You may all wonder how this show came to be?
Well it was a very long process and took 2 very long years for the show to get approval and to see the light of day. The novels have sold well over the years since 1927, created by Edward Stratemeyer.
He just had begun Nancy Drew when Edward died in 1930 and Nancy Axelrod was one of the partners for Edward's book company Stratemeyer Syndicate who made the books keep running and the Nancy Drew books for a while were written by Edward's daughter Harriett Adams were the biggest sellers.

The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew are all young amatuer detectives helping their father's solve missing cases even if it involves murders.

There was also a a few films in the late 30's made on Nancy Drew starring Bonita Granville and during the 1950's Disney's Mickey Mouse Club made two epsiodes of the Hardy Boys based off of the storybooks "The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure" and "The Mystery of Ghost Farm" but the characters Joe and Frank Hardy were only pre-teens in the show which was not at all like in the story books as instead of them driving on thier motorbikes or in their van they were riding their bicycles when they travelled to find an unsolved mystery.
Then in 1966 there was a failed pilot TV show of the Hardy Boys off of the story book "Mystery of the Chinese Junk".
In 1969 however a musical animated TV series of the Hardy Boys aired on Saturday mornings till 1971 by Filmation and the show ran in the same vein as Josie and the Pussycats, Scooby Doo and Archie as they were a bubblegum rock band as a front to investigate unsolved mysteries and the music was a reminicent of early tunes by the Monkees. Unfortunately none of these shows drew in much publicity.
However, Joyce Brotman and Arlene Sidaris were trying to make a TV series of both shows since the same kinds of readers read both too and were too stubborn to give up on the project and both believed that the show could turn into a successful TV series but they discovered something: Believing is one thing; convincing is something else.
They had worked in television for many years first starting as an assitant producer to associate producer for mainly TV specials and learning how to put shows together.

Joyce and Arlene both met one day and discussed their careers and in November of 1974 they decided to become producers and decided to do a Hardy Boys/Nancy Srew TV series. and both of them have grown up reading the books.
They went to a lawyer to see how they can get the TV rights to the books. The lawyer checked a lawyer from Stratemeyer Syndicate and Nancy Drew rights were not not available at the time but the Hardy Boys was which meant they were paid a certain amount of money to develop the Hardy Boys into a TV series and to sell it to a studio or network.

Edward Stratemeyer's daughter and her partners back in New Jersey were keeping a close eye on what was going on.
They made it clear that they would rather skip TV than have their books spoiled in any way.
They sold them the option because the whole idea was to maintain the wholesomeness of the characters and not to hold them up to ridicule or make hippies out of them and to maintain the flavor of the books.
Plus, they wanted to create a TV series and that would be fun and that would appeal to all ages of viewers who wanted adventure, humor and mystery.
Both women bought the option on February 1, 1975 and they were wondering if it would ever go off the ground and into the houses of many people's TV sets.
They wrote down what they wanted to do and start sending proposals around to production companies. One time they discussed the idea to a person at Universal City Studios and he liked it and told them he would talk to other people in the company there about the idea and to get back to them.
It took forever and Arlene called him once a week to see what was up and he assured her everything is good and will get back to her. He finally did get back to them in October and Joyce was in Las Vegas doing a TV special there.
Arlene called her there and told her the good news when Joyce was editing the special.
Months passed before the project really got off the ground. Deals to be worked out and contracts to be signed. It was a triangle of sorts, involving the two young women, Universal and Stratemeyer Syndicate but they managed to start working on The Hardy Boys.
About that time, the TV option ran out on the Nancy Drew books. The people who had the option were unable to sell the series and Universal had acquired that option too and asked Arlene and Joyce to work on that show too and to combine them both in some way.
They met up with Glen A. Larson from Universal Studios who did work on successful TV shows like The Fugitive, McCloud, The Virginian, It Take a Thief and Quincy as he helped put the show together.
There were writers coming in to write episodes to make them similar to the books as well as auditions for the characters and Joyce and Arlene interviewed millions of kids for the parts and narrowed the list down to those who wanted to screen test.

David Cassidy from the hit musical sitcom TV series "The Partridge Family" was asked by his agent at the time Ruth Aarons to audition for the show but he didn't want to rush into a TV show at the time but however his younger half-brother Shaun was starting to get into the business but his career was mainly in music as he was making records in Germany in 1976 and touring there and being on TV shows for his songs.
He did have a bit of acting experience when he sometimes did summer stock musical stage tours with his mother Shirley Jones and had chorus roles in them eventually playing a lead as James Preston in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and then in 1976 he played the lead role in a short film for the National Film Board known as Born of Water and was the first one on the set of screen tests for the part of Joe Hardy and then later won the part of playing that character in this series but at the time wasn't sure if he wanted to pursue an acting career as he still wanted to concentrate on his music but considered it a side project for him.

