1970s TV

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: Will The Real Santa….? Recap.

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

I have been recapping the old The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries episodes from 1977 to 1979 and this week I am skipping ahead a bit to a Christmas one from season two entitled just “Will The Real Santa…?”

Yes, there are just dots there.

This is the second to last episode Pamela Sue Martin was in as Nancy before leaving the show due to the writers making her role smaller and smaller each episode. Her last episode was one I will write about later and creeped me out a bit —The Lady on Thursday at Ten.

After The Lady on Thursday at Ten, the show featured actress Janet Louis Stevenson as Nancy Drew for four  more episodes. Then after Season 2 episode 21, Joe and Frank Hardy dominated all the episodes. In the next season, which was the shows’ last, it would even be rebranded as The Hardy Boys. It was canceled ten episodes into the season and replaced with The Osmond Family Hour.

This episode starts with a man with a white beard running to catch a train. He is pulled up into one of the cars with the help of another person and then we see two men running out of the darkness, guns pulled.

“This train will stop in River Heights,” the one man says. “We’ll get him there.”

The man with the white beard rides away in the train car and then we switch to Nancy decorating a tree with some woman. Her father, Carson Drew, is sitting on the couch.

Carson and Nancy call the woman George, but this is not the actress who played George before. The previous George had dark hair. This George is a blond.

The tree is huge and so 70s too, by the way. I don’t know how else to explain what I mean by it being “70s”. It just has a lot of red bulbs and popcorn strands on it and — it’s just has a 70s/80s look.

So, Nancy is up on a ladder that is perfectly capable of standing on its own because it is freestanding, but she asks George to hold it anyhow. Nancy is trying to place the tree topper on the top of the tree, when Carson asks George a question and she lets go of the ladder to show him an article in the newspaper. This happens about the same moment when the front door slowly opens, and we see a young man wearing a dark suit and with dark hair peering in.

His knock and him calling out “Mr. Drew?” wasn’t loud enough for them to hear him so he just walks in. It’s a good thing he does too, because at the same time he peeks in, Nancy starts flailing around like the ladder has been pulled out from under her (it hasn’t), yells “George!” and starts to fall.  

In rushes our hero to catch Nancy before she falls and say the words, “I never had a girl fall that hard for me. Not at our first meeting anyhow.”

Har. Har. Cue my gag reflex.

Carson introduces the young man as Ned Nickerson. Color me confused.

The problem with this is that there was a Ned Nickerson in the first season and this is not him.

Ned was his dad’s legal assistant and close friends with Nancy but clearly in love with her. He was in several episodes in the first season and disappeared by season two.

Now we are supposed to pretend that whole season never happened and this is the real Ned Nickerson — some dude who works for the Boston DA.

This new Ned is played by Rick Springfield (…I kid you not! ) and I guess the first Ned never existed. So, it was like they were trying to reboot Ned’s origin story like Marvel keeps rebooting Spiderman’s origin story and DC keeps rebooting Superman’s origin story. Sadly, poor Rick never got to flush out his role as Ned because Pamela Sue Martin left the show after the next episode and Ned’s character was written out of the show.

Also…. I guess Ned was more interested in Nancy than Jesse’s Girl at this point.  *Cymbal shot* Yes that was a bad joke.

[If you, like me, do not know a ton about Rick Springfield — he is a popstar from the 70s and 80s and has also acted. He also has either taken a youth elixir or had a lot of work done because at 76 he looks like he is 56.]

Okay, moving forward . . .

So, George is clearly enamored with Ned and is very excited when Carson introduces them. Then Carson says, “And I guess you’ve already met Nancy.”

Laughter all around and then Ned starts to mansplain to Nancy how to put a tree topper on.

“Beautiful tree but you’re putting the topper on wrong,” he says.

Ummmm…’kay….it’s just a topper. How is there a different way to put it up there?

Dude. Please.

So he puts it up there and says, “There. It’s how it should be.”

And Nancy shoots daggers at him with her eyes. Dashing? Maybe. Total arrogant jerk? Absolutely.

This is setting up the “enemies to lovers” trope that will continue throughout the episode.

Scene shift. Now there is a man dressed as Santa breaking into a house and stealing things while in the other room a white-haired man is on the phone asking Carson Drew, “Hey, cousin, where are you? The party is getting lit over here.”

He doesn’t actually say lit – I summarized for you. What he does say, in a sort of creepy old man way (and also sounding fairly drunk) is, “Ah, cousin, where are you all? The party’s flagging, especially without your beautiful daughter here to liven things up.”

Carson laughs and says they’re just getting ready to leave but wants to know if he can bring Ned along.

“Sure,” the unnamed cousin says. “The more people are here the more Christmassy I’m going to feel.”

Huh? Was that sarcasm or ….? I don’t know but it was weird.

So next scene we see the two men we saw at the train in a car. “I thought you said he’d get off in this town,” the one man says.

“We’ll find him and he’ll never see Christmas,” the other man says.

The man in question, white beard and all, shows up in the next scene but not near where the men are. He’s found a barn and he’s excited because he’s about to crash in the straw for a snooze.

Before he gets there, though, he looks over his shoulder and sees the burglar Santa climbing down some vines (that would not have supported his weight actually) from a second story window of the house. We aren’t sure whose house this is yet, but earlier scenes hinted to us that it is Carson Drew’s cousin’s house.

The white-bearded man shrugs and says, “Dejevu. Christmas Santas.”

He staggers to the barn, unspotted by the Santa who is still busy climbing down, goes inside and lays down in the straw to take a nap. He isn’t there long, though, before two rich kids are looking down at him and saying “Daddy doesn’t allow anyone in the barn.”

The man tells them they wouldn’t want to chase Santa away right before Christmas, would they?

Nooo. They wouldn’t want to do that.

But we scene switch again and the police are at Carson’s cousin’s house, and I don’t know how far away this guy lived but in the time that Carson was in the car to when he got there, the burglary has already been discovered and the police are investigating.

The cousin hands Nancy a card that thanks the man for his generosity and signs it as Santa.

“Not again,” Nancy says.

Ned asks if this has happened before and Carson explains it has happened four times in a week and a cheery card is left at the scene of every crime.

