at least, was McFarlane's intention: "It seemed to me the Hardy Boys deserved something better than the slapdash treatment Dave Fearless had been getting... I opted for Quality." The volumes not written by McFarlane or his wife were penned by John Button, who wrote the series from 1938 to 1942; this period

1980-469: Is described as "swarthy" and "a foreigner", notes critic Steve Burgess. We sense his untrustworthy nature immediately when he sits down beside the boys at a football game and doesn't understand it, despite the boys' best efforts to explain. When he does grasp something, you know it. "I onnerstand pairfectly," he says. Later he adds genially, "I haf you vhere I vant you now!" Can't quite place the accent? It's foreign. Twenty-five chapters are not enough to solve

2079-706: Is described in The Secret Warning . The boys also own and store, in the same boathouse as their boat, an iceboat. The iceboat only makes one appearance in The Mystery of Cabin Island . Frank plays many school sports along with his brother. Frank is the captain and quarterback of the Bayport High football team, but by the time of the later Digests, he gives up his place on the team so he can concentrate on his studies. He also does endurance running for

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2178-399: Is given a career as a librarian, and their father is semi-retired . The boys are given their cases by a secret group known as ATAC, an acronym for American Teens Against Crime. In this new series, the Hardy Boys seem "more like regular kids – who have lots of wild adventures – in these books, which also deal with issues that kids today might have thought about. For example, the second book in

2277-451: Is increasingly used rather than "strategic material". The US Defense Logistic Agency manages strategic materials for the US military. Strategic materials encompass a subset of raw materials required to make a product. The strategic materials may be limited in number or subject to shortages. In this case, the strategic plan would call for an alternative supply chain or alternative materials in

2376-522: Is more impulsive, wanting to jump straight into a situation. He often goes by his gut feeling and is usually right. Fenton Hardy is a private investigator in the popular Hardy Boys novels. Father of Frank and Joe , Mr. Hardy is married to Laura Hardy , and brother to Aunt Gertrude . After retiring as a NYPD Detective Lieutenant from the city's 71st Precinct, Hardy became a famous private investigator. He lives with his family in Bayport . He

2475-515: Is not clear "whether Adams rewrote parts of McFarlane's manuscripts to add [racist] details or to what extent these early texts would now be considered even more notoriously racist had McFarlane followed Adams's instructions more carefully." In Footprints Under the Window (1933), Chinese-American men are portrayed as effeminate threats both to national security and white heteromasculinity. Native Americans received mixed treatment; those living within

2574-579: Is often present for a visit, sometimes brief and sometimes extended. Her maternal care for the boys doesn't seem to put her in any conflict with the brothers' actual mother Laura, but her characteristics — genial overbearingness, comic frettiness, moral disapproval — make her a much more developed character. In the TV series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew mysteries, the mother has been completely written out and Aunt Gertrude has become Frank and Joe's only maternal figure. Gertrude frequently expresses her maternal care for

2673-439: Is only 16 years old (as opposed to 18 after the revisions between 1959 and 1974) and both he and Joe want to follow in their famous father Fenton Hardy's footsteps as detectives. When the father of one of their school friends is wrongly accused of stealing, the Hardy boys take it upon themselves to clear his name and solve the mystery. After Frank and Joe solve their first case, Fenton—although he had not wanted his sons to get into

2772-487: Is sometimes referred to as the "Weird Period" as the writing is full of inconsistencies and the Hardy Boys' adventures involve futuristic gadgetry and exotic locations. "Of course, chief," said Frank smoothly, "if you're afraid to go up to the Polucca place just because it's supposed to be haunted, don't bother. We can tell the newspapers that we believe our father has met with foul play and that you won't bother to look into

2871-400: Is the more logical, rational one. While Joe wants to jump straight into a situation, Frank is the one to hold him back and think through all the logical possibilities. More than once, Frank has surprised the villains by having the entire case figured out. Frank is also usually the one that must look for Joe when he gets lost or kidnapped. In the Casefiles series, Joe jokingly refers to Frank as

2970-540: Is when Nancy's longtime love interest Ned Nickerson saves her. However, a disheveled Nancy calls out Frank's name instead, believing him to be her saviour, and severely disheartening Ned. The two decide not to pursue relationships, believing that they belong with their current partners, Ned Nickerson, and Callie Shaw. Both partners are jealous of the time and bond shared by the detectives, especially shown in Ned Nickerson. He greatly disapproves of Nancy's sleuthing in

