In the late 1950s, Disney contracted with the Stratemeyer Syndicate and Grosset & Dunlap to produce two Hardy Boys TV serials , starring Tim Considine and Tommy Kirk. The first of the serials, The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure, was aired on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1956 during the show's second season. [1] To appeal to the show's audience, the Hardy Boys were portrayed as younger than in the books, seeming to be twelve or thirteen years old (Considine was 15 and Kirk was 14 during filming). [2] The script, written by Jackson Gillis, was based on the first Hardy Boys book, The Tower Treasure , and the serial was aired in 19 episodes of fifteen minutes each with production costs of $5,700. [3] A second serial, The Mystery of Ghost Farm, followed in 1957, with an original story by Jackson Gillis. [2] This serial shares some elements with "The House on the Cliff", the second Hardy Boys book.
Episode number | Episode title | Air date |
---|---|---|
0 | An Introduction | Oct 1, 1956 |
1 | A Stranger | Oct 2, 1956 |
2 | A Real Case | Oct 3, 1956 |
3 | The First Clue | Oct 4, 1956 |
4 | The Fugitive | Oct 5, 1956 |
5 | Applegate's Gold | Oct 8, 1956 |
6 | Dig for Treasure | Oct 9, 1956 |
7 | A Pirate's Chest | Oct 10, 1956 |
8 | Boys in Trouble | Oct 11, 1956 |
9 | Female Detective | Oct 12, 1956 |
10 | Iola's Bravery | Oct 15, 1956 |
11 | Footsteps in the Tower | Oct 16, 1956 |
12 | The Prisoner Speaks | Oct 17, 1956 |
13 | The Strange Confession | Oct 18, 1956 |
14 | A Golden Clue | Oct 19, 1956 |
15 | The Final Search | Oct 22, 1956 |
16 | The Tower's Secret | Oct 23, 1956 |
17 | Never Say Die | Oct 24, 1956 |
18 | Boys in Danger | Oct 25, 1956 |
19 | The Tower Treasure | Oct 26, 1956 |
Episode number | Episode title | Air date |
---|---|---|
0 | An Introduction | Sept 13, 1957 |
1 | Beginning of the Puzzle | Sept 20, 1957 |
2 | Detective Joe | Sept 27, 1957 |
3 | Who Feeds the Cat? | Oct 4, 1957 |
4 | Two Private Eyes | Oct 11, 1957 |
5 | Man Named Fred | Oct 18, 1957 |
6 | Animals in Danger | Oct 25, 1957 |
7 | Catching a Ghost | Nov 1, 1957 |
8 | The Ghost Speaks | Nov 8, 1957 |
9 | Lacey's Wonderful Will | Nov 15, 1957 |
10 | Detectives in Trouble | Nov 22, 1957 |
11 | The Ghost Confesses | Nov 29, 1957 |
12 | Iola to the Rescue | Dec 6, 1957 |
13 | Panic at the Zoo | Dec 13, 1957 |
14 | Uncle Billy's Secret | Dec 20, 1957 |
The theme song was performed by Thurl Ravenscroft and played over clips from Disney's Treasure Island .
In December 2006, the Disney studio issued a Treasures DVD for The Hardy Boys: Mystery of the Applegate Treasure.
The Stratemeyer Syndicate was a publishing company that produced a number of mystery book series for children, including Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others. They published and contracted the many pseudonymous authors doing the writing of the series from 1899 through 1987, when the syndicate partners sold the company to Simon & Schuster.
The Hardy Boys, brothers Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional characters who appear in several mystery series for children and teens. The series revolves around teenagers who are amateur sleuths, solving cases that 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 Shaggy Dog is a 1959 American fantasy comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and loosely based on the 1923 novel The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten. Directed by Charles Barton from a screenplay by Lillie Hayward and Bill Walsh, the film stars Fred MacMurray, Tommy Kirk, Jean Hagen, Kevin Corcoran, Tim Considine, Roberta Shore, and Annette Funicello. The film follows a teenage boy named Wilby Daniels who, by the power of an enchanted ring of the Borgias, is transformed into a shaggy Old English Sheepdog.