They found Parker Stevenson who played the role of Frank Hardy but it took them a little longer to find him and he has acted in TV commercials in the beginning as well as guesting in a couple of TV shows like The Streets of San Francisco and acting in a couple of films too like Our Time and Lifeguard.
He was planning to be an architect if his acting career didn't take off after he worked in those shows.

Plus, they found Pamela Sue Martin who played Nancy Drew as she was another person that took them a little longer to find and she has worked in films beforehand like The Poseiden Adventure, Buster and Billie and Our Time (With Parker) but beforehand she was modelling in New York for print ads and TV commercials.

Like the books they had some of the same characters like the Hardy's father Fenton of course (Played by animated voice-over actor Edmund Gilbert), their Aunt Gertrude (Edith Atwater) and Fenton's office assistant Callie Shaw (Lisa Eilbacher) but some of the regualrs from the novels like Iola, Chet (Who only guested in a couple of episodes played by Gary Springer) and the boys' mother Mrs. Hardy (Whom was dead in the series) didn't stay as regulars or appear at all in the series as you can't have too many characters in a TV show like you can in a book.
Nancy's regulars from the books were also regulars in the series too like her father Crason (Movie and TV legend William Schallert) Bess Marvin (Jean Rasey) and Ned Nickerson (George O Hanlon Jr.).
But however, these semi-regular's were only shown in the first season of the show except for Fenton and Carson.

It was alot of hours of shooting the shows and very little sleep for anyone. ABC-TV had decided to put the series in a mid-season replacement starting on a January of 1977 and the show wasn't filmed yet so they had to rush to get them done beforehand during that whole month of January to get it from script to screen and the first season was hard to do cause they had no time for any breaks as the books were too long to translate into a one hour show and had to figure out how to make the plots similar to them so there were new stories written for the show.

TV viewers were getting tired of gun fighting and knife fights and the viewers were looking for shows that would fit the whole family so the show became non violent while the young detectives were solving the mysteries on each episode.

The show was called The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries and to some called The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mystery Hour and it first aired on Sunday, January 30, 1977 at 7:00 pm on ABC-TV (an hour before The Six Million Dollar Man) and it was a Hardy Boys episode called "The Mystery of the Haunted House" and then next week it was a Nancy Drew episode known as "The Mystery of Pirates Cove". As you know by now the show alternated as one week it was Hardy Boys and next week it was Nancy Drew.
At the time, cop shows were fading in popularity.

Shaun also had a chance to sing on an episode of The Hardy Boys an an episode called "The Mystery of the Flying Courier" as his character Joe had a local garage band and played at a local disco and every time he sings his brother Frank is pre-occupied with something.
One song that was performed was a cover of a golden oldie called "Da Doo Ron Ron" and later on it was released as a single which rose to number one on the billborad charts at that time and then he released his own self titled solo album which sold millions of copies and Shaun's dream came true as a solo artist in America for the first time because of The Hardy Boys as the show helped him become a successful recording artist and he did weekend concerts while not on set for the TV show.

When season 2 came around for the very first time and even in the books, the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew teamed up together meeting one another and working on the same case. This episode on the opening show of the fall in 1977, a 2 parter called "The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula" as the boys' father Fenton is missing and kidnapped in a castle that people claim is run by a vampire.
Shaun's character Joe got to belt out a couple of songs on the show to make out like he's an entertainer so Frank and Nancy can find some missing clues.
The show also still alternated of them solving mysteries separately but due to the high popularity of The Hardy Boys, more episodes were made than Nancy Drew and eventually more episodes were teamed up by the boys and Nancy and Pamela Sue Martin was disappointed not having a show of her own as it was going to be her character joining forces with the Hardy's for the rest of season two so she dropped out and was temporarily replaced by cult actress Janet Louise Johnson till season two was finished.

Then everyone decided for season three to just have the Hardy Boys as a show by itself and to make the plots more for grown ups as adult detective shows like Charlie's Angels and The Rockford Files were winning alot of audiences plus they added some fighting scenes in some episodes of the show to attract the older viewers and the Hardy's were working undercover for crimes for the Justice Department and it had a different opening that resembled the opening to Charlie's Angels.
This disappointed alot of the fans and the show wasn't the same for them and the series lost alot of it's viewers. To top it all off a writers strike was just happening which limited the amounts of episodes made for that season.
Only 10 episodes were made for season three due to poor ratings and the cause of the strike which only aired for half of that season and the plug was pulled on January 14, 1979 with an episode called "Life On the Line" after some reruns in the summer of that year before the new season the show was history and only seen occasionally on TV in reruns on pay channels like TV Land.