Ned has to get in on the action and says Nancy shouldn’t have been handed the note and Nancy shouldn’t have taken it because fingerprints could have been lifted.

Nancy, of course, has to tell the detective on scene that he’s making mistakes and didn’t notice a footprint covered in glass by the window, showing someone kicked their way into the room.

Ned says something like, “Oh yeah? How do you know?” and Nancy rattles off some nonsense about wet footprints still being there and glass being embedded in his shoes and blah, blah, blah.  It actually didn’t make sense but it’s okay…it’s a fun show so will just go with it.

They all end up back at the Drew’s house where Ned acts like hot stuff and says he can call the DAs office and ask if anyone who is a known burglar has been let out recently or lives in the area. He doubts that it would be anyone local, which offends Nancy who says, “You don’t think this town is big enough to have thieves of their own? Some of the biggest thieves are in this town. I know. I’ve caught some of them.”

I don’t know that I’d want to brag about that, Nancy. It’s kind of like when my area became the Meth capital of the nation. It wasn’t a designation we really liked to tell people about.

Nancy says she’s going to go back to talk to the cousin’s wife and make sure she’s okay. It gives her a chance to get away from Ned who is just driving her bonkers.

Honestly, Ned is a huge jerk in the beginning of this episode, bossy and pushy and essentially acting like they have Nancy act in other episodes.

On the way over to the cousin’s, Nancy notices some lights are on at a house where the owners are supposed to be out of town. She wonders what is going on so she pulls over and, of course, finds the back door broken. We’ve been seeing scenes of someone dressed in a Santa costume stealing valuables and putting them in a big bag, so we know someone is in there.

She goes in and calls the police station, telling them to send the detective over because she’s Nancy Drew and she thinks a house is being broken into.

She makes her way around the house to see if someone is in the house, and is on her way back down the stairs when a man dressed in a Santa costume and wearing a scary mask (it creeped me out!) starts down behind her. A crazy chase scene ensues where the man throws is bag at her (by the way, when it hits the wall, it does not sound like it is full of valuables. Instead, it makes no noise and seems to be full of a pillow.)

Nancy runs into the living room with the man behind her and throws a chair through the patio doors to escape. The Santa is like, “Dude…no way…not dealing with her…She’s nuts” and books it out the back door with a flashlight and his bag.

He runs and finds the barn our “Santa” homeless man is in (so this must be in the same neighborhood as the cousin, which makes this burglar very bold and risky) and runs inside to hide the stolen goods behind some hay bails. He then leaves the barn, with the old white-bearded guy still sleeping in the straw.

When Nancy’s neighbor comes home (I don’t know who called him or how he knew to come home from being “out of town”) they talk to the police detective who says he’s going to get two dozen officers in the neighborhood to track the burglar down. It makes me wonder how much of a budget this little town has that they can afford that many police officers.

The neighbor invites Nancy in for tea (umm…what? Your house was just robbed and you’re inviting this young girl in for tea??) and then says he’s going to check around the house to make sure the guy didn’t try to hide there. Nancy makes her way to the kitchen and starts filling the kettle with water so I guess she’s been here before.

Suddenly, though, the two kids we saw in the barn earlier are in the kitchen with a huge jar of cookies and a loaf of bread.

Okay, so pause here. Nancy tells us viewers, that the family was out of town when she said, “I thought the Garbers were out of town,” when she drove by their house, but the kids were in the house? Alone?? Are these kids siblings of Kevin McAllister? Why didn’t they wake up when the burglar broke in and tried to kill Nancy?

So, I don’t get that part at all, but the kids let it slip that they are taking food to Santa in the barn.

Nancy wants to know if this Santa is the burglar Santa, so she follows them to the barn and meets the man who has been hiding there.

He’s just wearing a gray pair of pants and a gray jacket and looks tired but otherwise fine. The kids give him his food and then leave, which leaves Nancy to grill him about the burglaries. He has no idea what she’s talking about.

“You didn’t catch me the first time,” she says.  “Now you have another chance.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve ever met,” he says.

After some more conversation, he says he did see someone dressed as Santa climbing from a window of a house, but he thought it was a father having fun with his children.

He tells her his name is Griffin.

The police rush in though and start questioning the man, asking him where he’s come from. An officer finds the stashed jewels and other valuables and the man is arrested but says he can’t be arrested because the next night is Christmas Eve and he will be busy.

“You can’t do this to the children!” he says as he is dragged away.

Nancy watches them take the man away and sees a car pull out to follow the police car, as if they were waiting for Griffin to leave.

Back at home later, Carson is woken up by a phone call but no one is there. He tries to go back to sleep but Nancy runs in and says she can’t leave Santa Claus in jail over night, which puzzles Carson who says he actually just had a dream about the man she met. When he tells her the phone call woke him, but no one was there, there is a quick clip slid in of Griffin in jail, so I guess we are supposed to get the idea that this man really is Santa and he has powers to make phone calls or hear conversations or…is omniscient like God? I’m really not sure what we are supposed to be getting here.

All I know is that Carson and Nancy rush down to the jail and post bail for the man which I think is amazing since it is 3 a.m. and most jails wouldn’t let anyone in at that time of the day. When the scene first starts we see the outside of the jail and hear a voice say, “Alright, I’ll release the old man into his custody when he gets down here.”

The officer unlocks the cell door and Griffin says, “Ah, I’ve been expecting you.”

Carson is confused by this, but they move on and offer Griffin a place to stay at their house after asking him some questions.

He tells them that he arrived in their town the night before but will only say that the train brought him — also every time he answers a question music with a little bell plays to suggest he is magical or …whatever.

As they are all leaving, Griffin sees those men waiting in a car outside and while Nancy and Carson are talking, he disappears.

They can’t find him but in the morning, there is a newspaper article saying that Carson Drew is defending Santa Claus. Griffin had told the press that he was Santa, but Carson had no idea when he gave them that information.

Nancy and Ned get into an argument when Ned says this guy is clearly running from something, maybe a crime. Nancy says she has feeling and instinct that he’s a good guy. Ned just laughs at her “hunches.”

