Frank and Joe vs. Bob, Pete, and Jupe

Honestly, I always read more Nancy Drew than anything else. i will say this, the Three Investigators need a better PR agent. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a library that didn’t have at least a shelf of Hardy Boys but I’ve never seen the Three Investigators anywhere but in the bookshelves of my uncles.

Heh heh … the Three Investigators would win by a landslide. Why, when they got older and Bob became a teen heartthrob instead of an awkward geek, they managed to solve Comicon-related crimes (and Jupe got to make time with a hot female superhero!) AND survive a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness!

The Three Investigators were much better than the Hardys, although I agree with the poster upthread; Brains Benton can out-think any of them every day of the week.

There is absolutely nothing which can be added to this post which could make it more correct.

When I was a kid (70s), the local public library didn’t carry the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, because (or so I heard) they weren’t of high enough literary quality (i.e. they were formulaic hackwork). The Three Investigators were available, as a better quality alternative. And I have to agree, they are better quality. The characters actually had personalities (although I read plenty of Hardy Boys, I can’t remember anything differentiating Frank from Joe besides age and hair color), and there were clever plot points and interesting gimmicks (at least in the early books by Robert Arthur).

Joe was supposedly more impulsive, whereas Frank was more cool-headed. Apart from that though, they didn’t have a whole lot of personality.

The Three Investigators rule.

??? FTW

Seriously, is there any contest?

And their HQ was WAY cool!