The Hardy Boys action figures (and other toys)

[MacGyver]

Hey- I just ran across this link and thought someone might be interested.
http://totallyjem.jemmagic.com/kennerhardyboys.html

I totally had no idea that The Hardy Boys had a link to Jem! Like, that is truly outrageous!

There's some great toy catalogue scans on the page for the Kenner Hardy Boys action figures (which is what the marketing folks call them in the catalogue- but honestly I think doll is probably more appropriate here, considering they're obviously using Barbie doll models.) In fact, I was wondering if there were two runs of these figures- one in 1978 and one in 1979. The Frank figure looks the same in both cases, but the first Joe figure pictured looks like a modified Ken doll. The 1979 ad has a figure that looks much closer to Shaun Cassidy. And the Frank one looks pretty close to Parker Stevenson too. That's pretty good- I didn't think you could get that much accuracy with those kinds of figures, but I guess they did well enough. It worked well enough for The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman figures and pretty well for Mego's superheroes line too. And though I know G.I. Joe was originally issued with 12 inch figures in the same kind of mold back in the '60s, I think generally 3 3/4 inch plastic figures, like the one introduced for G.I. Joe in the '80s, captures features a lot better. But I guess either one does a pretty good job overall.
    Any other thoughts on this? Or on toys for The Hardy Boys in general? I don't guess there's much beyond these figures, the Hardy Boys van model kit and the car and band figurines released for the cartoon. Or is there?

[hardygirl847]

OMG if I wasn't 26, I would HAVE to have the Hardy dolls (yes, they are DOLLS). I saw a cool Hardy Boys board game on ebay. It has Shaun and Parker on it. I still want it! *Note ...Ebay didn't like me using their pics so I found it on google. If you would like to buy it, just do a search on ebay.



Check out a little article about it here...


http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/TV%2520Games/hardyboys/hardy%2520boys%2520box.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/TV%2520Games/hardyboys/index.html&usg=__eNJS8e_1zUBukFFbMlhf7HaF3-E=&h=192&w=359&sz=31&hl=en&start=18&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=snZ_N9Y9sR2rYM:&tbnh=65&tbnw=121&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhardy%2Bboys%2Bgame%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1


Here's a weird pic for the Wii The Hidden Theft promo on a website......



Find the site here....

http://www.gamezplay.org/2009/04/hardy-boys-hidden-theft-puzzle.html


This is cool but I need to get going. I will look for more later.

[MacGyver]

Cool website link about The Hardy Boys board game- I'll have to check that out in more detail later.
This website has a nice list of collectibles for The Hardy Boys-http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/hbom.htm
NancyDrewSleuth.com is a great resource for Nancy Drew memorabilia too, for that matter.

This is unrelated really, but I thought I'd also mention that I just noticed the Hardy Boys site I mentioned has the complete set of The Hardy Boys: Clues Brothers books, if anyone's wanting to pick it up.
http://hardyboys.bobfinnan.com/bigsale.htm

[tomswift2002]

There have been a few board games made based on the Disney Hardy Boys serials and the 1977 Universal TV series.

I've got a copy of the board game based on the 1977 TV series that I picked up at a garage sale over 15 years ago for 25 cents (the game had all the pieces as well), and it was only years later that I had picked up the scarce Canadian edition which came in both English and French (the cards and everything in it didn't have duplicate cards printed in French, instead the cards and game board had both languages on them).  Its a pretty good game to play, but it takes a while to get through since for quite a while you are just travelling on the paths between the center and the outer edges of the game board and those paths contain about 30-35 tiny dots, so every time that you roll the die you have to move the corresponding number of dots.

[MacGyver]

Cool- it'd be pretty fun to play The Hardy Boys board game sometime if I ever tried to track it down. lol

[hardygirl847]

Cool! I want the one with Parker on it....hehe I am a sucker for his cute Frank-like face. That's my inner teen talking.

[tomswift2002]

Cool! I want the one with Parker on it....hehe I am a sucker for his cute Frank-like face. That's my inner teen talking.

Well the American version (which is English only) is the more widely available version out there, but both the American and Canadian versions of the 1977 The Hardy Boys: The Secret Of Thunder Mountain (that was the actual name of the game) are getting harder to find as time goes by (especially complete games) since pieces get lost over time, people throw the games out either because they don't have room or maybe the game was stored in a place that got flooded.  There are tons of reasons why the games are getting harder to find and more expensive in second-hand stores/websites, including that the people are hanging onto the game because they are a Hardy Boys or Parker Stevenson or Shaun Cassidy collector.

[hardygirl847]

I guess that means I should get on it! I don't want to lose the chance.