Nancy declares she’s going to prove Griffin innocent even if she has to prove he is Santa Claus. Ned scoffs at this as she stomps out of the office.

Next, we have Nancy looking at some fabric she found at the scene of the first crime under a magnifying glass.

She doesn’t see anything that will help her, so she and George start to list what the burglaries have in common. Nancy then tells George to get her a list of all the people who have worked in the homes of the people who were robbed.

Pause here.

First, what is she doing bossing George around? Second, how in the world is George supposed to get that info when she is not a police officer?

George, however, has no doubts. She isn’t the George from season one who was timid and worried all the time. (I mean she’s entirely a different actress even). She’s bold and says she will do it.

In the following scene one of the two men who are after Griffin is talking to another man on a phone.

The man is in a nice office, wearing a suit and tie and says he wants the old man caught and killed because he witnessed “the exchange.” I don’t know what that exchange was but he witnessed it so he orders the man to find him and take him out.

Then he says, “I don’t want a witness to an exchange of $5 million for drugs to be alive.”

Scene switch again and we are in a department store where kids are waiting in line to talk to a Santa who is clearly drunk.

The two children Griffin met in the barn see him and tell the store owners he’s the real Santa. All the kids run to Griffin, and the store owners ask him if he will be their Santa at that night’s Christmas Eve party. He says he can’t because he has a big job to do that night. The store owner thinks it is a joke and hires him.

Meanwhile, Nancy has her list of employees and sees a man named Pierre Cortez, who is the gardener for everyone that was burglarized on the list.

She wants to get his prints so she can prove it was him, but George suggests she call the police first. She refuses because she doesn’t want Ned to think she’s an amateur.

She instead heads back to the barn where Griffin had been staying to find more clues and catches this Pierre man looking for his bag of stuff. There is a standoff, and he threatens to kill her, but luckily, Ned bursts in and tackles the man because George told him what Nancy was going to do.

Somehow, he was also able to call the police in that short amount of time, and they burst in and take the man into custody.

Nancy then rewards Ned with a big kiss, which startles him (and me too, quite frankly) but he thoroughly enjoys. Apparently, they are no longer enemies. He asks what the kiss was for, and she says it was because he saved her life and he quips he will have to do that again sometime.

Now Griffin is off the hook, but Nancy still has to figure out who is following him and why.

Griffin is going to be in a Christmas parade that  night so the men who are after him decide they’ll shoot him, Nancy, and Carson to get them all out of the way in case Griffin told Nancy and Carson what they saw.

Before the parade, Griffin overhears Nancy tell Carson that there was a doll she saw in a store in Amsterdam that she wishes she could have purchased as a child. This will come into play later.

Flashing forward a bit, because this recap is getting way too long, we get to the parade and the snipers are ready to shoot Griffin, but he does some voodoo magic where he can see them through his mind and as Carson and Nancy are talking, Griffin disappears.

The men don’t know where he’s gone, but they shoot at Carson and Nancy anyhow and somehow completely miss them.

The police look for where the shots came from and run to the roof and find the two men unconscious, with their guns beside them, and handcuffed together.

Everyone is bewildered until Nancy sees hoofprints and sleigh marks in the snow. It’s at this point that Pamela Sue Martin lets out the weirdest giggle and smile, which makes me wonder if she was on something at the time of filming. I guess it was supposed to show how excited she was at the idea of Griffin being the real Santa, but it flat out scared me.

At the end of the episode, everyone is opening gifts, even Ned who should have gone home by now. There is one gift that no one saw before. It’s addressed to Nancy, from Griffin and inside is the doll she’d always wanted from Amsterdam. The doll, by the way, is some really small, weird looking doll in underwear. It is not what I expected at all.

Pamela does the weird smile again — and again I am frightened. She looks somewhat deranged. I’m sorry! But she does!

Also, she was sporting some really long, crazy nails for this one. I couldn’t figure out how she could get anything done with them!

Up next I’ll be recapping Pamela’s last episode where she has some more weird expressions but not as creepy as her smiles in the Christmas episode.

The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries Mystery of the Hollywood Phantom (Episode 2) Recap

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 6 Comments

This is part two of The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Hollywood Phantom. If you want to read the first part of my recap of this two-parter, you can find it here:

When we left off from part one, Joe had been snatched from outside a building he was snooping around, looking for his father and the other detectives who had been kidnapped from the conference. Frank was stopped by the security guard he and Nancy had a run-in with right after Weatherly disappeared. Nancy was on her way to the hotel to “get help” (cue the funny scene from Thor Ragnarok in my head.).

The security guards escort Frank to the head of security, and Frank takes them to the set.

Nancy has run back to the hotel and finds Fox talking with a police officer. She tries to tell them what happened, but the police officer rolls his eyes for a bit before agreeing to go with her to look at the photograph.

You know what’s going to happen, right?

The photograph is gone when everyone gets there — Frank with security and Nancy with the police. It’s been switched to a normal photograph. Dun-dun-dun. I don’t know why they didn’t just take the framed picture with them.

So now no one believes Frank and Nancy even though Joe hasn’t come back yet either.

Back at the hotel, Frank is pacing, worried about his dad because there was blood on the ring that was sent to the hotel.

“That means they ripped it off him,” he tells Fox.

Fox assures him that his dad will be fine, saying he’s known him since he was a lieutenant with the NYPD (huh…I haven’t read enough Hardy Boys to know this yet).

We switch to Joe tied up somewhere and trying to get loose and then back to Frank saying he’s going to look for his brother.

Nancy, who by the way has been without a sidekick this whole time, which is weird for her, says she’s going with him, Frank says she needs to stay behind.

Nancy goes to talk to the police and Jason Fox and they tell her to keep her nose out of things.

The manager of the hotel is also upset at her because she suggests that someone from the staff could be involved in the kidnapping and the ransom note.

She goes back to Studio 24 to look for Frank and Joe and this time she sees a photo on the floor and when she stoops to get it a man in a mask begins to chase her. This is the creepy masked man we’ve been seeing throughout the two episodes.

She hides behind a set, and the man runs by, and I thought she was safe but nope, he finds her and she climbs a scaffolding, which was so stressful for me to watch.

