The Bayport Times #7

The
Hardy Boys
Webzine

Unofficial
Hardy Boys
Home Page

Issue # 7 May 1998 Editor: Robert W. Finnan

Bayport Beat

Welcome to the Bayport Times.
This month's issue features collectible discoveries, news, letters, a review of the latest Clues Brothers opus: Who Took The Book? & more!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Warren McFerran and the person who's name & e-mail address I lost :-( for all the groovy cover scans they provided for the latest addition to my Hardy Boys Home Page: the Hardy Boys Cover Art Gallery.

I still need scans of the following:

Cabin Island - Rogers (1929) art & Scott (1945) art
Great Airport Mystery - Stricker (1944) art
What Happened At Midnight - Rogers (1931) art
Mark On The Door - Gretta (1934) art
Hidden Harbor - Gillies (1950) art
Broken Blade - Nappi (1967) art

If you can provide any of these, please e-mail me. Thanks!

SJSC Sea Bright meeting update
The meeting was a tremendous success, mainly due to the untiring efforts of Karen Plunkett-Powell (ably assisted by her husband, Art Scott.) The weather was great and over 200 fans turned up! Thanks Karen!

See you next month!

Hardy Boys News

New collectible discoveries:
A TV guide from the Detroit Free Press of April 3, 1977. Offered on eBay.
Other local TV guidebooks were also offered as were some fan magazines with Hardy related (read Cassidy/Stevenson) articles.
Some eBay auction results:
1979 edition of Sting Of The Scorpion: $26 (!)
Costume with box: $80
2 Puzzles from the 70's show: $17 for both.
Another 70's show puzzle: $7.50
Set of Greycastle PC Casefiles: $140
LP Record Case from 70's show: $40
Radio from 70's show (missing microphone): $30
From The Mickey Mouse Club Hardy Boys series - 78RPM record of "Gold Doubloons & Pieces Of Eight" with illustrated sleeve: $25
The audio cassette version of Mystery Of Smugglers Cove can still be ordered from Amazon.com. I ordered a copy and it took about 8 weeks for delivery. It's pretty good but at times unintentionally humorous.
I'm pleased to announce that, through an agreement with Amazon.com, all their stock of Hardy Boys books and other items can now be ordered through a Special Amazon Page I've set up. All the series and titles have been sorted into order. Now it's easy to find those hardcover rebindings, VHS tapes and other items.

Super Saturday Club!

Rick Kelsey brings us this information about ABC's Super Saturday Club.

This poster was sold through the "Super Saturday Club." It started the year that the Hardy Boys cartoon premiered and was a big deal. It was advertised on television and in comic books. Anyone could join for 50 cents and for that you got a pin, membership card, stick-on, pennant, stamps, stamp album card, iron-on emblem, a poster, and a handbook/newsletter. The "Super Saturday Club" logo had the ABC-TV logo alongside of it. There were big plans for the club. The stamps were supposed to help you get club premiums every month. The premiums and how you got them were supposed to announced on ABC twice every Saturday morning.
I joined the club and so did my brothers. I don't remember all of the details behind this poster. It may or may not have been one of the club premiums announced on television. What I do remember is that I mail ordered them through the Super Saturday Club. I still have the mailing tube that it came in. This Hardy Boys poster was one of a set of three posters. The other two in the set were for "Hot Wheels" and "Skyhawks," two other cartoons on ABC the same year. I still have those posters too.

The club seemed really great and my brothers and I were really excited about it. But for some reason, the club was disbanded and every member was refunded his 50 cents. To this day, I don't know why. I also don't know if any other Hardy Boys products were sold through the club. There could be!
Also, the club newsletter has two pages on each cartoon (one page is a picture and the other page is text). But the picture of the Hardy Boys looks NOTHING like the cartoon characters. I remember this was a big disappointment to me when I was a kid. All of the cartoon characters from each show are also pictured in the club stamps and on the poster. But these drawings only vaguely resemble the cartoon characters from each show.
It would be interesting if you could find anyone else who joined that club. Maybe they could tell us if there were any more Hardy Boys products. As I said before, the club was heavily advertised. Practically every comic book at the time had a four page advertisement that promoted all of the cartoons to air on ABC that season and the "Super Saturday Club."
I wonder how scarce this poster is and how much it would be worth.

Where is Bayport?

