The Hardy Boys

thumb|Cover of [[The Tower Treasure, the first Hardy Boys mystery]]

The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in a series of mystery novels for young readers. The series revolves around teenage amateur sleuths, solving cases that often stumped their adult counterparts. The characters were created by American writer Edward Stratemeyer, the founder of book packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. The books were written by several ghostwriters, most notably Leslie McFarlane, under the collective pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.

The Hardy Boys have evolved since their debut in 1927. From 1959 to 1973, the first 38 books were extensively revised to remove social and ethnic stereotypes, modernize content, and shorten the books.

A new Hardy Boys series, the Hardy Boys Casefiles, was created in 1987, and featured murders, violence, and international espionage. The original "Hardy Boys Mystery Stories" series ended in 2005. A new series, Undercover Brothers, was launched the same year, featuring updated versions of the characters who narrate their adventures in the first person. Undercover Brothers ended in 2012 and was replaced in 2013 by The Hardy Boys Adventures, also narrated in the first person.

Through these changes the characters have remained popular; several new volumes are published each year, and the adventures have been translated into over 25 languages. The boys have been featured in five television shows and several video games, and have helped promote merchandise such as lunchboxes and jeans. Critics have many explanations for the characters' longevity, suggesting that the Hardy Boys embody wish fulfillment, American ideals of boyhood and masculinity, a well-respected father paradoxically argued to be inept in the later books, and the possibility of the triumph of good over evil.

On January 1, 2023, the original editions of the first three books entered the public domain in the United States. Under current copyright laws, the revised editions will not be in the public domain in the United States until 2054.

Premise

The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives. Frank is eighteen (sixteen in earlier versions), and Joe is seventeen (fifteen in earlier versions). They live in the city of Bayport on Barmet Bay with their father, detective Fenton Hardy; their mother, Laura Hardy; and their Aunt Gertrude. The brothers attend high school in Bayport, where they are in the same grade, but school is rarely mentioned in the books and never hinders their solving of mysteries. In the older stories, the Boys' mysteries are often linked to their father's confidential cases. He sometimes requests their assistance, while at other times they stumble upon relevant villains and incidents. In the Undercover Brothers series (2005–2012), the Hardys are members of and receive cases from American Teens Against Crime. The Hardy Boys are sometimes assisted in solving mysteries by their friends Chet Morton, Phil Cohen, Biff Hooper, Jerry Gilroy, and Tony Prito; and, less frequently, by their platonic girlfriends Callie Shaw and Iola Morton (Chet's sister).

In each novel, the Hardy Boys are constantly involved in adventure and action. Despite the frequent danger, the boys "never lose their nerve ... They are hardy boys, luckier and more clever than anyone around them." They live in an atmosphere of mystery and intrigue: "Never were so many assorted felonies committed in a simple American small town. Murder, drug peddling, race-horse kidnapping, diamond smuggling, bank robbing, kidnapping, dynamiting, burglaries, medical malpractice, big-time auto theft, even (in the 1940s) the hijacking of strategic materials and espionage, all were conducted with Bayport as a nucleus." With so much in common, the boys are so little differentiated that one commentator facetiously describes them thus: "The boys' characters basically broke down this way – Frank had dark hair; Joe was blond." In general, however, "Frank was the thinker while Joe was more impulsive, and perhaps a little more athletic." The two boys are invariably on good terms with each other and never engage in sibling rivalry, except in the Undercover Brothers series.

Frank and Joe are somewhat wealthy and often travel to far-away locations, including Mexico in The Mark on the Door (1934), Scotland in The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (1967), Iceland in The Arctic Patrol Mystery (1969), Australia in The Firebird Rocket (1978), Egypt in The Mummy Case (1980), and Kenya in The Mystery of the Black Rhino (2003). The Hardys also travel across the United States by motorcycle, motorboat, iceboat, train, airplane, and their own car.

Creation of characters

The characters were conceived in 1926 by Edward Stratemeyer, founder of book-packaging firm Stratemeyer Syndicate. Stratemeyer pitched the series to publishers Grosset & Dunlap and suggested that the boys be called the Keene Boys, the Scott Boys, the Hart Boys, or the Bixby Boys. Grosset & Dunlap editors approved the project, but, for reasons unknown, chose the name "The Hardy Boys". The first three titles were published in 1927 and were an immediate success: by mid-1929, more than 115,000 books had been sold. The series was so successful that Stratemeyer created Nancy Drew as a female counterpart to the Hardys.