She escapes, though and finds an exit on the roof. Girl is running in her heels this whole time too.

Then she manages to balance across a wall and jump to another building (in heels!) and run inside and down a flight of stairs and out into the street, where she runs into Casey Kasem again. Whew.

He asks her if she’s okay and she says the sound stages are just scary at night. Why can’t she just tell people the truth? “A man was chasing me! Holy crud! It was scary!”

They chat a few minutes and he says something about leaving the country for an acting job. Nancy is like, “yeah, that’s nice. Okay…gotta go…” and starts running back to the hotel.

Next, we flip to Frank who is still wandering around looking for Joe. While wandering he stumbes onto the Charlie’s Angels set where Cheryl Ladd is being told she’s going to have to kiss the extra as soon as he comes around the corner. Ladd is up for it, but hasn’t met the extra yet.

Of course, Frank walks around the corner instead of the extra and bam…he’s suddenly making out with Cheryl Ladd.

He’s distracted though so he pulls away when the director yells “cut” and says, “Any other time I would discuss spending my life with you because that was nice but right now, I’m in a hurry. Thanks.”

I can’t help admiring Frank’s bellbottoms as he walks and as someone pulls up behind him in a car and starts chasing him. Frank is running well but hits a dead end. He’s sweating and his hair is all 70s wavy and now I get why the girls back then wanted to watch the show.

Anyhow, it’s the security guard and he tells Frank he’s taking him back to the main gate. Again.

Next, we see Joe waking all the way up and looking around him. He manages to scoot and roll to the door and open it with his feet.

Scene switch again — Nancy is grilled by the police and Fox who say she needs to tell them where she’s going  from now on. (There are so many scene switches in this one and they are like three minutes apart.).

Back to Frank who is climbing walls back into the sound stages to find his brother, who is rolling out of his prison area and trying to find a way to get the ropes off his hands while we see the guy in the mask driving toward him.

Joe manages to get himself untied and hides under a wagon and sees the security guard and the masked man get out of the car and go look for him.

He runs to the car and climbs in the trunk but leaves the license plate number scrawled on the wagon for Frank.

Nancy is with the police officer looking in a microscope at the negative she retrieved from the sound stage and says she sees makeup on it and a fingerprint.

“Your forensics guy should be able to pick that up,” she says (sort of arrogantly).

So the guy is taking orders from a very young woman now? I have no idea how old they are supposed to be in these shows but they don’t go to school so I would guess early 20s.

The police say Frank is back at the hotel now after being picked up so Nancy goes back to the hotel.

After we see Joe sneaking around and finding his dad and the other men, right before he’s knocked out yet again, we switch to Nancy looking out a window and someone sneaking up behind her.

Is it the bad guy? Has he found her?

No. It’s Frank and he scolds her for leaving her hotel room door open.

“It could have been anyone!” he says.

“I can take care of myself,” she says with a whispered tone.

“You’re not doing a very good job of it,” he responds, somewhat breathlessly, standing close to her and I think… Oh my gosh, they’re going to kiss!

But the scene cuts away and suddenly (whiplash!!) Nancy marches into the room where the police officer and Fox are and thrusts a piece of paper in the officer’s hands. She says the kidnapper only wants her to come, no police, with the ransom money.

The officer says he won’t let her do it and she says he will because the kidnapper will know if he switches to someone else.

Not only that, but Frank says he’s going to go too.

The officer says he will not be going and Frank snaps, “I’ll go whether you allow it or not. It’s my brother and dad you’re rescuing.”

Honestly, these kids are hindering an investigation and should be thrown in jail, but the cop just sighs and says, “Fiiiiine.” Or something like that and they start to concoct a plan to set up the exchange.

Everyone heads out soon after that and there is a zoom in on the hotel manager’s face so now we have to wonder if he is involved.

Nancy and Fox get on a tour bus with the briefcase of money and head off to meet up with the person for the exchange.

Scene switch and Joe in the jail cell with his dad and the others.

Suddenly he remembers a nail file in his sock. Yes….Joe has a nail file in his sock and begins to pick the lock. How very convenient.

Another scene switch and Nancy and Fox are going through a tunnel on the tour and then a warehouse. Suddenly the doors close in the warehouse and the woman leading the tour gets nervous. The masked man grabs Nancy and pulls her down and when Fox turns to say something to her, she’s gone.

Nancy is being put in an elevator by the fake security guard and the masked man.  They check the money in the briefcase they stole, and then smuggle her out into a car and make her lay on the floor. Meanwhile, Joe has broke out and comes out the door and sees the men leaving with Nancy.

He finds his way to security to tell them Nancy has been grabbed and suddenly a police chase ensues. I don’t know how Joe got to security so fast so they could tell the police officer, but he did I guess and Frank and the officer take off after the car. The only problem is that the water is drained from the fake lake enough for the bad guys to drive the car over but the masked man pushes a button and the water fills in again so they can get away.

In the end, they won’t get away, though, because they come around down a street where shooting for a show is going on and can’t turn anywhere, which means the police corner the car. The masked man jumps out, pulling Nancy with him, and Frank leaps from the car and then leaps over the hood of another car and tackles the masked man. He flips the guy over and rips his mask off and it’s — oh my gosh! Casey Kasem!!!

He’s the kidnapper?!! Well, there’s some American Top 40 for you.

But Casey isn’t down yet. He flings his arm back and knocks Frank back off him and tries to take off. Sadly, he takes off right into the fist of Robert Wagner, who knocks Casey flat on his back.

Robert cockily says he’s always glad to help, “especially when there’s a beautiful girl in distress” while watching Nancy.

Nancy runs up to him, all mooney-eyed and says, “How can I ever repay you?”

Robert smirks and says, “We’ll think of something.”

Gag. He’s old enough to be her father. He always was a dirty old man. *wink* (I really have no idea…I’m just messing around. I won’t mention *cough* Natalie *cough* Wood *cough* here.)

“I don’t believe it,” Frank cries.  “I did all that and she hugs him.”

“You’re not a movie star kid,” the cops says.

But he does have good news for Frank. His dad and brother have been found and are safe.