3069-724: The Hardy Boys Casefiles and the Clues Brothers . The latter series, modeled on the Nancy Drew Notebooks , was aimed at a younger audience, and ran from 1997 to 2000. In contrast, the Casefiles , begun a decade earlier in 1987, was aimed at an older audience than the Hardy Boys Mystery Stories . In the new series, the Hardys work with a secret government organization simply called the "Network", with which they collaborate to "infiltrate organized crime, battle terrorists and track down assassins around

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3168-982: The Clues Brothers series, he is depicted as a bully rather than a friend to the Hardys. He first appears in secret files #5 Monster Of A Mystery. Strategic material In government terms, they are materials, usually raw materials that have a particular strategic significance to a government or nation, often in time of war. Their strategic need is because of their crucial importance for either economic or military purposes. Some materials are relatively simple, but are required in great quantities during wartime. Others are obscure and technically complex. Although not required in large quantities, their irreplaceability and critical need makes them especially valuable. Foodstuffs are not generally classed as strategic materials: although vital, they are treated separately. Techniques for replacing strategic materials with ersatz substitutes have become highly important. These also include

3267-516: The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew , as well as other series, to Simon & Schuster . Grosset & Dunlap filed suit against the Syndicate and Simon & Schuster, citing "breach of contract, copyright infringement, and unfair competition" and requesting $ 300 million in damages. The outcome of the case turned largely on the question of who had written the Nancy Drew series. Adams filed

3366-553: The United Kingdom , with new illustrations and cover art . The Hardys' adventures have also been translated into over twenty-five languages, including Afrikaans , Norwegian , Swedish , Spanish , Icelandic , Hebrew , French , German , Japanese , Russian , Malay , and Italian . The books are widely read in India, and Japan's Kyoto Sangyo University listed twenty-one Hardy Boys books on its reading list for freshmen in

3465-565: The collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon . The Hardy Boys have evolved since their debut in 1927. From 1959 to 1973, the first 38 books were extensively revised to remove social and ethnic stereotypes , modernize content, and shorten the books. A new Hardy Boys series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles , was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original "Hardy Boys Mystery Stories" series ended in 2005. A new series, Undercover Brothers ,

3564-533: The "pride of Chet's life", and he works on it daily to "soup up" the engine. His stature and not-athletic nature make him a frequent source of comic relief; however, it is noted that he can move fast when needed. His whimsical nature is frequently a distraction for him, though it occasionally leads to an unexpected break in the case. Throughout the original canon, Chet is always diving into new hobbies like botany in The Shore Road Mystery or ballooning in The Clue of

3663-524: The 13 episodes were released on Hulu on December 4, 2020, in the United States and aired on YTV in Canada in 2021. Season 2 premiered in 2022. Several Hardy Boys video games have been released: List of The Hardy Boys characters#Frank Hardy Many characters have appeared in the fictional series of books about The Hardy Boys . At the beginning of the original Hardy Boys series, Frank

3762-411: The 1940s) the hijacking of strategic materials and espionage , all were conducted with Bayport as a nucleus." With so much in common, the boys are so little differentiated that one commentator facetiously describes them thus: "The boys' characters basically broke down this way – Frank had dark hair; Joe was blond." In general, however, "Frank was the thinker while Joe was more impulsive, and perhaps

3861-567: The 1990s. There have been six separate Hardy Boys television adaptations. 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

3960-525: The Assassins, an international terrorist organization responsible for his girlfriend Iola's death. Also, the Casefiles were written between the late 1980s and 1990s unlike the original series (1927–79), home computers were available, and because of this Frank's character is modernized and he becomes a PC computer buff; in one book he is even able to hack into the Bayport City computer system. Frank

4059-653: The Bayport High track team and is on the swim team. He also plays baseball , basketball , and soccer . Frank is also interested in martial arts , the game of chess and, in The Clue of the Broken Blade , fencing . Frank Hardy is the older (18) of the two Hardy brothers in The Hardy Boys novel series by Franklin W. Dixon . In The Hardy Boys (2020 TV series) , Frank is 16 years old, 4 years older than Joe (12). Frank has dark brown hair and dark eyes, inherited his parents' good looks, and, like Joe, has

