# Nancy Drew (and Hardy Boys): Kids today.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 19, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326 "2009-06-19T19:37:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/41 "2009-06-20T21:15:26Z")
I certainly read a lot of Hardy Boys (and Three Investigators!) when I was a kid, though I don’t remember reading a lot of Nancy Drew. I think that was more of my sister’s thing—though I do remember she and my mom giving them a bit of flak for a few things, like the constant belittling of Nancy’s “plump” friend (“Bess,” Googling tells me—I almost said “Beth.” Not too bad), and Nancy’s constantly getting knocked unconscious in the series, somehow avoiding the brain damage you’d see in a heavyweight boxer. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/42 "2009-06-20T21:46:42Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > Hahahahahaha - I was trying to remember where I got hold of the Three Investigators, but I think you’ve nailed it. Not-quite-normal, daughter of a librarian, check! 😃 Well, I meant a current, modern kid. Mine is 8 (almost 9) and really likes the Three Investigators, but that’s because I gave them to her to read. Kids whose mothers don’t know every inch of the children’s room probably don’t have that happen to them now. I remember where I ran into that series first–at the school library. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/43 "2009-06-20T23:37:37Z")
Of course, when the Hardie Boys grew up, they took the job of [Governor General of New Zealand](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hardie_Boys). 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/44 "2009-06-20T23:57:18Z")
> [@Rin\_Twisted](#): > > Consider my mind blown. I came in here to sing the praises of ‘The Three Investigators’ and never dreamed I’m run into not one, but two people who were fans as well! This is approximately 2 more people to profess a love for this series than I’ve ever met in real life. That is just awesome. 🙂 It’s even more awesome to me, I read their tales in Spanish in the old country. I could not find anyone that could even remember them in the old country or over here. 🆒 (On Edit.) I also did find them in the school library like **dangermom**. ---
**Author:** ![alexandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@alexandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alexandra)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/45 "2009-06-20T23:59:54Z")
I was born in 1987. I read Nancy Drew in the mid 1990s and a friend and I used to make up playground games based on them. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/46 "2009-06-21T00:01:29Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Nancy Drew is Pat Savage??? Never! Nancy would never stoop to having a job. She got all the money she needed from Daddy. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/47 "2009-06-21T04:06:44Z")
> [@Huerta88](#): > > I think come the '50s or '60s they bowdlerized the gunplay out of the old editions of all the Stratemeyer syndicate books (I have some memory of vintage copies where Joe Hardy packed heat as well). They also cleaned up some of the discussion of ancient Negro retainers and Red Injuns and the like. Yeah, some of the revised editions are merely revised, some were rewritten completely. Certainly I’ve read complaints that they took out all the verve at the same time. Anyway, as mentioned upthread, new Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books are still being published today (and not all of them are manga – there are plenty that’re regular old prose). In addition, the classic series (consisting of the revised editions) are still kept in print. Plus, there was a Nancy Drew movie a year or two ago. It wasn’t hit, but I think it did acceptable business. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Rin\_Twisted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/82dd89/32.png) [@Rin\_Twisted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rin_Twisted)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/48 "2009-06-21T05:40:50Z")
> [@G. Odoreida](#): > > I also had a lot of the Three Investigator books - for a long time I thought they were actually written by Hitchcock. I didn’t read the other series though I knew about them. Heh, I don’t blame you one bit! I actually read a some versions of the books with Hitchcock cut out when I started, so it was a bit startling to find him present when I started tracking down some of the more obscure titles. **Katriona, dangermom,** and **GIGObuster** , you can add me to the list of people who found the Three Investigators first in their school library. How interesting! I’m glad they were on somebody’s ‘approved’ list of reading material for kids, or I would have missed out on such a great series. **Thudlow** , thanks so much for posting that link- I’m scouring that website now and thoroughly enjoying this trip down memory lane 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2009, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326/49 "2009-06-21T06:11:03Z")
I was also a big reader of The Three Investigators and the Hardy Boys in the late 80s. I actually got started reading my dad’s copies of the first ten or fifteen Hardy Boys books. I even had one, The Missing Chum, that I believe was actually my grandfather’s originally. Somehow I enjoyed them even though I was a bit hazy on what a jalopy was. By the time I stopped reading them on the late 80s, Joe and Frank had been on the Space Shuttle (!) and they were up to book #120 on the Hardy Boys original series and 40 something on the recent (at the time) Hardy Boys Casefiles series. The Casefiles series was more modern and they even had the chutzpah to kill off Joe’s girlfriend Iola in a carbomb in Casefiles #1. I liked it better when they had chums, jalopies, and faced down blackjack-wielding criminals. They simply made them too modern and they couldn’t compete with TV and movies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nancy-drew-and-hardy-boys-kids-today/500326.md?page=2)