Cool finds from The Hardy Boys cartoon and '70s show

[hardygirl847]

Cool find MacGyver! Very old school....lol I still can't say I have joined the bandwagon for the cartoon series. I know it was made in the 60s, but I can't help wishing it was more like the cartoons today. I imagine the Hardys in more of a New Adventures of Jonny Quest, or Ben 10 Ultimate Alien type of cartoon. The action, dialog, and violence are interesting, funny, and exciting. I realize they would have less supernatural or alien features in their storylines, but I would love to see some real Casefile type of action.

There I go again...wanting what I can't have. Oh well...a girl can dream, right?

[MacGyver]

Cool find MacGyver! Very old school....lol

Yeah- I like a lot of old(er) things.

[hardygirl847]

That's cool!! Do you collect them too?

[MacGyver]

Some of them. Many of The Hardy Boys books would fall in this category.
But yeah- mainly I just like a lot of older TV shows from the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s and that's where I start to get more selective. I like some shows from the '90s and some from the 2000s but not nearly as many. Somewhere in the late '90s, I stopped being much of a regular TV viewer honestly. I also enjoy music and movies from all these various time periods too. And I collect some TV shows on DVD and/or VHS, and some video games, but it's mainly the various book series that I like that I collect.
    But yeah- there are some pretty cool things from yon olden days- but I appreciate newer things too. Remember the past, enjoy the present and look forward to the future!

[hardygirl847]

lol Yeah I guess they do fall into this category. Sometimes I forget that!

Very cool that you collect all of that. I agree...."Remember the past, enjoy the present and look forward to the future! " So very true!!

[MacGyver]

Just ran across a neat production cell from The Hardy Boys cartoon series here- http://funkystuffblog.com/funkystuffblog/2010/11/29/the-hardy-boys-peter-jones/

and a great interview with Bob Crowder, who portrayed Pete Jones on the cartoon series and was a famous session drummer- he helped record Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees!
http://popcultureaddict.com/bobcrowder-htm/

[MacGyver]

Okay- I knew about the model kit for The Hardy Boys van from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries TV show. But I had never heard of this one- apparently it's another version of the van that was released- but this one also worked as a Viewmaster of sorts. Check it out- http://plaidstallions.blogspot.com/2011/03/hardy-boys-in-3d.html

[MacGyver]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wafflewhiffer/4605349511/

Just saw this on Flickr- some cards from the back of Hostess Twinkies box back in the '70s- with parodies of popular '70s TV shows, including The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries

[MacGyver]

Ran across this online- but I'm pretty sure the links don't work anymore.

[MacGyver]

Okay- so in the continuing quest to track any further information on The Hardy Boys cartoon series (and other Hardy Boys productions as well of course)- I ran across this page from Entertainment Rights. Now I'm pretty skeptical of this site as it's copyrighted 2008 and seems to have no way of contacting the author. Nonetheless, it does have this update from just 10 days ago- so maybe it's still current. I can't remember where now, but I had read somewhere that when Filmation folded, the rights to the cartoon had eventually wound up at Classic Media. Apparently, this is a branch of Entertainment Rights- and it would seem that this is their Web site. Anyway, according to this article, a new retro-style network is supposed to be starting up this summer in the USA, to be entitled PBJ. It would be a 24 hour network, featuring great titles like Mr. Magoo, The Archies, The Lone Ranger, Gumby and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. I'm not sure who has the rights for all of these, but I do know that The Archies and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids were both Filmation series- and at least 1 variation of The Lone Ranger was as well, I'm pretty sure. So if this company does indeed own the rights to The Hardy Boys, it's possible this cartoon could be run again on this channel!
     I will have to keep looking further into this and try to contact this group somehow for some confirmation- but it's definitely very interesting news if it's all on the level.

[Hardy Sleuth]

Very cool, MacGyver! I really hope this is a real network (and one I can get!) and that they air the Hardy Boys cartoons! I love cartoons so this would definitely be a channel I'd like to watch (so would others in my family). Can't wait to hear what you find out!

[tomswift2002]

Classic Media does own a ton of Filmation shows (because they purchased the library from Hallmark years ago, who had purchased it from L'Oreal).  Unfortunately, when Hallmark had the rights, they transferred the shows to Digital Betacam tape but in the PAL format (what is used over in Europe and a few other places for an analog TV signal, just like here in North America and over in Japan NTSC is used for analog broadcast).  So, unfortunately for which ever shows Classic Media has, they can never remaster the shows into true HD.  But PAL does allow for the shows to have 625 lines of resolution, which is better than NTSC's 525, plus with PAL the frame rate is at about 25 fps's (much closer to film's 24 fps) than NTSC's 30 fps.  But that refresh rate on the PAL tapes makes the video look softer than on NTSC.  So, hopefully, if the Hardy Boys cartoon ever gets released on DVD, before just releasing NTSC copies of the PAL masters (if that is how the cartoon currently exists and if it is owned by them), Classic Media will drop the video down to film's 24 fps and allow the sound and video to play normally on NTSC discs.

[MacGyver]

Well, I didn't understand all the technical aspects of that, but yeah- hopefully any DVD release of the cartoon would have a good rendering on DVD, in both NTSC and PAL (i.e. Region 1, Region 2, etc.)

[MacGyver]

View Master reels from The Secret of the Caves adaptation that was released in the early '70s as a tie-in with The Hardy Boys cartoon.

[MacGyver]

Wow! Storyboards from "The Mystery of the Chinese Junk" episode of The Hardy Boys cartoon!