Retro TV1: Hardy Boys Nancy Drew

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (retitled The Hardy Boys Mysteries for season three) is a television series which aired for three seasons on ABC. The series starred Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy as amateur sleuth brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, respectively, and Pamela Sue Martin (later Janet Louise Johnson) as girl detective Nancy Drew.

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries was unusual in that it often dealt with the characters individually, in an almost analogical style. That is, some episodes featured only the Hardy Boys and others only Nancy Drew.

Story
The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew were both successful book publishing franchises, owned by the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a publishing group which owned many successful children's book lines.

The Hardy Boys are brother amateur detectives. Frank is the elder of the two and Joe is a year younger. The two boys live in the fictional city of Bayport (on Barmet Bay) with their famous father, Fenton Hardy (Ed Gilbert), a private detective formerly with the New York Police Department.

In addition to the Hardy Boys, their stories feature two other characters with some regularity: Aunt Gertrude (Edith Atwater) and a platonic female friend of the boys, Callie Shaw (Lisa Eilbacher), who also does part-time work for their father, Fenton. Other characters which played a major part of the Hardy Boys books, such as Chet Morton (Gary Springer), appeared only briefly in the series.

Nancy Drew is the amateur sleuth - she prefers the term "part time investigator" - daughter of attorney Carson Drew. She lives with her father in the fictional River Heights which, by the nature of the cross-over element of the series, cannot be too distant from the Hardy Boys east coast United States home town of Bayport.

In addition to Nancy Drew and her father, Carson (William Schallert), her stories feature two other characters with some regularity: her close friend George (Georgia) Fayne (Jean Rasey and, later for two episodes, Susan Buckner) and Ned Nickerson (George O Hanlon Jr.) Another prominent character from the Nancy Drew books, Bess Marvin (Ruth Cox), made only two appearances.

In the novels on which the series was based, Nickerson is explicitly identified as Nancy's boyfriend; in the television series, their romance is more ambiguous. In the first series, Nickerson is a law student who does part-time work for Carson Drew.

In the second series, Nickerson is re-introduced - with no reference to his earlier appearances, and in a scene in which he is apparently introduced to Nancy Drew for the first time - as a young hotshot lawyer from the city District Attorney's office. In this second appearance he is played by Rick Springfield.

Production
The series was produced by Glen A. Larson. The original music was composed by Stu Phillips.

The series was produced by Universal Studios, and the series used many of the Universal backlot locations as filming sites.

They include the two-part episode The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom, which is set on the studio lot, and numerous episodes which were filmed on parts of Colonial Street, the backlot street which was later used in the Tom Hanks film The Burbs and is used as Wisteria Lane in the hit TV series Desperate Housewives.

Episode #12 The Mystery of the Ghostwriter's Cruise is noteworthy because it contains a sequence in which a tidal wave appears to approach a cruise ship, a deliberate homage to The Poseidon Adventure, in which Martin also starred.

Second Season
During the second season, only three episodes feature Drew alone; the remainder starred the Hardy Boys with Pamela Sue Martin, as Nancy Drew, credited as a guest star. Martin left the series during the second season, and was replaced, for two episodes near the end, by actress Janet Julian aka Janet Louise Johnson.

Both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew featured in eight episodes, six of which were in the form of two-part episodes. Pamela Sue Martin played Nancy Drew in The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula and The Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom which were both transmitted in two parts.

After Martin departed the series, the character of Nancy Drew made three more appearances, with the Hardy Boys, in the episodes Voodoo Doll, Mystery on the Avalanche Express and Arson and Old Lace. In those, she was played by Janet Julian.

Third Season
In the third season Nancy Drew was dropped from the show completely, and it was renamed The Hardy Boys Mysteries.

A number of well known actors appeared in episodes of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, either as celebrity guest stars or before they achieved subsequent fame.

Celebrities who appeared in episodes included Ricky Nelson (The Flickering Torch Mystery), Bob Crane (A Haunting We Will Go), Lorne Greene and Paul Williams (The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula), Casey Kasem, Dennis Weaver, Jaclyn Smith and Robert Wagner (Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom), Tony Dow (The Creatures Who Came on Sunday), Maureen McCormick (Nancy Drew's Love Match), William Campbell and Missy Gold (Will The Real Santa ...?), Lloyd Bochner and Dorothy Malone (The House on Possessed Hill), Diana Muldaur (Sole Survivor), Ray Milland and Howard Duff (Voodoo Doll), Vic Damone, Fabian and Troy Donahue (Mystery on the Avalanche Express), Pernell Roberts and Joseph Cotton (Arson and Old Lace), Dana Andrews and Patrick Macnee (Assault on the Tower), John Colicos (Search for Atlantis), June Lockhart and Robert Loggia (Dangerous Waters),

Famous actors who appeared in the series earlier in their career included Jamie Lee Curtis, Robert Englund and A Martinez (The Mystery of the Fallen Angels), Rosalind Chao (The Mystery of the Jade Kwan Yin), Mark Harmon and Martin Kove (The Mystery of the Solid Gold Kicker), Anne Lockhart (The Mystery of the African Safari and The Last Kiss of Summer), Rick Springfield (Will The Real Santa ...?), Nicholas Hammond and John Karlen (The Lady on Thursday at Ten), Melanie Griffith (The House on Possessed Hill), Kim Cattrall and Linda Dano (Voodoo Doll), Valerie Bertinelli and Kim Lankford (Campus Terror), Ana Alicia (Life on the Line)

Bernie Taupin, the composer and musical partner of Elton John, appeared in the two part episode The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula, as a young British musician.

Darleen Carr, who guest starred in the episode Search for Atlantis, is the sister of Charmian Carr, who played Liesl von Trapp in the Robert Wise film adaptation of The Sound of Music.

Producer Glen A. Larson also produced the 1970s science fiction series Battlestar: Galactica. A number of actors who appeared in The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries were also either cast members or guest stars of that series. They include Lorne Greene, Maren Jensen, Anne Lockhart, Rick Springfield, Ana Alicia, Patrick Macnee and John Colicos.

Emmy Nomination
The series was nominated for an Emmy Award in 1977, in the category of "Special Classification of Outstanding Individual Achievement", recognizing the work of cinematographer Enzo Martinelli.

Hardy Boys Nancy Drew - intro