Ghostwriters

thumb|Edward Stratemeyer, creator of the Hardy Boys and founder of the [[Stratemeyer Syndicate]]

Each volume is penned by a ghostwriter under the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon. Unlike many other Syndicate ghostwriters, McFarlane was regarded highly enough by the Syndicate that he was frequently given advances of $25 or $50, and during the Depression, when fees were lowered, he was paid $85 for each Hardy Boys book when other Syndicate ghostwriters were receiving only $75 for their productions. According to McFarlane's family, he despised the series and its characters. Shot in Toronto, Hamilton, and other Southern Ontario locations, the 13 episodes were released on Hulu on December 4, 2020, in the United States and aired on YTV in Canada in 2021. Season 2 premiered in 2022. eventually, in July 2023 a third season was aired.

Video games

The Hardy Boys have appeared in several titles in the Nancy Drew computer game series produced by Her Interactive. Her Interactive partnered with Sega to release its own series of Hardy Boys games. The first game in the series is titled "Treasure on the Tracks" and was released in 2009 for Nintendo DS.

A separate series of PC games, developed by JoWood Productions and DreamCatcher Games, began in 2008 with The Hidden Theft. Jesse McCartney and Cody Linley are the voices of Frank and Joe. This was followed in 2009 by The Perfect Crime.

Comic book

In 1970 and 1972, Gold Key Comics put out four comic-book issues tied to the 1969/71 television series.

In March 2017, Dynamite Entertainment released Anthony Del Col’s reboot of classic characters Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys with Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie. Del Col has been a lifelong fan of the characters and was successful in working with Simon & Schuster to secure the comic book rights and then pitch to publishers.

Inspired by Archie Comics’ Afterlife with Archie, Del Col said, "So, then I started to think, 'Huh, I wonder what other characters are out there that are well-known that could be rebooted like that.' That's when I started to look around and I looked in some properties, and then I thought, 'Wait a minute. Nancy Drew. Hardy Boys. Oh, that would be really cool to do a hard-boiled noir take on them.

The series, a hardboiled noir take on the characters, finds characters Frank and Joe Hardy accused of murdering their father, Fenton Hardy, and turning to a femme fatale-esque Nancy Drew to clear their names. The series features artwork by Italian artist Werther Dell’Ederra with covers by UK artist Fay Dalton. Del Col credits editors Matt Idelson and Matt Humphreys with helping him shape the direction of the series.

The series debuted to positive reviews. Comics blog Readingwithaflightring.com declared it “the best 'modern' approach to updating a franchise like this that I’ve seen. It works on every level and still fully embraces the heart of who they are." Aintitcool.com reviewer Lyz Reblin stated, “The strength of the series thus far is Ms. Drew, who was absent for most of the first issue. She is a pitch-perfect modernized femme fatale, who could hold her own up against any present-day Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, or the like.”

In other media

The Hardy Boys have been used to sell a variety of merchandise over the years, much of it tied to television adaptations. They have appeared in several board games, comic books, coloring books, activity books, jigsaw puzzles, and lunch boxes; two LP albums, Here Come the Hardy Boys and Wheels; a Viewmaster set, a toy truck, charm bracelets, rings, wristwatches, greeting cards, jeans, and guitars.
The Hardy Boys have been parodied in the animated series South Park in an episode titled "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", in which the "Hardly Boys" investigate a 9/11 conspiracy theory.
The titular characters of the animated series The Venture Bros. are parodies of the Hardy Boys.
The Hardy Boys Mystery of the Spiral Bridge appears in the NCIS: New Orleans episode "In The Blood", as a book that belonged to Agent Dwayne Pride in the past.
There have been three Hardy Boys games. The Hardy Boys Treasure Game by Parker Brothers is from 1957. The Hardy Boys Game, by Milton Bradley in 1969, is based on the cartoon. In 1978, Parker Brothers released The Hardy Boys Mystery Game, based on the television series. In the board game, two to four players take on the role of amateur sleuths and try to solve a mystery.
2019 video game Disco Elysium features a group of characters known as the "Hardie Boys" led by Titus Hardie that act as minor antagonists. The Hardie Boys are not investigators but a group of union-backed dockworkers who act as vigilantes and claim to have murdered another during the course of the game.