Thomas Lee Kirk was an American actor, best known for his performances in films made by Walt Disney Studios such as Old Yeller, The Shaggy Dog, Swiss Family Robinson, The Absent-Minded Professor, and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, as well as the beach-party films of the mid-1960s. He frequently appeared as a love interest for Annette Funicello or as part of a family with Kevin Corcoran as his younger brother and Fred MacMurray as his father.
William Crozier Walsh was a film producer, screenwriter and comics writer who primarily worked on live-action films for Walt Disney Productions. He was born in New York City. For his work on Mary Poppins, he shared Academy Award nominations for Best Picture with Walt Disney, and for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium with Don DaGradi. He also wrote the Mickey Mouse comic strip for more than two decades.
The Secret of the Caves is Volume 7 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
The Tower Treasure is the first volume in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 55th on Publishers Weekly's All-Time Bestselling Children's Book List for the United States, with 2,209,774 copies sold as of 2001. This book is one of the "Original 10", generally considered by historians and critics of children's literature to be the best examples of all the Hardy Boys, and Stratemeyer Syndicate, writing.
The House On The Cliff is the second book in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 72nd on the Publishers Weekly's All-Time Bestselling Children's Book List in the United States with 1,712,433 copies sold as of 2001. This book is one of the "Original 10" Hardy Boys books and is an excellent example of the writing style used by the Stratemeyer Syndicate's writers. This style influenced many other "youth adventure series" books that the Stratemeyer Syndicate also published, including the Nancy Drew series, the Tom Swift adventure series, the Bobbsey Twins and other lesser known series. All of them used a unique writing style that made them very recognizable as Stratemeyer product.
The Missing Chums is volume 4 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap. The book ranks 108th on Publishers Weekly's All-Time Bestselling Children's Book List for the United States, with 1,189,973 copies sold as of 2001. This book is one of the "Original 10", generally considered to be the best examples of the Hardy Boys, and Stratemeyer Syndicate, writing.
The Great Airport Mystery is Volume 9 in the original The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
The Mysterious Caravan is volume 54 in the original Hardy Boys Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap.
The Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers is a detective fiction series of books published by Aladdin Paperbacks, which replaced The Hardy Boys Digest paperbacks in early 2005. All the books in the series have been written under the pen name of Franklin W. Dixon.
Timothy Daniel Considine was an American actor, writer, photographer, and automotive historian. He was best known for his acting roles in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Spin and Marty is a series of television shorts that aired as part of The Mickey Mouse Club show of the mid-1950s, produced by Walt Disney and broadcast on the ABC network in the United States. There were three serials in all, set at the Triple R Ranch, a boys' western-style summer camp. The first series of 25 eleven-minute episodes, The Adventures of Spin and Marty, was filmed in 1955. Its popularity led to two sequels — The Further Adventures of Spin and Marty in 1956 and The New Adventures of Spin and Marty in 1957.
The Voodoo Plot is the 72nd title of the Hardy Boys Mystery Stories, written by Franklin W. Dixon, and published by Wanderer Books in 1982.
Kevin Anthony "Moochie" Corcoran was an American child actor, director and producer. He appeared in numerous Disney projects between 1957 and 1963, leading him to be honored as a Disney Legend in 2006. His nickname, Moochie, established him as an irrepressible character in film.
Walt Disney Presents: Annette is a television serial that ran on The Mickey Mouse Club during the show's third season (1957–1958). It starred Annette Funicello as Annette McCleod, a poor, orphaned country girl who moves into town with her upper-class Uncle Archie and Aunt Lila. The serial also starred Richard Deacon as Archie McCleod, Sylvia Field as Archie's sister Lila McCleod, Mary Wickes as Katie the housekeeper and prolific Disney child stars Tim Considine, David Stollery and Roberta Shore as Annette's friends. The story was adapted by Lillie Hayward from the book Margaret by Janette Sebring Lowrey.
The sixth wave of Walt Disney Treasures was released on December 19, 2006. It contains four separate DVD sets.
The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure is a 1956 American TV serial that was broadcast in episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club. It was based on The Hardy Boys stories in particular The Tower Treasure.