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4158-584: The Black Rhino (2003). The Hardys also travel across the United States by motorcycle, motorboat, iceboat , train, airplane, and their own car. The characters were conceived in 1926 by Edward Stratemeyer , founder of book-packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate . Stratemeyer pitched the series to publishers Grosset & Dunlap and suggested that the boys be called the Keene Boys, the Scott Boys,

4257-549: The Hardy Boys " canon ." The Hardy Boys also appeared in 127 volumes of the Casefiles series and 39 volumes of the Undercover Brothers series, and are currently the heroes of the Hardy Boys Adventures series. The brothers were also featured in a few standalone books, such as The Hardy Boys Ghost Stories , and some crossover titles where they teamed up with other characters such as Nancy Drew or Tom Swift . Hardy Boys books have been extensively reprinted in

4356-512: The Hardy Boys are constantly involved in adventure and action. Despite the frequent danger, the boys "never lose their nerve ... They are hardy boys, luckier and more clever than anyone around them." They live in an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue: "Never were so many assorted felonies committed in a simple American small town. Murder, drug peddling, race-horse kidnapping, diamond smuggling , bank robbing, kidnapping, dynamiting, burglaries, medical malpractice , big-time auto theft, even (in

4455-489: The Hardys a black surplus police van, which the Hardys use until Mystery Stories #190 Motocross Madness . It is unknown what the Hardys did with their second yellow convertible after Collig gives them the van. In the Casefiles, the Hardys' second yellow convertible is blown up by the Assassins (which also kills Iola Morton). After Frank and Joe save the Bayport Mall from being destroyed by the Assassins, they are given

4554-553: The Hardys' friends are Phil Cohen, who is Jewish , and the Italian immigrant Tony Prito. These two friends are rarely involved in the Hardys' adventures, however. That level of friendship is reserved for Biff Hooper and Chet Morton . The books have been extensively criticized for their use of racial and ethnic stereotypes and their xenophobia . Vilnoff, for example, the villain in The Sinister Sign-Post (1936),

4653-521: The Hart Boys, or the Bixby Boys. Grosset & Dunlap editors approved the project, but, for reasons unknown, chose the name "The Hardy Boys". The first three titles were published in 1927 and were an immediate success: by mid-1929, more than 115,000 books had been sold. The series was so successful that Stratemeyer created Nancy Drew as a female counterpart to the Hardys. Each volume is penned by

4752-473: The Hissing Serpent . Iola Morton is the girlfriend of Joe Hardy throughout the book series. She has dark hair, green eyes, and a medium frame. Her best friend is Callie Shaw , the girlfriend of Frank Hardy . Iola is the sister of Hardy Boys' close friend Chet Morton . She lives on a farm near Bayport with her parents and her brother. She is usually paired with Joe as he thinks "she was quite

4851-414: The Syndicate was able to enlist the cooperation of libraries in hiding the ghostwriters' names. The Syndicate's process for creating the Hardy Boys books consisted of creating a detailed outline, with all elements of the plot; drafting a manuscript , and editing the manuscript. Edward Stratemeyer's daughter, Edna Stratemeyer Squier, and possibly Stratemeyer himself, wrote outlines for the first volumes in

4950-490: The Syndicate. In the early days of the Syndicate, ghostwriters were paid a fee of $ 125, "roughly equivalent to two months' wages for a typical newspaper reporter, the primary day job of the syndicate ghosts." During the Great Depression this fee was lowered, first to $ 100 and later to $ 75. All royalties went to the Syndicate; all correspondence with the publisher was handled through a Stratemeyer Syndicate office, and

5049-455: The books this way, writing: "I had my own thoughts about teaching youngsters that obedience to authority is somehow sacred.... Would civilization crumble if kids got the notion that the people who ran the world were sometimes stupid, occasionally wrong, and even corrupt at times?" It has been a matter of disagreement regarding the treatment of minorities in the books. The early volumes have been called models of diversity for their day, since among

