THE HARDY BOYS

Hi 

Moonbase mentioned The Hardy Boys cartoon series, and a die-cast model of their car earlier in the year. I thought you might like a little more information on this series, which I dimly remember, but only just. I probably watched it well before discovering the Hardy Boys books.

     Frank and Joe Hardy were the teenage sons of Private Eye Fenton Hardy, a former New York Police detective. They too were detectives, and began their careers in a series of books in 1927. This was three years before the first Nancy Drew book appeared.

     There were some early television adaptions on The Mickey Mouse Club in the 1950s. Then came The Hardy Boys cartoon series in 1969, which ran for just 17 half-hour episodes. The boys were now part of a band, but still solved mysteries, and had a 1912 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost for transport. There were two separate stories per episode, and some songs. The title song is performed by a live-action group at the beginning of each episode. According to some references, there were also live-action songs within the show, but these do not appear on the episodes I have seen on You Tube. Frank is the one with dark hair, Joe has brown hair.

The Hardy Boys (1969 TV series) - Wikipedia

The Hardy Boys Cartoon Show: What Happened At Midnight (1969) - YouTube

The Hardy Boys Cartoon Show: Hunting For The Hidden Gold (1969) - YouTube

 As a tie-in with the cartoon, Corgi released a die-cast version of their car (using an existing model from the Corgi range), with plastic figures of the main characters. These could be fitted to a stand that could be mounted on the roof rack. Frank was on guitar, Joe on Saxophone. The model came in a long window box.

The model had blue mudguards, a yellow bonnet, red body, and yellow roof rack, with gold trim. This does not exactly match the colour scheme in the cartoon, which is mainly yellow, with red mudguards. Corgi Chief Designer Marcel Van Cleemput does not speak kindly of this model. It went on sale in the USA in 1970, and later in Britain, but sold only 40,000 units. It was withdrawn in 1971. Model number 805.

The 1912 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, had appeared in 1966, and sold 199,000 models, plus an unknown number in 1969 (a factory fire destroyed company records for that year). Model number 9041 was part of the small Corgi Classics line of veteran and vintage models. Corgi re-used a number of the Classics models for various TV tie-ins.

Photos from Worthpoint.

Paul Adams

New Zealand

ZEROID FAMILY ALBUM

As readers, Kevin D, Lewis Morley and myself touched on the subject of the 1954 film, Tobor the Great on my 'Zeroid Guest Star' post, yesterday, I thought the only robot toy I have with a connection to Tobor is my old 'Robert the Robot' toy, made by Ideal in the fifties. 

Here's Robert with Zeroid Commander Zogg, and a couple of publicity photos showing Robert and Tobor.

GHOST RIDER'S MORNING COFFEE

I love Little Plastic People's work. Have a look at this superb Ghost Rider story using action figures. Its wonderful!

http://cantinadan.com/?page_id=721

What do you think?

ZEROID GUEST STAR

 Don't you just love meeting classic TV celebrities'! No danger!

Flower Cars

Hi 

This came up in the replies to the article on the Johnny Lightning Coroner's Car last month. The Flower Car is a fairly rare type of funeral car, used to carry flowers and wreaths. There are two main types. Some have an enclosed body, like a normal hearse, with large side windows so the flowers can be seen. 

Others have an open rear deck, like a pick-up truck. I only came across the term after buying a book on Professional Cars, which mainly covered ambulances and hearses, but also had a few photos of flower cars. The term seems to be mainly American.

funeral flower car photos - Google Search

Paul Adams from New Zealand

ZEROIDS RELATIVELY SPEAKING

 Zeroid Zerak is having visit from Uncle Astroid from Durham. Uncle Astroid is Zerak's poor relation, but it doesn't stop Uncle being a bit of a wind-up merchant!

 

WAGON CRANES

 

Whenever I see a toy crane like this - a wooden one on Ikeas - it always reminds me of an illustration in one of the neat Project SWORD Make a Model books.

There's some great artwork in them and this is the crane pictured with pals in one of the stories in this one I posted in full years ago [ artist unknown to me. You?]

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-project-sword-make-model-book-1.html?m=1

Do you like toy cranes?

Do you have the Make a Model books or other Century 21 cut-out books?

ZEROID TEE-OFF

 As the weather's improved Zeroid Zobor is leaving his Cosmobile at home and off to play a round of golf today. He's playing Commander Zogg, and reckons he'll win, as Zogg hasn't got proper hands, but I wouldn't write the Commander off too quickly, Zobor, Zogg's bound to have a trick or two up his metal sleeve!