The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries- Books in the intros

[MacGyver]

I thought this would be a fun project to attempt. One of the coolest things I've always loved about the opening theme songs for The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (besides the whole maze in the desert in the middle of the night motif and the awesome music) is the way they recreated the various covers of The Hardy Boys original 58 Grosset & Dunlap hardbacks as well as the Nancy Drew original 56 Grossett & Dunlap hardbacks with Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin on the covers.
(Of course, this only applies for the first 2 seasons. For the third season, it was a totally different intro altogether with different music and some spoken dialogue and scenes from the episodes- though all three seasons incorporated scenes from the episodes, of course. And I do like how the 3rd. Season theme intro still incorporated images of Frank and Joe into the cover of a book to form the title for the show The Hardy Boys- and that cover was all black except for the red images of Frank and Joe and the blue title- it kind of vaguely reminded me of the Casefiles- wonder if they got any inspiration from that?)
    Anyway- has anyone ever tried to list all the books that show up in the first 2 seasons' intros? I attempted a list that I am sure is not complete (and I only focused on The Hardy Boys books- perhaps I can try to add the Nancy Drew books later).
And this is based on the 2nd. Season- though I'm pretty sure some of the same shots were used for both Season 1 and Season 2- but I'm thinking more were added in the 2nd. Season)


The Yellow Feather Mystery
The Clue in the Embers
The Mystery of the Whale Tattoo
The Masked Monkey
While The Clock Ticked
The Clue of the Screeching Owl
The Phantom Freighter
The Shattered Helmet
The Twisted Claw
The Flickering Torch Mystery
The Secret of Pirates' Hill
The Sign of the Crooked Arrow
Danger on Vampire Trail
The Clue of the Broken Blade
The Disappearing Floor
The Clue of the Hissing Serpent

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I thought this would be a fun project to attempt. One of the coolest things I've always loved about the opening theme songs for The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (besides the whole maze in the desert in the middle of the night motif and the awesome music) is the way they recreated the various covers of The Hardy Boys original 58 Grosset & Dunlap hardbacks as well as the Nancy Drew original 56 Grossett & Dunlap hardbacks with Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin on the covers.
(Of course, this only applies for the first 2 seasons. For the third season, it was a totally different intro altogether with different music and some spoken dialogue and scenes from the episodes- though all three seasons incorporated scenes from the episodes, of course. And I do like how the 3rd. Season theme intro still incorporated images of Frank and Joe into the cover of a book to form the title for the show The Hardy Boys- and that cover was all black except for the red images of Frank and Joe and the blue title- it kind of vaguely reminded me of the Casefiles- wonder if they got any inspiration from that?)
    Anyway- has anyone ever tried to list all the books that show up in the first 2 seasons' intros? I attempted a list that I am sure is not complete (and I only focused on The Hardy Boys books- perhaps I can try to add the Nancy Drew books later).
And this is based on the 2nd. Season- though I'm pretty sure some of the same shots were used for both Season 1 and Season 2- but I'm thinking more were added in the 2nd. Season)



The Yellow Feather Mystery
The Clue in the Embers
The Mystery of the Whale Tattoo
The Masked Monkey
While The Clock Ticked
The Clue of the Screeching Owl
The Phantom Freighter
The Shattered Helmet
The Twisted Claw
The Flickering Torch Mystery
The Secret of Pirates' Hill
The Sign of the Crooked Arrow
Danger on Vampire Trail
The Clue of the Broken Blade
The Disappearing Floor
The Clue of the Hissing Serpent

No I never thought of that. I'm wondering of the third season was per casefiles. The way it was written and the fact that there was a girl that was killed in car accident/explosion in the first ep and book.
What do you think?

[MacGyver]

I think the 3rd. Season was an attempt to aim the show at an older audience with some more mature themes- so yes, you probably would see some similiarities between the 3rd. Season with The Hardy Boys Casefiles books- I believe some of our forum members have commented on that in other threads about the show.

[SDLagent]

But keep in mind, Katie, that the TV series came before the Casefiles.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

But keep in mind, Katie, that the TV series came before the Casefiles.

About ten years later then the TV show right? What's your favourite Casefile?

[MacGyver]

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries debuted in 1977. The Hardy Boys Casefiles debuted in 1987 (and for the record, The Nancy Drew Files debuted in 1986.) I've noticed that Nancy Drew also started about a year or so before The Hardy Boys with the whole Girl Detective and Undercover Brothers series too. Is this just a "ladies first" thing or that whole thing about girls maturing faster than boys?

Anyway- so yeah, the '70s show came 10 years before the Casefiles started- though there were only about 8 years in between the end of the show and the start of the Casefiles. So perhaps some of the writers still had some of those third season episodes fairly fresh in their minds- or they looked to it for some inspiration. I don't know. And if you're asking me, I've read all of the Casefiles and my favorite is all 127.

[SDLagent]

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries debuted in 1977. The Hardy Boys Casefiles debuted in 1987 (and for the record, The Nancy Drew Files debuted in 1986.) I've noticed that Nancy Drew also started about a year or so before The Hardy Boys with the whole Girl Detective and Undercover Brothers series too. Is this just a "ladies first" thing or that whole thing about girls maturing faster than boys?

And it was the opposite with the original series. The Hardy Boys debuted in 1927, three years before Nancy Drew.

[MacGyver]

Yep- that is true. Of course, at that time, it was a kind of new thing to have book series aimed at kids in general- but specifically aimed at girls- those series did come a little bit after the boys series books. Now it seems like girls are stereotypically more of a reader than boys- perhaps these are some of the reasons for those marketing pushes...

[SDLagent]

The concept of Nancy Drew was actually based The Hardy Boys. "The Hardy Boys for girls." And then there's The Dana Girls which was even more like The Hardy Boys and written by Leslie McFarlane.

[MacGyver]

Digging up an old thread here...
Here's a great page with good screencaps from the opening credits for Season 2 of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries. That can definitely help with picking out the titles.
It'd be cool to be able to get an up close screen capture of all of the books.