Thematic analysis

The Hardy Boys have been called "a cultural touchstone all over the world." Their adventures have been continuously in print since 1927. The series was an instant success: by mid-1929 over 115,000 books had been sold. As of 2008, the series remained successful, with the first Hardy Boys book, The Tower Treasure, selling over 100,000 copies a year. Worldwide, over 70 million copies of Hardy Books have been sold. A number of critics have tried to explain the reasons for the characters' longevity.

One explanation for this continuing popularity is that the Hardy Boys are simple wish fulfillment. Their adventures allow readers to vicariously experience an escape from the mundane. At the same time, Frank and Joe live ordinary lives when not solving mysteries, allowing readers to identify with characters who seem realistic and whose parents and authority figures are unfailingly supportive and loving. The Hardy Boys also embody an ideal of masculinity: by their very name they "set the stage for a gentrified version of hardiness and constructed hardiness as an ideal for modern American males," part of the "cultural production of self-control and mastery as the revered ideal for the American man." More controversially, to Meredith Wood, the characters embody not just an ideal of masculinity, but an ideal of white masculinity. She argues that "racist stereotypes are ... fundamental to the success of the Hardy Boys series." In support of this claim, Wood cites what she says is the replacement of one stereotype (evil Chinese) with another (evil Latin Americans) in the original and revised versions of Footprints Under the Window. She further claims that this is the reason for the popularity of the Applewood Books reprints of the original, unrevised texts rather than the widely cited blandness of the rewrites.

Critic Gary Westfahl considers the Hardy Boys to not display any sexuality. The Hardys' ignorance of sex and their increasing respect for the law have led to some negative perceptions and many parodies of the characters. They are "well-scrubbed Boy Scout types" who "fetishized squareness." They have been parodied numerous times, in such works as The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of Where Babies Come From by Christopher Durang, The Secret of the Old Queen: A Hardy Boys Musical by Timothy Cope and Paul Boesing, and Mabel Maney's novel A Ghost in the Closet: A Hardly Boys Mystery. National Lampoon ran an article in 1985 entitled "The Undiscovered Notebooks of Franklin W. Dixon", in which the authors "purport to have stumbled upon some unpublished Hardy Boys manuscripts", including "The Party Boys and the Case of the Missing Scotch" and "The Hardly Boys in the Dark Secret of the Spooky Closet."

Others have pointed to the Hardy Boys' relationship with their father as a key to the success of the series. As Tim Morris notes, while Fenton Hardy is portrayed as a great detective, his sons usually solve the cases, making Fenton Hardy a paradoxical figure:

He is always there, he knows everything. He is infallible but always failing. When the boys rescue him, he is typically emaciated, dehydrated, semi-conscious, delirious; they must succor him with candy bars and water. He can take on any shape but reveals his identity within moments of doing so. He never discusses a case except for the one he's working on in a given novel, so that his legendary close-mouthedness turns to garrulousness when a Hardy Boys novel begins, which is of course the only time we ever get to see him. All the same, he only discusses the case in enough detail to mislead his sons and put them in mortal danger. He has systems of information and data-gathering that put the FBI to shame, yet he is always losing his case notes, his ciphers, his microfilm, or some other valuable clue, usually by leaving it in his extra pair of pants, meaning that the Boys have to drive to Canada or Florida or somewhere to retrieve it. I suppose he isn't mysterious at all; he simply embodies what many think of their own fathers: utterly powerful, contemptibly inept.

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As a result, the Hardy Boys are able both to be superior to their father and to gain the satisfaction of "fearlessly making their dad proud of them."

In the end, many commentators find that the Hardy Boys are largely successful because their adventures represent "a victory over anxiety." The Hardy Boys series teaches readers that "although the world can be an out-of-control place, good can triumph over evil, that the worst problems can be solved if we each do our share and our best to help others."

Explanatory notes

Citations

General and cited references

External links

The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories (1-58) - Entire Book Series Free Online (From the Creative Archive).
The Hardy Boys Unofficial Home Page Detailed information on the Hardy Boys
HardyBoys.co.uk A guide to British editions
Hardy Boys Online Detailed information on the Hardy Boys
"The Christian Hardy Boys" by Massimo Introvigne, Bitter Winter (February 26, 2022)