Joe Fox is happy with the outcome when the kids go to visit him at his hotel room the next day, but they say it’s not all good news because Casey (Paul Hamilton) wasn’t the only one involved. Yes, the security guard was but so was…yes! Joe Fox!

“You engineered this whole plot,” Frank says. “Hamilton wasn’t smart enough to do it on his own.”

Joe and Nancy lay out their case with Frank, pointing out how Hamilton and the guard were always one step ahead of them. Someone must have been on the inside, they say.

“What motive could I even have?” Fox says with a smirk.

Nancy tells him they’re sure if they look things up they will find out that he is flat broke.

“That’s why you were insisting real (cash) ransom money,” she says.

Frank says they have one piece of evidence. It’s Bronson’s medallion which showed Fox’s fingerprints on the bottom of the medallion, showing he’d ripped it off his neck during the kidnapping.

Fox smirks again, can’t say anything to refute them so tries to leave the room. Unfortunately for him, the police are waiting for him at the doorway. He congratulates the kids on their sleuthing.

“You are three of the most remarkable detectives I’ve ever worked with,” he says.

He’s taken away by the police with another smirk.

At the end, Fenton is discussing what happened with the boys and then Frank decides he is going sightseeing.

Nancy marches up and demands to know where he’s going.

“I’m going sightseeing. There’s more to LA than just this hotel. Is that alright?”

“No, it isn’t,” Nancy says sharply. “You didn’t ask me.”

“I didn’t know I had to clear it with you first,” Frank snaps.

“No, you didn’t ask me to go with you,” Nancy says.

Frank laughs and smiles and asks if she’d like to join him.

“What I’d like to do is thank you,” she says with her tone softening.

“For what?” Frank asks and now we are getting the profile view of them.

“For saving my life,” Nancy says tenderly.

Oh. My. Gosh. Are they going to kiss??!!! Are they????

Yes. Yes, they are because Nancy gives him a very tender kiss on the mouth.

Swoooon.

Joe steps behind them and asks where they are off to, essentially making him the third wheel.

End episode. Sadly, we are never to see Nancy and Frank shipped together because soon the show’s name will changed to Hardy Boys and, alas, there will no longer be a Nancy included.

That’s the end of this recap.

I haven’t decided which episode I will recap next because I watched one where the Hardy Boys went to Egypt and … wince …. It was pretty horrible.

If you want to read my other recaps you can find them here:

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula Part 1 and 2 Recap

/ Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

Here I am with another recap of an episode from The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries show from 1977.

As I’ve mentioned before, in the first season of this series, the episodes switched back and forth from Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew episodes and in the next season, which is the season I am in now, they started to join together. Eventually, they began to phase out the Nancy episodes and focus more on The Hardy Boys. A new actress also stared as Nancy part way through season two when Pamela Sue Martin became disenchanted with the lack of parts that were being written for her character.

This time around, I am tackling The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula. This was a two-part episode with both Nancy and the Hardy Boys, so it was essentially a movie.

I don’t know why it took me so long to get back to rewatching and then writing about these two episodes. I know that most of my blog readers do not read these recaps, which really makes the fact that I still write them a bit sad, (haha!) but I can’t seem to stop writing them. Writing them is a funny and light distraction from the tougher parts of life so I shall keep writing them.

I was watching the first episode of this two-parter last week to get ready for this blog post, when I saw that one of the podcasters I listen to had also watched these episodes and was sharing her own view of them on her most recent  I thought that was neat timing. Yes, I wrote the word neat. Yes, I am old.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula was the start of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries  second season. The two-part character crossover aired on September 11, 1977, and was the first (but not the last) time the sleuths teamed up on the show.

Our story starts in Transylvania with Fenton Hardy, the dad of Frank and Joe. He’s being driven up to the entrance of a very creepy castle at night. Why at night? Who knows…maybe the taxi driver wouldn’t take him up during the day. Either way, he arrives at night. On the way up a very rocky, out of shape road, the taxi driver complains about some American rock singer coming to the castle to perform.

When they arrive at the castle, Fenton gets out and starts to walk up to the front with a flashlight. The man tells him not to go in, but when Fenton mocks him, asking if he believes in the living dead and Dracula, he says it’s just an old building and he doesn’t think he should go in. Fenton asks the driver to wait, but the driver says he will drive to the bottom of the hill and wait for him. Fenton rolls his eyes and heads inside.

Inside Fenton is sneaking around, clearly looking for something, and being followed by someone wearing boots and who has a very white hand with ruffled sleeves and a ruby ring.

Eventually Fenton almost falls into a hole with human bones and drops his flashlight. This leads him to pick up a torch on the wall and light it with the lighter he apparently carries around with him.

He is making his way down a flight of stairs when he is hit on the back of the head by someone and falls down the stairs.

(Avery from the True Drew Podcast said she always hates to see the dad figure in a show get hurt because it makes her think of her own dad and I have to agree. I didn’t like the way Fenton Hardy fell or the way his head bounced on the way down.)

Next, we switch to Paris with Frank and Joe. It is June 9th we are told. We find out that Fenton has now been missing for two weeks.

“We’ve got to follow every lead, no matter how thin,” Frank tells Joe.

“You’ll forgive me if I pray this one doesn’t work out,” Joe says.

The next thing we see is a door to the morgue. The boys are both dressed in suits and a man is telling them a body was pulled up from the river.  Thankfully, the body is not that of Fenton’s.

The boys are relieved and head back to the hotel where their dad was staying to see if they can find out anything else about where he is.

They see a band performing across the street and that will come into play later.

When they go back to the hotel room, they hear someone searching their father’s room. They break in and find an older man with a very thick Romanian accent who asks them who they are and why they are in the room.

“Isn’t that our line?” Frank asks.

“Only if this is your room,” the man responds.

“It’s our father’s room,” Joe says.

The man double checks who their father is and then introduces himself as Inspector Hans Stavlin (portrayed by Lorne Greene – a well-known actor from the original Battlestar Galactica, Bonanza, and many other shows).

He says he is with the Romanian police and Frank says he’s a long way from home.

The inspector is looking for their father too and tells them he will fill them in on what he knows. After the “commercial break” we are at a small café and Stavlin is telling the boys that their father was working on a case with Interpol of “international importance.”