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5148-461: The boys and their friends through her cooking, and it is generally agreed (particularly by the occasionally gluttonous Chet Morton) that she excels in this area. Chester "Chet" Morton appears in most of The Hardy Boys books. He often tags along on the boys' little adventures. He is portrayed as a stout fellow and is often described as "plump" or "chubby", with a love for food. The books describe his bright yellow jalopy, which he had named "Queen", as

5247-499: The boys are cynical about human nature, an attitude apparently justified when the police, whom they have repeatedly helped, throw them into jail on slim evidence in The Great Airport Mystery (1930). The police and authority figures, in general, come off poorly in these books, so much so that at one point Edward Stratemeyer wrote to McFarlane in order to reprimand him for a "grievous lack of respect for officers of

5346-514: The brains of their operation and himself as the brawn. The Hardy boys make an excellent team because their abilities mesh perfectly. Frank and Joe both attend Bayport High, along with their friends Biff Hooper , Tony Prito , Phil Cohen , Iola Morton (excluding the Casefiles) and the aforementioned Chet and Callie. Frank is said to be a bomb buff (see Countdown to Terror in which he defuses two bombs) and has disarmed an atomic bomb saving

5445-406: The characters' longevity, suggesting that the Hardy Boys embody wish fulfillment, American ideals of boyhood and masculinity, a well-respected father paradoxically argued to be inept in the later books, and the possibility of the triumph of good over evil. On January 1, 2023, the original editions of the first three books entered the public domain in the United States . Under current copyright laws,

5544-455: The continental United States are portrayed as members of once-noble tribes whose greatness has been diminished by the coming of white men, while those living outside the continental U.S. are "portrayed as uneducated, easily manipulated, or semi-savage." However, Hispanics are generally treated as equals; Mexico's history and culture are treated with respect and admiration. The Hardy Boys volumes were extensively revised beginning in 1959 at

5643-483: The course of revising and modernizing the series, many plots were completely re-written. The Flickering Torch Mystery (1943), for example, was changed from a plot involving an actual flickering torch used as a signal by a gang to a plot featuring a rock club called "The Flickering Torch." When plots were kept, their more lurid elements were eliminated; Vilnoff, the villain in The Sinister Sign-Post ,

5742-413: The detective business because of the dangers involved—starts asking for their help on some of his cases. Fenton and his boys working together play a bigger part in this series than in any of the following Hardy Boys series. In this series, Frank is in the same grade as Joe (who is a year younger), because he lost a year due to sickness, but in all the other series he is a grade ahead of Joe and him losing

5841-563: The first series in which Frank and Joe are regularly single (not dating Callie Shaw and Iola Morton, as they did in the previous series), and have different love interests from book to book. Frank becomes nervous around teenage girls, even though they are attracted to him more in this series than any other. In contrast, Joe, in a similar manner to his personality in the Casefiles series, is a huge flirt; however, unlike in Casefiles , girls are relatively less interested in him, preferring Frank, which greatly annoys and frustrates Joe. The brothers use

5940-527: The first twenty-five titles and co-authored volume 17 The Secret Warning , between 1927 and 1946. Unlike many other Syndicate ghostwriters, McFarlane was regarded highly enough by the Syndicate that he was frequently given advances of $ 25 or $ 50, and during the Depression, when fees were lowered, he was paid $ 85 for each Hardy Boys book when other Syndicate ghostwriters were receiving only $ 75 for their productions. According to McFarlane's family, he despised

6039-426: The graphic novels also released under the Undercover Brothers banner, however, they are. Iola once again appears in the Hardy Boys Adventures series, but she is again not dating Joe. Allen "Biff" Hooper is a six-foot, blond-haired, muscular friend of the Hardy boys. He excels at boxing , wrestling , football and fencing. He has an ambling gait, "with which he could cover a tremendous amount of territory in

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6138-430: 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

6237-425: The insistence of publishers Grosset & Dunlap , and against the wishes of Harriet Adams. The revision project, which also encompassed the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories , was sparked largely by letters that parents had been writing to Grosset & Dunlap since at least 1948, complaining about the prevalence of racial stereotypes in the books. Volume 14 in the Hardy Boys series, The Hidden Harbor Mystery (1935),

6336-528: The law." The Hardys are less affluent than earlier Stratemeyer characters; they eagerly accept cash rewards largely to finance college educations, and, with their parents, strive to please their Aunt Gertrude, because she possesses a small fortune. The rich are portrayed as greedy and selfish. This view of the world reflects McFarlane's relative "lack [of] sympathy with the American power structure." In his autobiography, McFarlane described his rationale for writing

