#95 Danger On The Air (32nd Anniversary Review)

[tomswift2002]

Danger On The Air
Published: April 1989
Publisher: Minstrel Books (1989-199?), Weekly Reader Books/Just For Boys/Minstrel Books (Hardcover, 1989)
Author: Chris Lampton
Other Hardy Boys Books By Author: #100 The Secret Of The Island Treasure, #102 Terminal Shock, #106 Attack of the Video Villains, #109 The Prime-Time Crime, #110 The Secret of Sigma Seven, #116 Rock 'N' Roll Renegades, #120 The Case of the Cosmic Kidnapping, #162 The End of the Trail, Casefiles #65 Operation Phoenix #2: No Mercy
Possible Authorship: #98 Spark of Suspicion, #99 Dungeon of Doom, Casefiles #64 Operation Phoenix #1 Endangered Species, #66 Operation Phoenix #66 The Phoenix Equation; A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller: Time Bomb
Reading Level: 7.3

Plot: Frank and Joe Tune In To Terror In A Television Studio

PROGRAM FOR DISASTER!

The Hardy boys have been invited to appear on the talk show, "Faces and Places" to discuss their fight against crime.  But fighting crime is a full-time job.  When the lights go up and the cameras go on, an explosion rips through the studio---live and in color!

A man calling himself the Masked Maurader cuts into the TV signal and delivers a chilling message.  He vows to ruin the station unless his million-dollar demands are met.  Frank and Joe must catch the video villain in the act before he blows the station off the air!

Review:  So it's been a while since we knew the identity of a book's author (Neal Barret Jr. wrote #85 Casefiles Pilot #2 The Skyfire Puzzle, and he was the last known author), and this is one of the most prolific Franklin W. Dixon's, up there with Leslie McFarlane, Andrew Svenson and Jim Lawrence, with 9 known Hardy Boys, and possible another 4, for possible 13.  #99 Dungeon of Doom, I'll discuss more in it's own review, but I'll just say that in the past when I've read the book, the book's writing style isn't like Chris Lampton's other Hardy Boys, and the style reminds me of a certain husband and wife team.  And Lampton is the author of at least a part of the one the greatest Hardy Boys stories of All-Time, the 1992 Operation: Phoenix trilogy.  The author's of books 1 & 3 are not known as of January 2021, however, since Lampton wrote book 2 No Mercy, it is very possible that he was also the author for the other two books in that trilogy and maybe the epilogue of that trilogy, the A Hardy Boys and Tom Swift Ultra Thriller: Time Bomb. 

Also, Danger On The Air is one of three Hardy Boys books to be released in hardcover by Weekly Reader Books "Just For Boys" imprint (published by Minstrel Books), with the other two being Casefiles #7 Deathgame & #33 Collission Course. The books use modified cover art from the regular editions.

Anyway, Danger In The Air has the Hardy's boys being interviewed on WBPT's talk show Faces and Places about their detective career.  No specific book cases are referenced, which is a shame, as the author could've slipped in a few references to his favorite Hardy Boys books up to that time.  But all we got was Frank starting to say that his favorite case was one involving a ring of smugglers (possible reference to The House On The Cliff or What Happened At Midnight or Footprints Under The Window (original), The Twisted Claw or. The Phantom Freighter or The Wailing Siren Mystery or The Hooded Hawk Mystery?) , before the explosion in the studio happens, and then later it mentions that Joe talks about their career from whatever their first case was (when you think back to The Tower Treasure, both the 1927 and 1959 versions mention that the Hardy's had helped Fenton on a case previously, whereas The Tower Treasure was their first solo case--so whether Joe was referring to that, or an even earlier one that they had helped Fenton Hardy on, is unknown) to the his exploits on the football field (as mentioned in The Crisscross Shadow.

I first read this book in the 90's, and I've read it a few times since, but I had forgotten parts of it.  I did remember the colorization of the Mrs. Brody's Boardinghouse sitcom in the book, and re-reading the book, I wonder if this was included because of the debate that was in the news in the 1980's about Ted Turner's plans to colorize many black-and-white films, such as Citizen Kane, or other that Turner didn't own but their respective studio's were doing, like Fox for the 1947 Miracle On 34th Street and Republic Picture's It's A Wonderful Life (as well as Hal Roach studio's did a colorization of It's a Wonderful Life in the 80's, as the film was in the public domain, however that version was done without any input from Republic Pictures). 

Of course, this time, I kind of found the whole reason for the criminal doing his acts was rather odd and weak.  He was committing the crimes, so that he could steal the kinescopes, so that he could issue them himself.  Considering that the series was in the public domain, in one way it makes sense, since he would be the only one with the kinsecope originals, but at the same time, once he released them to TV or on home video, anyone could make copies from those and resell them.  It's like nowadays, if I put out a DVD of public domain episodes of the 1950's Dragnet, I'd make a little money, but really not much, as other companies have released them and most of the time the quality is so-so.  And why DVD's of public domain films really didn't flourish for long, as people could share the videos online.  Of course, when I think of the VHS era, I guess there was a good profit-margin there, as VHS was really the only way to get them.  And most public domain movies and TV shows were issued on VHS tapes that were recorded in SLP (the tracking button's favorite mode), so that they could use a (in NTSC regions) T-10 (10 minutes in SP, 20 minutes in LP and 30 minutes in SLP/EP) tape to issue a 30-minute TV episode or a T-30 for a 90-minute movie.  I only ever came across one public domain movie recorded in SP and that was the 1945 Dick Tracy Detective that was put out by Astral Video---it even had Hi-Fi Mono, most SLP public domain releases just used VHS's linear mono, so sounded muddy and distorted, and looked like it had been copied from 35mm prints, versus the usual 16mm TV prints from the 50's---it would've been a pretty expensive version when it was new. 

Anyway, we also learn that WBPT-TV has been in Bayport since 1953, when Angus McParton intended to start a 4th TV network!  This is a similar story to the real life Dumont Television Network.  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network) 

Rating: 7.0 out of 10

[MacGyver]

Nice review! It is indeed interesting to see how plots of the books and how they're viewed changes with different times and different technology.

[tomswift2002]

#98 Spark of Suspicion & #109 The Prime Time Crime are sequels to Danger On The Air, although there is a continuity error, since page 3 of The Prime Time Crime mentions that the Hardy's hadn't been at WBPT since the events of Danger On The Air.