“A series of spectacular thefts of paintings which emptied the museums in Europe,” Stavlin says. “I believe you father was on the verge of a breakthrough when he disappeared.”

He says he received a phone call from their father saying he had a lead in Paris and then the phone went dead.

The boys want to know why Fenton would call him and Stavlin says their father was the liaison between all the police departments in Europe. (Ummm..ooookaaay. If he says so.)

Stavlin encourages the boys to go back home and wait for news on their father.

They aren’t very interested in that but ask him how they should reach him if their father does reach out. He says he is going home to a small town in the provinence of Transylvania and they can reach him there or through Interpol.

The boys discuss the fact he just said Transylvania and say they weren’t even aware it was a real place. They go back to their dad’s hotel room and look where he normally hides things — under the dresser drawer. There they find his notebook and a list of dates and locations. Each one corresponds with the robbery dates.

“Meet at Ritz Hotel, Munich, 5 o’clock,” Frank reads in the his dad’s planner. “Book for 301 in the name of Fredericks.”

They also see a note about the town Punare and a “Dracula Festival.” It’s the same town Stavlin just said he was from.

The boys decide they need a cover to get into the festival and offer money to a band they see performing outside to travel with them across Europe.

The band agrees, saying they’re going to the Dracula Festival to perform with American Rockstar Alison Troy, who in real life is singer Paul Williams. Nope, never heard of him either.

The group hops in a little 70s-style van, first to Munich to meet whoever their dad was meeting at the hotel and then on to Transylvania for the festival. As they travel we listen to them singing Ob-la-de-obla-da by The Beatles and as the scenery flies by them I had to laugh a bit and wonder if that is the only song they sang the entire drive.

Anyhow, they arrive at the hotel on June 10 and I thought this was probably impossible but a quick search online revealed that they could have driven from Paris to Munich in that time frame.

They check in at the hotel and get another room for their band friends.

So here is where things get weird with the people at the hotel. The bellman is repeatedly calling the man at the front desk “capitan” and then saying “Ooops.” He also gives him the Nazi salute more than once. I am truly not sure what this was all alluding to — other than these are former Nazis who have escaped being punished? I have no idea.

It’s just weird.

 The boys get to their room but still have two hours before the person who was supposed to meet their dad is due to show up so they head downstairs to get some lunch.

While they are gone in enters Nancy Drew looking stylish as all get out with a long white cape, matching calf length skirt, knee high black boots, and stunning reddish-brown hair.

She turns a lot of heads as she confidently marches to the front desk and asks to be taken to room 301.

The man at the front desk lets her know the other five have arrived. She’s taken aback. “There are five people in room 301?”

He tells her there are only two and three are on the second floor.

She is, of course, bewildered and even more so when the man points out that she forgot to mention a rock-n-roll group would be arriving with them.

Nancy acts like this is all normal and requests a bellman to be sent up with  her. She then turns and calls out, “Bess.”

Aha. So now we get George’s cousin Bess Marvin.

In the books, George and Bess are a package and help Nancy solve her crimes. George is a bit of a tomboy and more bold and Bess is plump and more timid.

In the first season of this series, they didn’t show us Bess and  George took on more of Bess’s character of being afraid of everything and a more cautious confidant to Nancy — warning her to be careful or suggesting she avoid going here or there.

We didn’t see Bess at all.

I’m not sure if this means we will be getting Bess this season or not.

I will say that I know we will be getting a different Nancy later in this season when Pamela Sue Martin chooses to leave because she felt the Hardy Boys were getting more airtime — and they pretty much were because Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy were teen heartthrobs at the time.

 Back to the show, though. Nancy is taken to the room and instructs the bellboy (who is actually an old man) to take the Hardy Boys bags away. She says she’s pretty sure the hotel has been pranked by the rock band who is trying to get a free room.

She tells Bess that she was to meet a man with the last name Fredericks, who is really Fenton Hardy, at 5 p.m. and that Fenton Hardy is clearly not a rock band. She was to meet Fenton because her dad sent her since she was already on vacation in France and Fenton needed help with his investigation.

Down in the restaurant, the boys are trying to get some food when Frank sees their luggage being carried to the lobby. He takes off while Joe (always the hungry one) is trying to order.

Frank tells the bellman to take his luggage back upstairs. When he and Frank reach the room they find Nancy and Bess’s luggage and Frank tells the man to remove their luggage.

He does and then we switch back to the restaurant where Joe is still trying to order. He finally gets a hold of the waiter but Nancy swoops in with Bess and tells the waiter they need to get food and fast.

Joe stares at Nancy in bewilderment all while Frank comes back down in a huff. Nancy and Bess then see their luggage being carried down by the overworked bellman. Nancy rushes off to stop him and orders him to take them back up. Back in the restaurant Frank declares there is no time to eat because they have to meet with whoever their dad was meeting with. He snatches the menu from Joe and off they go. Nancy tells Bess she’s going to meet with Fenton Hardy in the room.

The three meet in the elevator but don’t know who each other is until they end up walking to the same room.

An argument ensues and Nancy threatens to flip Frank on his back if he tries to move her bags. He puts his hand on her luggage and she flips him onto his back.

The boys are bewildered by her aggressive behavior but want her out of their room.

After some back and forth, and showing of passports, the trio finally get to the truth about why they are both there.

Calming down some (Pamela certainly played Nancy highstrung, but….well…she was that way in the books too), Nancy explains what information she has about the case and the boys tell her that their dad is missing.

She tells them she was attending a summer extension course with her friend when a friend of her fathers was also in Paris to pick up a rare painting he had purchased to donate to a museum back home. The painting was stolen so the client called Carson Drew (Nancy’s dad) to ask for help. Carson learned that this was one of many paintings that had been stolen for the past six months.

Nancy explains she does investigative work for her father and came up with some pieces to the puzzle that Fenton was interested in.

She was going to meet and compare notes with Fenton. Now the boys show her Fenton’s notes. She says the dates in Fenton’s books coincide with concerts held by Allison Troy.

The boys scoff at this. Allison Troy has tons of money. Why would he want to steal paintings?

