The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (retitled
The Hardy Boys Mysteries for season three) is a television series which aired for three seasons on
ABC. The series starred
Parker Stevenson and
Shaun Cassidy as amateur sleuth brothers
Frank and
Joe Hardy, respectively, and
Pamela Sue Martin (later
Janet Louise Johnson) as girl detective
Nancy Drew.
The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries was unusual in that it often dealt with the characters individually, in an almost anthological style. That is, some episodes featured only the Hardy Boys and others only Nancy Drew.
Story
The Hardy Boys and
Nancy Drew were both successful book publishing franchises, owned by the
Stratemeyer Syndicate, a publishing group which owned many successful children's book lines.
The Hardy Boys are brother amateur detectives.
Frank is the elder of the two and
Joe is two years younger. The two boys live in the fictional city of
Bayport (on Barmet Bay) with their famous father,
Fenton Hardy (
Ed Gilbert), a private detective formerly with the New York Police Department.
In addition to the Hardy Boys, their stories feature two other characters with some regularity:
Aunt Gertrude (
Edith Atwater) and a platonic female friend of the boys,
Callie Shaw (
Lisa Eilbacher), who also does part-time work for their father, Fenton. Other characters which played a major part of the Hardy Boys books, such as
Chet Morton (
Gary Springer), appeared only briefly in the series.
Nancy Drew is the amateur sleuth —...
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