From The Editor:
I think Bayport could be placed on the North shore of Long Island. It has cliffs, bays and rivers as described in the stories.
At the time the early stories were written, Long Island was very rural with a few larger towns scattered over it's length, which matches the descriptions given in those stories.
It's close enough to New York City and would be a likely place for Fenton to go to after leaving the NYPD.
There is even a Bayport on Long Island but it's on the South shore, which doesn't have the requisite cliffs.
There is a town in northern Nassau County which is a dead ringer for Bayport: Sea Cliff, which can be seen in the Brooke Shields movie, "Endless Love". It has the cliffs and a small bay, wide tree lined streets and old houses, even a Shore Road! In Edward Stratemeyer's heyday, it was a popular tourist spot for the well-to-do and it's not unlikely Ed may have visited there and carried the memories of that visit into his outlines for the early stories.

From: florida@iag.net (Warren L. McFerran)
I, too, have puzzled over the question, Where Is Bayport? Of course, Bayport is supposed to be a fictional place, so I have always known that it would be difficult to try and pinpoint its location. In one older story, several references were made to the fact that Bayport was 200 miles "down the coast" - or south - from New York City. Yet, the rugged nature of the coastline around Bayport tends to point toward Maine as the location of Bayport. And in more modern books, I get the impression that Bayport is somewhere on Long Island, within easy driving range of the Big Apple.
Yet I believe that Bayport was originally intended to be Boston, Massachusetts. (Or at least Boston was used as the model for a fictional place called Bayport.) Several facts point to this conclusion: 1. In the revised version of "The Shore Road Mystery," the boys not only track down car thieves, but also solve an old Pilgrim mystery around Bayport; 2. Boston has a horseshoe-shaped bay - so, too, does Bayport; 3. The names of many characters and nearby towns, the extensive railroad infrastructure, the love for sailing and the sea, etc. - all point toward a New England location, such as Boston; 4. On the TV show starring Parker Stevenson and Shawn Cassidy, the boys were not from Bayport, but from Boston, and 5. Not once, if I recall correctly, has Boston ever been mentioned in a Hardy Boys book, which we could expect if Boston and Bayport were supposed to be same place.

Hey Readers! You are invited to write in and share your opinion on this burning issue!

Hardys In Review

This Month: The Clues Brothers: Who Took The Book?

# 6 in the series.
Published in 1998
Produced by Mega-Books
The Plot: Frank, Joe and their pals get into a schoolyard shoving match with bully Zack Jackson and his crony, Peter "Dribbles" Libretti, which leads to bad blood between the two factions. While at the library doing research for a report, the librarian shows them a rare book about baseball. Suddenly, the lights go out! When they come back on, the book is missing! Suspicion is cast on Frank and Joe and the Boys decide to investigate the theft. In another confrontation with the Zack faction, the book is discovered in Frank's backpack! Frank is sentenced to detention, which would cause him to miss basketball practice and the first game of the season. The Boys recieve a clue when someone tosses a note stating "There is a girl in this school who likes you." into Joe's soup during lunch. Joe tails prime suspect, Zack, and observes some suspicious behavior by him in the school library. They then trail "Dribbles" but clear him of any involvement. Finally, the mystery is solved when Joe's secret admirer, Wendy Kay, admits to taking the book, then, in a panic, hiding it in Frank's backpack.
Comments: The Clues Brothers stories are aimed at the young reader. Frank is nine years old and Joe is eight in this series and they've recently moved into Bayport. The plots and dialog are kept very simple and feature the regular gang of Hardy cronies (Chet, Tony, Iola).
This isn't a bad little story and probably will be read with enthusiasm by 7 or 8 year olds. Adult readers will probably enjoy the fact that it only takes about 15 minutes to read and the type is VERY large (making it easier on these old eyes!) One wonders why, after making such a big deal about baseball, the author has Frank on a basketball team! But I guess that's just nit-picking. Hopefully, this series will continue and hook a new generation on the adventures of Frank and Joe!
Rating: C+
Buy This Book From Amazon: Who Took The Book?

Bayport Mail Bag

From: mksteele@swbell.net (Mitch Steele)
Congratulations on a great site! I just stumbled onto this and think it's great. Please add me to your subscriber list.
After my Dad, in a fit of housecleaning, got rid of my old Hardy Boys collection, I have slowly have built my catalog back up so that I have at least one edition of every volume. At 36 years of age, I still like to pull them down and read them on lazy Sunday afternoons (not that I have too many free Sunday afternoons anymore).
Re: Where is Bayport?
I always thought Bayport was in Connecticut. I think this was because in an early volume (Secret of the Old Mill?) they made a quick jaunt to Bridgeport, which I assumed was Bridgeport, CT. Based on what I've read here, I think I'm wrong.
Re: Hardy Boys Drinking Game
I'm surprised I haven't seen this one: Drink every time Frank and Joe find out the criminals they are chasing are the same ones being sought by Fenton Hardy in what were supposedly separate cases.
Re: Favorite Volume
A lot of purists may disagree, but I always liked "Danger on Vampire Trail". I suppose the adventure of traveling by tent-trailer across country to Colorado appealed to me. I do have to agree that most of the first books are superior to the later mysteries.

