User Reviews

Plot; Teen brothers Joe and Frank Hardy are forced to take their interest in detective work to the next level when their Father goes missing while on a top secret case.

Needed a bit of sorbet in between helpings of Battlestar Galactica, so decided to try something I'd never watched before. As I understand it, this series ran for three seasons. S1 alternated episodes between the Hardy's and fellow teen detective Nancy Drew, S2 had standalone episodes for the characters as well as crossovers, and S3 Drew was dropped and the Hardy's were featured in every episode.

There's virtually no setup in this pilot episode, nor any real attempt to give us some backstory. We meet Joe (Shaun Cassidy) and Frank (Parker Stevenson) tailing their Father, who is a former NYPD detective turned private eye. Suspicious of the father's activities, the boys learn he's on a case that he's keeping secret from them. But boy wannabe detectives will be boy wannabe detectives, so the Hardy's get mixed up in the plot.

There's a lot of Scooby Doo-level shenanigans here, with the fluffed and feathered Hardy's creeping around in grave yards and a haunted house themed restaurant looking for clues. The freshly scrubbed Cassidy and Stevenson make for a likable duo that is wholesome, but not bland thanks in large part to the personal charm they bring. The actual plot itself, involving an ex-government agent, amnesia and selling secrets to "foreign governments" is all way, way, way over the head of a show like this. You can't do that kind of story justice with two junior detectives and their custom conversion van. That's Bond territory. They need something a bit more... minor league. A bicycle thief. A guy trying to scare someone off their land so he can buy it cheap and get the huge deposit of oil beneath it. Stuff like that.

Overall this opener feels hollow and is a bit dull. With no setup, I never quite got my bearings, and the clunky plot never really finds any momentum.

• Episode features an appearance by Richard Kiel, playing the host of the haunted house restaurant. Naturally he's dressed up as Frankenstein. A few months later he'd find fame as Jaws in the Bond flick 'The Spy Who Loved Me'.

Worried about a case their father is working, Frank and Joe tail him and soon get mixed up in missing government secrets, an empty grave, and a man with amnesia.

Being the first episode of The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries, I wish I could be more enthusiastic about "The Mystery of the Haunted House" and could rate it higher rating. There would be much better episodes to come, but this one is average at best. I have two main gripes. The first is the "Haunted House" in the title. Even when I watch it back in 1977, I wasn't expecting real haunted house. But what I was expected was a house that was supposedly haunted where weird things happened. In the end, it would be revealed that someone was using an old legend to scare people away so they could carry on their nefarious activities without interruption. Sort of like the house in Nancy Drew episode I watched last night, The Secret of the Whispering Walls. But in this episode there is no haunted house or even a supposed haunted house – instead there's a nightclub/restaurant called "The Haunted House". It includes secret passageways, etc. as you head to the main dining area. The only cool thing about the whole idea was seeing Richard Kiel in full Frankenstein make-up. Otherwise, it's a horrible gimmick.

My second issue is with the plot. As the episode begins, we're dropped right in the middle of a story we know nothing about. At this point, we've not even been introduced to the characters. It's a muddled was to begin a series. Even after we learn a few things, it never "feels" right. It doesn't seem like the kind of case our amateur detectives should find themselves wrapped up in right out of the gate. Something a little more local that didn't involve national secrets might have been a more appropriate way to start off. Something like the haunted house I described previously would have worked better.

Overall, I cannot in good faith rate this episode any higher than a very average 5/10.

Lisa Eilbacher had a DISMAL debut as Callie Shaw, , about FOUR MINUTES, exited episode at START, returned at FINISH to learn she had slept THROUGH the case--YET - BILLED - THIRD! (Another reviewer says "There's a lot of Scoby Doo-level shenanigans here," unfortunately was NOT "those meddling kids"--BOYS, as if Daphne left at side of the road while the Mystery Machine roared off..) It made one fear for her FUTURE on the show, dismally doomed to be the Last-in-the-Cast Callie of the blue books. Fortunately she went on to CO-STAR as she didn't then in books, notably in Disappearing Floor episode (Callie, "Now all the two of you have to do is prove it," Frank, "No all THREE of us have to prove it") and would not for ANOTHER decade, until the great Casefile series (1987-1998), occasional regular notably in # 112 Demolition Mission, 1992, bound and gagged ONLY time in regular series in trunk of junker JOE at the wheel of in demolition derby (Chet MORON would have too FAT to fit in, weight BURST the tires). Callie was much missed in later seasons, cases taking boys far FROM Bayport, teams-ups with Nancy Drew with no room for her, at least should have guested in Campus Terror, undercover at sorority, gotten kidnapped. Sadly since 2005 she has been treated AS - NEVER - EXISTED (Iola is in limbo, ONE appearance since 2007 as of 2020, in 2013).. Excruciating ending besides EMBARRASSING Callie with DISGUSTING sight of the Navy officers who beat up, bound and gagged Mr. Hardy GUESTS IN THE HARDY HOME, SERVED HOT DRINKS BY AUNT GERTRUDE. She obviously does NOT know, as anyone would tell you, that IF she did, she' would throw those hot drinks in their faces, break anything she could get her hands on over their heads , shouting chase them from the house!