Nancy says that the paintings were always stolen during an Allison Troy concert so the theory was that maybe it was someone from his entourage.

Nancy tells them that once she solves the case they’ll be able to find Fenton. This gets their back up and they say she’s threatening their dad’s case. Nancy doesn’t like to be challenged, so when they tell her they are sneaking into Transylvania and Allison Troy’s concert with a rock band and will report back to her what they find, she tells them she’s headed there on her own to do a thorough, well-thought-out investigation like her dad taught her to do.

She flounces off with a confused Bess in tow.

“What was all that about?” Bess asks as they reach the exit to the hotel.

“Amateur hour,” Nancy says. “Come on we have an appointment.”

“With who?” Bess asks.

“Dracula,” Nancy responds as creepy music and a wolf howl plays out the scene.

Next we see the boys pulling up to the castle in their van but they decided to head back to the little town because they are a day early and the castle is creepy.

The next scene we see is Stavlin telling the town council that the rock concert shouldn’t be held. The kids coming in will trash the town, he claims. Frank and Joe overhear him and then approach him and he smiles, though he looks a little uncomfortable with their appearance.

The concert will be filmed by an American television station (we see later it is ABC, which is where the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries aired, the mayor of the little town tells them. Allison Troy has leased the castle for a week and during that time the town does hold a festival Scavlin says. It is a tradition he says.

The castle was owned by someone called The Prince of Wallachia or The Beserker or “Count Dracula” because he killed thousands of people in the 1400s.

He was not actually a vampire, but he was a torturer and dictator and horrible man and committed many of his crimes at his castle. He was later killed by the Turks, Scavlin says.

Scavlin says that some say the monks buried his body on an island near there and others say his body was brought back to Transylvania to rest there and then rise again.

Meanwhile, Nancy and Bess have also snuck into the caverns and eventually find Frank locked in the cell.

Greene, by the way, is amazing in this role. I know this show can be cheesy at times but this episode is fairly good because of him. He is downright creepy with his Transylvania accent and makes the viewer wonder what his real story is. What is his connection to the castle? To Dracula? Is there any?

When the boys sign in they see their dad’s code name “Fredericks” in the sign-in log and know he was staying there. They feel the are on the right track to finding him.

The next night we are at the Allison Troy concert, or at least one of a couple that will be held at the festival. The real singer, Paul Williams, is singing some weird song about a man who was “bad in bed and would be better of dead.”

I don’t know what all that was about but the rest of the song talks about how so much of our life is a waste and “that’s the hell of it.”

While he sings, adults dressed as various monsters and creepy creatures are dancing while ABC cameras film it all.

Joe and Frank arrive with their band and eventually talk to Allison who is pretty arrogant. There are a few things he wants them to know. First, he wants them to help with music so there is music going on all night and ABC will be  filming them as well but when the final show airs it will be 90 percent him because he’s the star. He also wants them to know they can’t go beyond the main hall of the castle, into the caverns below. The owner said it was one of the rules for the castle being leased.

The boys immediately know that they are going into those caverns to search for their dad, though.

Eventually, Joe will stay with the band to sing (what’s a Hardy Boys episode without teen heartthrob Shaun Cassidy singing??), while Frank sneaks off to find out what is in the basement of this castle. The mayor and other council members have already set off to find out what is downstairs. This is when the taxi driver/castle caretaker from before reappears and gives them a tour. Problems arise when he accidentally leads them to a closed door with the coat of arms of Dracula on it. He tells them they must get away fast and they mayor chuckles. When they leave we see the door open and the leather boots we’ve seen before step out.

Before long, though, the council members realize they’ve lost one of their party.

Frank, wandering around on his own, stumbles onto the lost member unconscious in a cell. When he goes to check on him, someone closes the cell door and locks him in.

My daughter (who I call Little Miss on here) watched this scene, including when Frank tried frantically to open the door to the cell. She said, “Bro didn’t even try to act. He was like ‘how do I make this look realistic’ I know let’s hold the door and then violently shake my head instead the rest of my body.”

She cracks me up.

Meanwhile, Nancy and Bess have also snuck into the caverns and eventually find Frank locked in the cell. Frank tells Bess to go upstairs and get help and Nancy works to pick the lock. Frank is impressed with her work. Then they both inspect the man and find out that he has –dun-dun-dun….a bite mark that looks like fangs on this neck!

Episode one ends with the words ‘to be continued.’ I am going to plow ahead with part two in this same post, though, because my daughter said she hates when you have to go somewhere else for the second part of a story and advised that I recap both parts in the same post. Yes, I take advise from a 11-year-old. You’re point?!

I’m “stealing” this next section from Avery, the host of the True Drew Podcast. I like when she shares in her episodes what she liked or didn’t like about the book or episode she is talking about.

What I liked about episode one :

I enjoyed the verbal sparring between Nancy and Frank and Joe. I loved Nancy’s outfit. I thought the dancing in the castle was fun and quintessential 1970s. I enjoyed the music even though it was a bit cheesy.

What I didn’t like:

I wasn’t a huge fan of the weird “Nazi-like” behavior of the characters in the hotel.  I’m not sure I like that they have gotten rid of George and replaced her with Bess, instead of leaving them as a team like they were in the books. Otherwise, I didn’t have a ton of dislikes in this one.

Part 2

We start right where we left off on part one. Scavlin and others arrive after Bess called them. Frank shows them all the bite marks and Scavlin orders an ambulance because the man is not dead, only unconscious.

At this point, Nancy says she and Frank and Joe should start working together and Frank agrees.

Upstairs, the teen heartthrob is singing his heart out and shaking his hips while all the ghosts and ghouls dance away on the dance floor.

When Nancy gets the two together, she lets them know she has some news for them. She’s found their father and he’s at a monastery. The monks found him and called for a doctor. The doctor advised them not to move Fenton, but said he was in stable condition and would recover.

Nancy drives them to the monastery and a touching scene unfolds as the boys look down at their unconscious father in a small, plain bed with a monk standing next to them.

The monk, Frank, and Nancy leave and Joe has a tender moment with his father, telling the sleeping man to hold on.

“We need you dad.”