6435-679: The law; for example, they no longer drive faster than the speed limit even in pursuit of a villain. The Hardys also became more and more wealthy, prompting the criticism that the "major problem in [these volumes] is that the Hardy Boys have risen above any ability to identify with people like the typical boys who read their books. They are members and agents of the adult ruling class, acting on behalf of that ruling class." "A secret door!" Joe said. "We haven't seen one of these in, oh, several months," Frank said. Casefiles No. 65, No Mercy , 1992 The Hardy Boys began to be published in paperback in 1979. The Hardys were also featured in two new series,

6534-503: The matter, but don't let us disturb you at all–" "What's that about the newspapers?" demanded the chief, getting up from his chair so suddenly that he upset the checkerboard.... "Don't let this get into the papers." The chief was constantly afraid of publicity unless it was of the most favorable nature. The House on the Cliff , 1927 In general, the world of these early volumes is a "[dark] and ... divided place." In these early titles,

6633-706: 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 National Broadcasting Company (NBC) on September 8, 1967, and starred Tim Matthieson (later Matheson) as Joe Hardy and Rick Gates as Frank. Both actors were 20 at

6732-493: The minimisation of or the recovery and recycling of such materials. As well as depending upon strategic materials, warfare may be carried out with their specific goal in sight. Japanese expansion in World War II targeted rubber crops and their plantation areas in particular. Conflict between Germany and France has repeatedly focussed upon the iron and steel bulk resources of their border region. The term "critical material"

6831-478: The mystery of his nationality. African Americans are the targets of much racism, being depicted as unintelligent, lazy, and superstitious, "bumpkin rescuers" at best and "secretive and conspiratorial villains" at worst. Benjamin Lefebvre notes that Harriet Adams at times rebuked Leslie McFarlane for not sufficiently following her instructions regarding the portrayal of African-American characters; he writes that it

6930-456: The new versions nothing less than "eviscerated", foremost among them being the first Hardy Boys ghostwriter, Leslie McFarlane, who agreed with a reporter's statement that the books had been "gutted." "Great, Dad!" Frank said, jumping to his feet. "With spring vacation coming up we won't miss any time at school!" "Are your passports up to date?" his father asked. "Sure, we always keep them that way." The Arctic Patrol Mystery , 1969 In

7029-564: The next. The Hardy Boys were cast as young adults (Stevenson and Cassidy were 24 and 18, respectively, during the filming of the first episodes). The series featured original plots as well as ones based on Hardy Boys books, among them The Clue of the Screeching Owl , 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

7128-586: The nicest girl in Bayport High". In The Hardy Boys Casefiles first book, Dead on Target , she is killed by a car bomb meant for Frank and Joe. However, Iola appears in the Original Continuity books which ran during and long after the Casefiles series had ended. In many other Hardy Boys books, she is mentioned alive. Iola is featured in The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers , but she and Joe are not dating. In

7227-491: The revised editions will not be in the public domain in the United States until 2054. The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives. Frank is eighteen (sixteen in earlier versions), and Joe is seventeen (fifteen in earlier versions). They live in the city of Bayport on Barmet Bay with their father, detective Fenton Hardy ; their mother, Laura Hardy ; and their Aunt Gertrude . The brothers attend high school in Bayport, where they are in

7326-540: The rights to the series were sold, along with the Stratemeyer Syndicate, to Simon & Schuster . New York book packager Mega-Books subsequently hired authors to write the Hardy Boys Mystery Stories and a new series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles . In 1980, dissatisfied with the lack of creative control at Grosset & Dunlap and the lack of publicity for the Hardy Boys' 50th anniversary in 1977, Harriet Adams (née Stratemeyer) switched publishers for

7425-769: The same grade, but school is rarely mentioned in the books and never hinders their solving of mysteries. In the older stories, the Boys' mysteries are often linked to their father's confidential cases. He sometimes requests their assistance, while at other times they stumble upon relevant villains and incidents. In the Undercover Brothers series (2005–2012), the Hardys are members of and receive cases from American Teens Against Crime. The Hardy Boys are sometimes assisted in solving mysteries by their friends Chet Morton , Phil Cohen , Biff Hooper , Jerry Gilroy , and Tony Prito ; and, less frequently, by their platonic girlfriends Callie Shaw and Iola Morton (Chet's sister). In each novel,