From: cary.shelley@ns.sympatico.ca (Cary Hollett)
Hi, from beautiful Nova Scotia, Canada. I would LOVE to receive your newsletter "Bayport Times" - catchy name (wonder where you dreamed that up). I have been collecting for years (since I was 8 - I am now 30 working as a Office Administrator). I had my fathers set of Hardy Boys passed down to me - the brown cover collection. At the age of 14, I decided to start buying the nice new blue series to replace the tattered brown set I had - AND then being a community minded person, I gave most of them (brown) away to a worthy local charity (MS Society).
I have found out that I did not give away about 11 (thank goodness). Unlike the person who sold theirs for $5. - I only wish! Don't worry, I feel for you also. I would like to say 2 things; I never knew there were so many Hardyaholic people out there. I just happened to stumble across this site with my wifes help. She has been great and gets me more for my set then I do for myself sometimes (you know how a wife & a mother-in-law can be at a auction or yard sale!)
2nd - I wonder how many of your readers know about the Various Artists Christmas record that has a song sung by Shawn Cassidy (aka Joe Hardy). At the end of each song, the singer says something to the people listening. Shawn's statement is, "From my family, Joe & Frank Hardy, and all our love ones here in record land; we wish you the sincere Merriest of Christmases to come & may you and yours always get home for Christmas to be with family." He had just finished singing 'I'll be home for Christmas'. When I can find the record again, I will tell you what else he says plus what company sold/made the record.
Again I thank you for making the Internet worth while for me and what some of my friends call my obsession to stay a child - I just tell them, "Yep, I just love a good mystery and know I am going to love every bit."

From: salperk@flash.net (Dale Cleckley)
Thanks so much for your great newsletter! I grew up reading both the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but sold all my books in a garage sale when I "outgrew" them. I have been kicking myself for years. I only recently started collecting them again and everytime I get a new book I am reminded of wonderful memories of my youth. If you could add me to your mailing list I would really appreciate it. Keep up the good job!

Readers - This is your forum to tell the world your thoughts on the Hardys!
Letters may be edited for content, spelling etc.

The Great Hardy Boys Search

Is there a Hardy Boys item you simply must have for your collection?
Let me know and I'll publish it right here in the very next issue!
One line per reader please! fwdixon@yahoo.com:
2 in 1 Book Club PC: Secret Warning/Twisted Claw
HooDeeDoo@aol.com:
#11 - While The Clock Ticked - White Spine DJ in Red Binding
MysteryDDS@aol.com:
Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys Meet The Mad Scientist
RNELSONS@aol.com:
British Collins picture cover Hardy Boys titles #48-56
acsb@netcom.com:
Several titles for his Hardy Boys research. Contact him for info.
krieger1@airmail.net:
Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys Be A Detective Mysteries Vols. 2-5
rskel@aol.com:
GAF View-Master - The Hardy Boys

Hardys For Sale

HELP WANTED! HIGH PAY!
Yes, I need your help in getting these darn Hardy Boys shirts out of the house!
Think of all the high compliments you'll be paid when your friends
see you sporting your own spiffy Hardy Boys T-Shirt!
Nancy Drew Fans: I still have a couple of the Drew shirts left also.

Hardy Boys T-Shirt - $15.00 postpaid
The One And Only! - Brown Logo on Tan Shirt
Perfect when riding your motorcycle, motorboat or roadster!

Here Come The Hardy Boys - Stereo LP Album - $29.99 postpaid
In GREAT shape, plays perfectly. The first album from the animated series.

Thunder Mountain Game - Super Clean & Bright! - $29.99 postpaid
Scarce Canadian edition.
Everything (cover, rules, game cards) is in both French & English!
A hard-to-find Hardy collectible.

Thunder Mountain Game - Super Clean & Bright! - $17.99 postpaid

Hardy Boys Thermos - Great Condition! - $18.99 postpaid

NOTE: Postpaid items for parcel post to lower 48 states only.
Other destinations or First Class/Priority Mail require add'l postage.

Click here for more of my Hardy Boys Books & Collectibles for sale.

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Contact me by e-mail fwdixon@yahoo.com