They do too because in this iteration of the series, their mom is dead. In the books, however, their mom is still alive.

Before the boys leave the monk tells them the only thing their father has said since he’s been there has been the word “caverns.”

This makes the boys think they need to inspect the caverns more thoroughly, but when they go back there isn’t much to see, other than a door marked Dracula. They’re still leaning toward Allison Troy, the singer, somehow being involved with the thefts of the paintings, but their tired and go back to the hotel.

The figure with the boots, ruffled sleaves, and ruby ring is following them this whole time as well.

The next day Nancy, Bess, Frank, and Joe walk the streets as the townspeople put garlic up outside their homes and business, sure that Dracula is coming back.

That night at the next concert performance of the festival they split up and inspect Troy’s room and car.

Nancy and Frank go to his room and while there a bit of flirting unfolds as Nancy excitedly discovers a lock picking kit.

“Do you always get like this when you’re excited?” Frank asks her.

“When I get excited, you’ll know about it,” she responds.

“I’m looking forward to that,” Frank tells her with a grin.

To speed things up a bit I’ll list what happens next:

There is more dancing with Allison Troy (Williams) singing;

The people of the town grab pitchforks and march to the castle to demand the concert be stopped because it is a descretation of Dracula’s resting place and he will come back for revenge for that desicration;

Scavlin tells them all to go home and he, as the inspector of the town, will keep them safe (even though he was against the concert in the beginning);

Scavlin tells them that there is no vanmpire and that there have been accidents but no deaths;

Finally the town people leave;

Nancy and Frank ask the mayor if they can meet with him and he agrees but brings Scavlin because they were already talking;

The mayor says his home is part of an old jail and it could protect him but he’s not afraid of anyone hurting him;

The four talk and then Nancy, Frank, and Scavlin leave and urge the mayor to lock his doors. The mayor laughs but after they leave he does lock his doors.

Later the mayor is found unconscious in his locked office and, yes, he also has the bite marks. When he is hospitalized, Scavlin temporarily takes over as mayor.

Mixed in the middle of all this will be an incident where a bat suddenly shows up in Nancy’s locked room, terrifying her and causing her to scream for help. Frank comes to her rescue (much to the joy of those of us who would like the two to get into a relationship) and she falls into his arms before remembering she’s tough-girl Nancy Drew and pulls away.

Skipping ahead some, we will eventually see Scavlin arresting Allison Troy fr the thefts. He says he has found the lock picking kit in the hotel room and plans of the museums where paintings were stolen from in Allison Troy’s car.

Joe says that’s ridiculous because he and Bess looked in Troy’s car and didn’t see any plans, so the plans have to have been planted.

Reluctantly, Scavlin agrees and then suggests that maybe there are supernatural things unfolding in the community. He releases Troy and the foursome return to their hotel, with Joe and Frank dropping the girls off at where they are staying first. While sitting outside in the boy’s van, with Nancy and Frank in the front, and Joe and Bess in the back, an awkward and giggle-inducing scene evolves as Frank and Nancy say, “well” a few times to each other and Joe comments on how articulate his brother is.

He then announces that he knows how to say goodnight properly to a lady and leans over and kisses Bess.

Nancy and Frank never get further than a couple more utterances of “well, well…” before the scene ends and we fans are denied our Nancy and Frank kiss.

The boys head back to the castle and while there go right to that door with Dracula’s coat of arms on it. They enter the room and find a fully furnished room, a lit fire, and a coffin, but also a pile of stolen paintings.

Just as Frank is about to open the coffin, Scavlin walks in behind them and says in a very creepy, Dracula-like voice, “You should not have come here.”

Ah-ha! Scavlin! He’s the guilty party. He’s been following Allison Troy on his tour and stealing paintings to get  himself some money since he was being forced out as the inspector. He was using the castle so he could play Dracula and scare everyone away from it since that was where he was storing the paintings.

Stavlin was making marks on people’s necks and tried to remove Fenton Hardy from the equation so he couldn’t find out about the stash. He didn’t want anyone to die, but he did want them frightened enough to stay away from the castle.

That’s why when the people from town wanted to burn the castle down, he had to stop them.

Stavling says the boys are correct in their assumption and now they have to go too. That’s when he opens a trap door in the floor. The boys move aside and it is Stavlin who starts to fall when he’s startled by the mayor, Fenton, and Nancy and Bess rushing in to confront him.

It turns out that Nancy came up with the same theory as the boys and ran to get the police and mayor (and I guess Fenton too?) to go to the castle to see if they found Stavlin there.

The police officer has handcuffed Stavlin to him but Stavlin wants to get his hat from the wardrobe before he leaves and when he opens the door — are you ready for this?

Joe notices that he can’t see Stavlin’s reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe door.

No kidding.

Joe begins to stammer, overwhelmed by what he is seeing.

“F-f-rank…”

Frank ignores him and Stavlin makes some comment about not being in jail long.

He disappears down the hallway with the officer and they all watch him go while Joe continues to stammer. They walk down the hallway after them and the door with the Dracula coat of arms closes slowly.

Cue scene and episode.

What I liked about episode two:

There was a lot to like about this one. Nancy and Frank flirting. Joe and Bess’s kiss. Lorne Greene’s great acting as “Stavlin/Dracula.”

There was a couple of fun songs too.

What I disliked:

 They listed Pamela Sue Martin as a guest star when she was supposed to be a star of the show. Ummm…..no wonder the woman finally left the show. Otherwise I thought this one was pretty good.

That brings us to the end of this one. Like Avery on True Drew Podcast, I will probably continue to watch season two, even though Pamela Sue Martin leaves part way through and we get a new actress for Nancy. Avery says she thinks it is interesting to see how different actresses portray Nancy and I tend to agree with her.

Yes, Avery has become my Nancy Drew guru, apparently.

So up next for our recap will be The Mystery of King Tut’s Tomb with The Hardy Boys.

If you want to catch up on my other recaps, you can catch them here:

Old TV Show Recaps

A couple of my favorites:

Episode Recap: The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, The Mystery of the Fallen Angel

Hardy Boys Episode Recap: Wipe Out (Did the Hardy Boys just rob the hotel?!)