7524-493: 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, another TV adaptation, simply called The Hardy Boys ,

7623-543: The series and its characters. After co-authoring Volume 17, John Button, with Volume 18, The Twisted Claw (1939), took over the series full-time until 1942; McFarlane resumed with Volume 22, The Flickering Torch Mystery (1943). McFarlane's last contribution was Volume 24, The Short-Wave Mystery (1945); his wife, Amy, authored Volume 26, The Phantom Freighter (1947). Over the next several decades, other volumes were written by Adams, Svenson, Lawrence, Buranelli, William Dougherty, and James Buechler. Beginning in 1959,

7722-506: The series is the mutual attraction between Nancy and Frank. The couple shared a kiss twice in the series; the first in book 5, The Last Resort , when the two are trapped after an avalanche and fear that they will die. The second is in Secrets of the Nile , where they kiss on a balcony after the case is solved. However, the kiss is interrupted by Bess Marvin. Another hint at their relationship

7821-573: The series was extensively revised and re-written. Many authors worked on the revised books, writing new manuscripts; some of them also wrote plot outlines and edited the books. Among the authors who worked on the revised versions were Adams, Svenson, Buechler, Lilo Wuenn, Anne Shultes, Alistair Hunter, Tom Mulvey, Patricia Doll, and Priscilla Baker-Carr. In 1979, the Hardy Boys books began to be published in paperback rather than hardcover . Lawrence and Buranelli continued to write titles; other authors included Karl Harr III and Laurence Swinburne. In 1984,

7920-576: The series, Running on Fumes , deals with environmentalists who go a little too far to try to save trees." The Hardys are also featured in a new graphic novel series, begun in 2005 and produced by Papercutz , and a new early chapter book series called The Hardy Boys: Secret Files , begun in 2010 by the publisher Simon & Schuster under their Aladdin imprint. The last Undercover Brothers books were released in January 2012 (main series) and July 2012 ( Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mystery '07 series). At

8019-399: The series, as well as the time she spends solving them with the Hardys. Another romance is hinted at between Joe Hardy and Bess Marvin, although there is much less evidence of this attraction. Neither relationship was ever given a final closure. In this series, Frank and Joe are both undercover agents for American Teens Against Crime (ATAC), an organization founded by Fenton Hardy. This is

8118-474: The series, for over fifty books, before it is blown up in #74 Tic-Tac-Terror . Frank and Joe receive a newer model of their yellow convertible from a jewelry firm because they successfully recovered an emerald valued at $ 1 million dollars in the same book. The Hardys use this new yellow convertible between #75 Trapped At Sea and #84 Revenge of the Desert Phantom , at which point Chief Collig gives

8217-399: The series. Beginning in 1934, Stratemeyer's other daughter, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams , began contributing plot outlines; she and Andrew Svenson wrote most of the plot outlines for the next several decades. Other plot outliners included Vincent Buranelli, James Duncan Lawrence , and Tom Mulvey. Most of the early volumes were written by Canadian Leslie McFarlane , who authored nineteen of

8316-535: The show's audience, the Hardy Boys were portrayed as younger than in the books, seeming to be 12 or 13 years old (Considine was 15 and Kirk was 14 during filming). 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 15 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. However, for unknown reasons, no more serials were produced. In

8415-449: 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

8514-436: The time of cancellation, there was one book that had been announced, but was ultimately shelved ( The Case Of The MyFace Kidnapper ); it is unknown whether this was going to be the final title of this unpublished book, since many bookstore websites and Simon & Schuster's website always had the letters "W.T." behind the title, meaning that it was a " working title ". February 2013 saw the launch of The Hardy Boys Adventures ,

8613-548: The time of production and portrayed the Hardy Boys as young adults rather than children. 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

8712-413: The title) and the sister of their father, Fenton. She is known to have a peppery temper and on more than one occasion to go "on the warpath". She owns an old Volkswagen Beetle . In the Undercover Brothers series she goes by Trudy, and sometimes Frank and Joe call her Aunt T. In some installments of the original series, Gertrude appears to be a full-time resident of the Hardy household. In others, she

8811-400: The town of Halifax. Frank is very protective of Joe, as every time someone threatens or hurts his younger brother, Frank goes into a cold-blooded rage. Frank and Callie have a mild romance in the casefiles series, and obviously has a crush on Nancy. Joe Hardy is 17 years old, with light blond hair, blue eyes, and a muscular frame. He resides in Bayport, along with his family. Their house

8910-542: The world." The Hardys' personalities are portrayed as more separate and distinct, and they sometimes fight; in the first of the series, Dead on Target , for example, the brothers brawl after Frank tries to restrain Joe after Joe's girlfriend, Iola Morton, is killed by a car bomb . In general, the series is more violent, and the Hardy Boys carry various guns; Lines like "Joe! Hand me the Uzi !" are not out of character. Barbara Steiner,

9009-416: The writing style was made terser. Difficult words such as "ostensible" and "presaged" were eliminated, as was slang. As a result of the new, more streamlined writing style, the books focus more on non-stop action than on building atmosphere, and "prolonged suspense [is] evaporated." The books were also aimed at an increasingly younger audience with shorter attention spans. For this reason, many commentators find

9108-543: The years. Beginning in 1959, the books were extensively revised, and some commentators find that the Hardys' characters changed in the process. Commentators also sometimes see differences between the Hardy Boys of the original Hardy Boys Mystery Stories and the Hardy Boys of the Hardy Boys Casefiles or the Undercover Brothers series. The early volumes, largely written by Leslie McFarlane , have been praised for their atmosphere and writing style, qualities often considered lacking in juvenile series books. McFarlane's writing

9207-556: The years. In the Casefiles they collaborate with The Gray Man , who works for the Network - a secret government intelligence agency. Also, they fight the Assassins, an international terrorist organization responsible for Iola Morton's death. In the Undercover Brothers books, the boys are undercover agents for ATAC (American Teens Against Crime), an organization co-founded by Mr. Hardy. As compared to his brother Frank, Joe

9306-560: Was called to testify about her work for the Syndicate, Benson's role in writing the manuscripts of early titles was revealed in court with extensive documentation, contradicting Adams' claims to authorship. The court ruled that Grosset had the rights to publish the original series of both Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys as they were in print in 1980, but did not own characters or trademarks. Furthermore, any new publishers chosen by Adams were completely within their rights to print new titles. The Hardy Boys have gone through many permutations over

9405-552: Was changed from a criminal who compulsively sculpts miniature models of his own hands to a car thief without such eccentricities, and another villain, Pedro Vincenzo, who branded his victims no longer does so in the revised version of The Mark on the Door (1934, rev. 1967). The books became more respectful of law and authority. Even villains no longer smoked or drank, and scenes involving guns and shoot-outs were compressed or eliminated, in favor of criminals simply giving themselves up. The boys, too, become more respectful of rules and of

9504-604: Was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person . Undercover Brothers ended in 2012 and was replaced in 2013 by The Hardy Boys Adventures , also narrated in the first person. Through these changes the characters have remained popular; several new volumes are published each year, and the adventures have been translated into over 25 languages. The boys have been featured in five television shows and several video games, and have helped promote merchandise such as lunchboxes and jeans. Critics have many explanations for

9603-486: Was less the removal of stereotypes than the removal of non-white characters altogether and the creation of an "ethnically cleansed Bayport." By the 1970s, however, the series began to re-introduce black characters. An additional rationale for the revisions was a drop in sales, which became particularly significant by the mid-1960s. Accordingly, the revisions focused on streamlining the texts, as well as eliminating stereotypes. The books were shortened from 25 chapters to 20 and

9702-608: Was produced by Canadian company Nelvana (normally an animation firm), syndicated by New Line Television , and 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 20s, with Frank working as a reporter and Joe still in college. The show lasted for only one season of 13 episodes due to poor ratings;

9801-419: Was singled out for particular and repeated attention for its portrayal of a black criminal who organizes a gang of black boys and treats whites disrespectfully. As one parent put it, the books were "ingraining the old race-riot type of fear." As such letters became more frequent, Grosset & Dunlap informed the Stratemeyer Syndicate that the books must be revised and such stereotypes excised. The result, however,

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